Jacob Ogles
A political committee controlled by Republican House candidate Audrey Henson has reported one expenditure so far this month. Friends of Audrey Henson wrote a $16,000 check — to Henson.
In response, her Democratic opponent Lindsay Cross is filing a report a complaint with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the matter, a move Cross’ campaign announced Saturday. But officials with Henson’s account said the money wasn’t pocketed by Henson and went toward legitimate consulting expenses.
Henson’s political committee wrote a check on Nov. 2 to herself for the identified purpose of reimbursing the candidate for political consulting. That same day, Henson’s campaign also wrote the candidate a check for $6,000, labeled as a reimbursement for political consulting services. That means that in the last week, Henson has paid herself with $22,000 in campaign and committee funds.
“Audrey Henson appears to be flagrantly violating the trust of the voters, and of her donors. Voters expect those of us running for public office to do so to serve, not to profit. This is a brazen breach of ethics, and in my belief, a violation of Florida’s campaign finance laws,” Cross said in a statement. “If she is willing to personally profit from the campaign, there is no reason for me to believe she would not seek to profit from elected office.”
But Noreen Fenner, treasurer for the committee and for Audrey Henson, said the reported numbers are for other reported expenses Henson made out of pocket. The committee reported $16,000 paid to Dhillon Law Group, a San Francisco-based firm, for consulting services on Oct. 27. Fenner said Henson paid that cost out of pocket and was reimbursed on Nov. 2. Similarly, Henson’s candidate account also paid Dhillon Law Group $6,000 the same day as the committee, and Henson was later reimbursed an identical amount.
It’s not the first reimbursement check the PC wrote to Henson, who remains the committee’s Chair. Since July, the political entity has paid a little more than $32,932 to the candidate. But most of those were reimbursements for hard costs, including for lodging, mileage, storage rentals and event supplies.
For the most recent check, which represents nearly half of all reimbursements made to the candidate over the course of the race, the identified purpose implies the funding goes to a consulting service provided by Henson.
Henson and Cross are running for state House District 60. The Pinellas County race offers a chance to Republicans to flip a district analogous to one represented now by Democrat Ben Diamond. Republicans have supported Henson as they attempt to win a supermajority in the chamber.
Under the new lines approved as part of a once-a-decade redistricting process, about 55% of voters in HD 60 voted for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 Presidential Election and 43.5% supported Republican Donald Trump.
Henson previously founded College to Congress, but parted ways with the organization during a since aborted run for Congress. She split with the organization at the same time she posted a tweet attacking media coverage and supporting Kyle Rittenhouse when he was acquitted of murder.
She has worked in politics before, serving as a deputy campaign manager for Claudia Tenney’s successful campaign in New York’s 22nd Congressional District in 2016, according to Henson’s LinkedIn page.
Her PC, over the course of the campaign, has paid a different political consulting firm, the Areca Group, for most of Henson’s state House campaign work. The PC sent about $32,500 to the St. Petersburg firm between July and October, with a $5,000 check paid out by the committee as recently as Oct. 25.
But the money paid to that firm over the entire race is less than reimbursements the committee paid directly to Henson.
Henson’s candidate account has also paid out a number of reimbursements to Henson, totaling about $34,326. Most of those have gone to hard costs like phone bills, campaign T-shirts, supplies and food for events, but after an initial version of this story ran, she also reported a $6,000 reimbursement to herself for campaign consulting.
Her campaign account has paid campaign consulting from SimWins in Tampa, where a reported $21,681 was spent over the course of the race. Henson’s candidate account also gave $6,500 to Areca.
That means Henson at this point has paid more to herself in a single day than she did for the principal campaign consulting firm over the course of her entire campaign.
