Senior officials for the Super PAC supporting Rand Paul’s presidential bid were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of conspiracy and falsifying campaign records, the Justice Department said.
Jesse Benton, a former top strategist to the Pauls who served a stint as Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager early in the 2014 election, was charged Wednesday alongside Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign manager John Tate and former deputy campaign manager Dimitrios Kesari.
The three operatives worked together on Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign. Tate and Benton are now top officials at a super PAC supporting Sen. Rand Paul’s bid for president.
CNN has reached out to Benton and spokesmen for Rand Paul, Ron Paul and McConnell for comment.
The trio are accused of covering up more than $70,000 in payments made to then-Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorensen who allegedly “negotiated with the defendants to switch his support to” Ron Paul, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
The Justice Department alleged that the campaign officials covered up the payments by writing them up as the payments as “campaign-related audio-visual expenditures, and by causing them to be transmitted to a film production company and then to a second company that was controlled by Sorenson,” according to the release.
Sorensen pleaded guilty to charges related to the affair in August 2014.