Senator Mike Braun Faces Penalty for Misreporting $11 Million Campaign Loans, FEC Reveals

 The Federal Elections Commission fined Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., $159,000 after failing to correctly disclose millions of dollars in loans for his 2018 Senate campaign, according to an agency document published this week.

 The fine was unanimously approved by the FEC’s six commissioners, after the agency found Braun’s campaign incorrectly disclosed financial information for 29 transactions totaling more than $11.5 million, the FEC said.

Braun’s campaign told the agency the mistakes were “technical in nature” and caused by its former treasurer, whom the campaign claimed had access to documents to “properly report” the loans.

Braun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Braun is one of six GOP candidates in Indiana’s upcoming gubernatorial election.

Ellen Weintraub, the FEC’s vice chair, criticized the commissioners’ ruling for failing to address more than $734,000 in excessive contributions to Braun’s campaign that were discovered in an earlier FEC audit. Weintraub said she approved the fine, though she believed “some of her colleagues” would have voted against penalties for illegal contributions: “The problem is that they threw the proverbial baby out of the bathwater.” Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer, told Forbes neither the FEC’s fine nor its audit “fully addressed the issue of illegal contributions” to Braun’s campaign. Because Braun is now running for governor, “it looks like those questions will never be answered,” Kappel said.

The fine is the second-largest imposed by the FEC on a senatorial campaign, trailing a $171,000 fine imposed on Jim Treffinger’s failed campaign for a New Jersey Senate seat in 2006, according to the agency. The FEC found Treffinger used funds from his campaign to pay legal fees.


In 2021, the FEC accused Braun’s senatorial campaign of accepting millions of dollars in potentially improper loans in 2018. His campaign argued the loans and other contributions were legal, though some Indiana Democrats claimed Braun “cheated his way to his so-called victory” in defeating Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly. Josh Kelley, Braun’s chief of staff, said the FEC’s initial claims did not include information submitted by Braun’s campaign a week earlier. In 2022, an audit by the FEC found Braun overstated the amount his campaign spent and received by more than $6 million each. Kelley told the Indy Star that Braun’s loans and debt repayments “fully complied with federal law,” adding the claims reported by the FEC are “minor reporting and clerical issues stemming from the negligence” by a former campaign treasurer.