Delaware gubernatorial candidate Hall-Long, campaign contend independent report on finances
Report was "inaccurate," Hall-Long was not reimbursed more than personal loans, campaign counsel says
DOVER — Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s gubernatorial campaign provided a detailed rebuttal to the findings of an independent review of the candidates' past finance reports, according to a …
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Delaware gubernatorial candidate Hall-Long, campaign contend independent report on finances
Report was "inaccurate," Hall-Long was not reimbursed more than personal loans, campaign counsel says
By DOVER — Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s gubernatorial campaign provided a detailed rebuttal to the findings of an independent review of the candidates' past finance reports, according to a letter submitted to the Department of Elections on Wednesday.
Released by the campaign on Monday, the letter retorts the independent review - commissioned by the Department and conducted by retired FBI executive Jeffrey Lampinski – which, in-part, claimed Lt. Gov. Hall-Long and her husband, Dana Long, received over $33,100 in reimbursements beyond their personal loans to the campaign.
The term-limited lieutenant governor is one of three Democrats vying for the chance to become Delaware’s next governor, as she is joined by New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer and former DNREC secretary Collin O’Mara in the field
The letter follows the July 25 release of the independent review and addresses its claims after months of questions about Lt. Gov. Hall-Long’s campaign finances dating back to her first statewide run in 2016. This led to a brief pause in her fundraising efforts in Sept. 2023 to address these “discrepancies.”
Written by the campaign’s counsel, Neil Reiff of the Washington D.C. law firm Sandler Reiff, the letter notes the campaign was “not provided a chance to respond to or provide clarification regarding the report prior to its release.”
“As detailed herein, the Lampinski Report contains material inaccuracies and draws inferences based on speculation in a manner that permanently damages the Longs reputation just weeks before an election involving the Campaign,” it states.
“Any allegation or inference that the Long’s diverted campaign funds for personal profit and/or misreported personal expenditures as campaign expenditures is categorically false, and we would appreciate either that the Lampinski Report be amended to reflect the provided information or that this letter be included as an addendum to the report in the Department of Election’s files.”
The campaign contends the claim the Longs were reimbursed more than they personally loaned to the campaign is incorrect because it did not consider expense receipts the investigator did not receive, dating back to reports from 2016. Mr. Reiff wrote that the Longs contributed more to the campaign than what was reimbursed, with the difference being forgiven by the candidate.
Delaware law only requires campaign receipts to be kept for three years, and the letter states that several expenditures from 2016 through 2019 were deemed “unsubstantiated” despite being “obvious campaign expenditures that would have had no conceivable personal purpose.”
It states that, the amount of these unsubstantiated expenditures total over $90,000; about three times the amount Mr. Lampinski found the Long’s reimbursed themselves.
“In some instances, the investigator substantiated some payments to a vendor while disallowing other payments to the same vendor simply because the campaign did not have each underlying receipt,” the letter states.
Additional payments for campaign staff and services were also deemed “unsubstantiated” by Mr. Lampinski, Mr. Reiff wrote while noting expenditures from 2016-2019 were included on past campaign finance reports.
The letter says Mr. Lampinski marked some 2020-2023 expenses as unverified due to missing documentation. Along with the letter, Lt. Gov. Hall-Long’s team provided bank and campaign finance documents for over $16,200 in expenditures and asked to discuss additional expenses with Election Commissioner Anthony Albence.
In Mr. Lampinski’s report, he discovered five instances that Mr. Long incorrectly disclosed campaign checks: four checks to himself that were alleged falsely reported as written to others and one check to former campaign fundraiser Jennifer Mueller that was also misreported.
Lt. Gov. Hall-Long’s campaign and counsel dispute this in the letter, as checks, credit card statements and finance reports show a $20,000 payment to the media strategy agency Buying Time in 2016, and in 2020, nearly $13,500 to political consultant Cycle Strategy and about $8,000 to Reybold.
For the other occasions, the campaign documented a $3,600 expenditure to web provider NGP VAN in 2020. The letter claims that Mr. Lampinski had the credit card statement for this payment during the investigation, but “simply missed seeing the charge on the credit card.”
Regarding the check to Ms. Mueller, Mr. Reiff wrote that this was because she is the owner of Benchmark Strategies; a public relations firm the Long’s made a $2,500 expenditure in 2022, which was reflected in that year’s campaign finance report, documents show.
“Labeling these expenditures as “false,” however, gives the impression that Mr. Long made a reimbursement to himself for something other than a campaign expense – which is completely untrue,” Mr. Reiff wrote.
“In all five instances, the Campaign’s filed finance reports reflect the actual campaign vendor of the expenditures. All of the expenses were legitimate campaign expenses. The Lampinski Report, however, creates a false narrative by insinuating that Mr. Long purposefully obscured the nature of five legitimate campaign expenses to hide the true payee of the five payments.”
Further, Mr. Reiff disputed claims that questioned small-dollar expenditures dating back to 2016 and a “gap” in the lieutenant governor’s campaign finance reports, which he said was “categorically false and misleading” because it was due to the creation of a new campaign committee for her gubernatorial pursuit.
The campaign’s legal counsel also referenced a “misleading” post it note written by Lt. Gov. Hall-Long that was discovered during the investigation, which read “2019/2020 files. Need to create 2021 & 2022 receipts!”
Mr. Reiff wrote that the note was a reminder to gather the receipts and that they were not “created out of thin air,” as the Lampinski report suggested, he said.
The image of the post-it note was used on a poster board by fellow gubernatorial candidate Mr. Meyer as he held a press conference in Wilmington on July 29 to call for a federal investigation into the lieutenant governor’s campaign finances.
In a statement Monday afternoon, the Meyer campaign pushed back on the letter's statements about the independent review commissioned by the Department of Elections
"A state investigation conducted by a former FBI chief found the Lt. Governor broke the law by paying her husband over $300,00 from her campaign, and now Bethany Hall-Long has brought in a DC attorney in a desperate attempt to vindicate herself 4 weeks before election day," said Mr. Meyer's campaign manager Nick Merlino.
"It's unclear why we are hearing from her lawyer when we deserve to hear from the (lieutenant governor) directly why she had to be subpoenaed four times, why she said there was an audit when there wasn't one. The (lieutenant governor) has broken the trust of Delawareans and it will be reflected in their vote Sept. 10th."
Mr. O'Mara's campaign could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
In the letter, there are numerous references to Mr. Lampinski’s “motive and bias” during the investigation; specifically, the “aggressive” conduct in which he questioned Mr. Long about using a personal credit card for campaign expenditures.
Mr. Reiff also noted the Hall-Long campaign has cooperated with the Department of Elections throughout the review and demonstrated a “good faith effort” to provide the agency with the same financial records independently obtained.
“To be sure, nothing in Delaware law prohibits a candidate from paying for expenses with a personal credit card,” Mr. Reiff wrote. “Since the use of the credit card presented no legitimate basis of inquiry for Mr. Lampinski, we can only conclude that this is one more example of the bias and motives of the report itself.”
Delaware’s primary election is set for Sept. 10, when voters will select their respective Democratic and Republican nominees for governor. On the Republican side, the gubernatorial race features House Minority Leader Mike Ramone, retired cop Jerrold Price and lifelong Delawarean Bobby Williamson.
This story will be updated.
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