Trump campaign paid Finchem’s business $6K amid election challenge
Former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign reported paying $6,037 to a business owned by state Rep. Mark Finchem while the lawmaker pushed for the Legislature to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona.
The campaign reported in its latest financial disclosure that it made a payment on Dec. 18 to “Mrk Finchem PLLC” and the address provided for the company is the lawmaker’s home. The campaign labeled the expense as “recount: legal consulting.” Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said the payment was a reimbursement “for crowd control and security costs” at a Nov. 30 meeting he convened at a downtown Phoenix hotel with the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, several other Republican legislators and various people alleging wrongdoing during the election.
Lawmakers are required to disclose each business in which they have a position or a fiduciary relationship. In an email, the lawmaker did not address why the company is not listed on his most recent financial disclosure, which covered all of 2020.
And Finchem is not a lawyer, but the University of Arizona confirmed he is enrolled in the Master of Legal Studies program at the James E. Rogers College of Law. He has described himself as a “legislative fellow in residence” at the school.
The progressive watchdog group Ac countable.Us called for an explanation.
“We all saw President Trump’s twomonth crusade to try and stay in power, but now we know he was paying state legislators to join the cause, too,” the group said in a statement. “Mark Finchem must explain this payment from the Trump campaign and how it influenced his official work as a legislator to try and overturn a free and fair election.”
Finchem was perhaps the most outspoken Arizona legislator as some Republican lawmakers pushed to intervene in the state’s election and claim Arizona’s 11 electoral votes for Trump.
The lawmaker last year called for the Legislature to convene and appoint presidential electors of its choosing.
Legislative leaders rebuffed the idea and denied approval for him to convene a hearing on the election, leading to the meeting with Giuliani, at which Finchem was center stage.
The campaign’s legal challenges to election results and the election’s procedures proceeded to fall apart in Arizona’s courts, though.
Finchem goes to Washington, DC
Finchem went on to join protests against the certification of the electoral college on Jan. 6. He promoted rallies scheduled for that day and said he was due to speak at one outside the U.S. Capitol that afternoon.
As a mob stormed the building, he posted a photo on social media of a crowd on the Capitol steps with the message: “What happens when the People feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud.”
The lawmaker later said he never got within 500 yards of the building, did not witness any violence and did not know it was breached until later that evening.
But through a private attorney, he refused to comply with a public records request that The Republic sent to the state House of Representatives seeking emails and text messages concerning his travels in Washington that day.
Rep. César Chávez, D-Phoenix, filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee in January charging that Finchem’s own social media posts “demonstrate beyond any doubt that he was participated in the insurrection in Washington, D.C. and supported others in their efforts.”
Chávez said Friday he has not received an update on the status of the complaint but said the Trump campaign’s payment to Finchem should raise questions.
“I would hope it at least puts a question in people’s heads — who and what was that for?” he said.