State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville for violating multiple campaign finance laws in his unsuccessful 2016 campaign for an open U.S. Congress seat. The five-count indictment announced Monday charges Kelsey and Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith with violating multiple campaign finance laws in a conspiracy to benefit Kelsey’s campaign.
According to the indictment, beginning in February 2016 and continuing through mid-October 2016, Kelsey and Smith conspired with others to violate federal campaign finance laws to secretly and unlawfully funnel “soft money” (funds not subject to the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act [FECA]) from Kelsey’s Tennessee State Senate campaign committee to his authorized federal campaign committee.
Kelsey and others also caused a national political organization to make illegal, excessive contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee by secretly coordinating with the organization on advertisements supporting Kelsey’s federal candidacy and to cause false reports of contributions and expenditures to be filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The indictment alleges that Kelsey, Smith, and other unindicted co-conspirators orchestrated the concealed movement of $91,000 to a national political organization for the purpose of funding advertisements that urged voters to support Kelsey in the August 2016 primary election, and that the conspirators caused the political organization to make $80,000 worth of contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee in the form of coordinated expenditures.
If convicted, Kelsey and Smith face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count. A summons has been issued by the Court and the duo are directed to surrender to U.S. Marshals in the Middle District of Tennessee on or before November 5, 2021, at 10 a.m. and both will make an initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge.