Farenthold ends House career with bills, party
Instead of reimbursing taxpayers for harassment claims, he paid lawyers
AUSTIN — Months after quitting Congress in the aftermath of sexual harassment claims, Blake Farenthold was still racking up legal expenses — and a substantial cocktail party bill.
Instead of reimbursing taxpayers $84,000 for sexual harassment claims he first said he would pay, the Corpus Christi Republican spent more than $100,000 from his still-active campaign account on lawyers since the start of the year, including $41,000 just since April, when he resigned.
Now he has just $3,300 left in that campaign account, making it unlikely he’ll use that source to either pay back the $84,000 or the $200,000 the state paid to cover the special election prompted by his resignation. If he were to pay taxpayers back for either, it would now have to come from personal accounts. His net worth was $5.8 million in 2015, according to financial disclosure reports.
As he resigned from Congress on April 6, Farenthold used his campaign account to put down a nearly $800 deposit for a stay at an exclusive luxury resort outside of Sarasota, Fla., and then on June 22 used $860 on a cocktail party in Potomac, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Elected officials are
prohibited from using campaign funds for personal uses, according to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC warns candidates in writing against using campaign funds for leisure outings.
“They may not be used for a leisure outing at which the discussion occasionally focuses on the campaign or official functions,” the FEC states in its official guidelines.
At first glance, Farenthold’s resort expense and the cocktail party are questionable uses of campaign funds because it is clear he is not seeking re-election, said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign finance watchdog group in Washington, D.C.
Neither Farenthold nor his attorneys could be reached for comment.
Farenthold quit Congress under pressure after it became public that Congress covered an $84,000 payout to settle the sexual harassment claim against him. Farenthold initially said he would repay taxpayers, but later balked at the “advice of legal counsel.”
In a letter written in May, Farenthold denied harassing the former office worker, despite the settlement.
“I want to make it perfectly clear that there was never any allegations that I ever touched anyone,” he wrote. “In fact, while in office, there was never an instance in which I made sexual advances, requested sexual favors or engaged in physical harassment of a sexual nature.”
In that same letter, he pointed out he is married and has two daughters.
The lawsuit by former Farenthold aide Lauren Greene alleged that the congressman had discussed his sexual fantasies about her and said at a staff meeting that a lobbyist had propositioned him for a threesome. It accused Farenthold of repeatedly complimenting her appearance, then joking that he hoped the comments wouldn’t be construed as sexual harassment.
Farenthold served for almost eight years in Congress and represented about 740,000 people in a heavily gerrymandered 13county district that runs from Corpus Christi to San Marcos and east to Matagorda County. He first was elected to the 27th Congressional District during the tea party wave in 2010.
When Gov. Greg Abbott called for the special election to find a replacement, he wrote a letter to Farenthold asking him to help Texans pay for it — something Farenthold has refused to do, saying he “shouldn’t be asked to pay for it.”
According to the latest campaign reports filed last week, $20,000 of the legal fees went to Bird Marella Boxer Wolpert Nessim Drook, a Los Angeles law firm. Another $20,000 went to Berke Farah LLP, a law firm in Washington, D.C., that specializes in election law, government ethics and government investigations.
Earlier this year, Farenthold reported spending $60,609 on legal expenses through his campaign committee and now has spent over $100,000 on legal costs since the start of the year.
None of those legal expenses appears to be related to a third case in which the Victoria Advocate is suing the Calhoun Port Authority over how it hired Farenthold in May as a lobbyist, less than two months after Farenthold quit his job in Congress.
After Farenthold announced on the radio he had been hired by the port, the Victoria Advocate sued alleging the port violated the Texas Open Meetings Act in his hiring. Farenthold’s attorney, John C. Dulske, of San Antonio, has been fighting attempts to get Farenthold to testify in that case, according to the Victoria Advocate earlier this month.
But it hasn’t been all legal expenses for Farenthold since he quit Congress. On the day he announced his resignation, Farenthold used his campaign account to put down a $768 deposit on a luxury resort on an exclusive island community outside of Sarasota, Fla. — a standard deposit when making a reservation at the Longboat Key Club Resort.
The 27th Congressional District is now represented by Mike Cloud, a Republican from Victoria who won the special election earlier this year to fill in for Farenthold until the November elections.