Non-company

Paying $323,000 to a Group That May Not Exist

By Jonathan Martin

A certain level of murkiness has become the rule when it comes to campaign finance in a post-Citizens United world. But even by this standard, a group called Right Solutions Partners LLC is remarkable for its opacity.

Representative Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican running for the Senate, disbursed over $131,000 to Right Solutions Partners in March for “fund-raising consulting” and an additional $161,000 to it in August for the same purpose. A smaller third disbursement brought the total to $322,963.

But here’s the catch: It’s not clear that such an entity actually exists. It has no presence on the Internet, it appears that no other campaign is paying it this year, and it has no office at the Washington address listed on the articles of organization filed with the city last year.

However, the address, 1717 K Street Northwest, is where the Washington office of the law firm Arent Fox is located, and a Republican campaign finance lawyer at the firm signed the organizing papers with the city. When I called that lawyer, Craig Engle, he initially said he did not set up Right Solutions Partners. Then he amended that, saying, “I remember being part of the organizing of it.”

But he said he forgot who asked him to set up the entity and quickly moved into lawyer-political speak, saying he could not get into for whom he was and was not working. He said he would try to get more information, but, alas, little was proffered. In a subsequent email, Mr. Engle said only that Mr. Cotton’s campaign was not a client of Arent Fox, and that he had alerted the campaign to my inquiries.

Emails and phone calls to a spokesman for Mr. Cotton regarding just what Right Solutions Partners does for the campaign were not returned. The mystery continues.