Lyons seeks probes into party spending
Suspects wrongdoing from previous years
John ‘Cook directed over $1,000,000 to entities that he owned or controlled. These payments lacked any contracts.’ Narrative summaries of letters sent by GOP Chairman James Lyons to the U.S. attorney and FBI
The chairman of the Massachusetts GOP, who is up for re-election next month, has asked U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, the FBI, and three other state and federal agencies to investigate the state Republican Party’s financial operations under his predecessors — including allies of Gov. Charlie Baker.
Chairman Jim Lyons sent letters to Lelling, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Election Commission and the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance detailing his “concerns with the fundraising activities of the Massachusetts Republican Party” as far back as 2013, according to copies of the letters that were obtained Saturday by the Herald. Lyons, in the letters dated Nov. 30, said he would send “over 250 pages” of exhibits outlining his claims.
In “narrative summaries” obtained by the Herald, Lyons levels the majority of his allegations against John Cook, Baker’s former finance director, claiming Cook “operated freely and with no accountability” from then-MassGOP Chairwoman Kirsten Hughes, a Baker ally, and longtime party treasurer Brent Andersen. Among his claims, Lyons alleged that “Cook directed over $1,000,000 to entities that he owned or controlled. These payments lacked any contracts,” according to the documents.
No charges have been filed or IRS actions made.
Lyons, when reached by the Herald on Saturday, said he had no comment. Cook and Hughes did not return requests for comment on Saturday.
Andersen dismissed Lyons’ claims in a statement to the Herald, saying they “are motivated solely by” the chairman’s “personal and political interest.”
“They are false and not credible, by making them he is doing great damage,” to the state Republican Party, Andersen, who was treasurer from 2003 until 2020, wrote in an email.
While Andersen said he had not seen the report, he wrote that “As Treasurer I would have reviewed and authorized payments from the MassGOP State and Federal accounts in accordance with our bylaws.”
“I call on Massachusetts Republicans to reject Jim Lyons’ personal vendettas, and refocus the Mass Republican Party on its mission of supporting Republican candidates and winning elections,” he said.
Lyons, who has been investigating the state party’s finances since 2019, said in the documents that he at one point instructed the state party’s lawyers to request interviews from Hughes, Andersen and two other staff members. All but Andersen “refused to meet,” Lyons said in his letter, claiming that Andersen “denied, however, any knowledge of how the money was spent.”
Andersen said in his email, “I would always know payments going out of our state and federal accounts. If Lyons says something contrary in his report that is another lie.”
Lyons is now calling on the state and federal agencies to “investigate the MassGOP’s financial operations from Jan. 1, 2013, through April 19, 2019.” He also wants them to conduct an “in-depth examination” of activity by Salesforce, the cloud-based company that hosts the party’s online donor database that was at the center of a squabble between Lyons and the Baker wing of the party last summer when the state party was for a time locked out from accessing it.
An FBI spokeswoman said Saturday that the agency “can’t confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” which is the agency’s standard response. The other offices either did not have information readily available or did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lyons’ escalation of his alleged issues with the handling of the state Republican Party’s finances under his predecessors comes as he faces a challenger — at least one more could be likely, sources say — for his job as chairman. He is up for reelection in January.
And it outwardly deepens the internal rift between the Lyons and Baker camps of the party that has worsened throughout Lyons’ tenure and led some in the party to call for a reconciliation in order to move the state GOP forward.