Chair of PAC looking to oust Speaker Rusty Bowers cites 'clerical error' in donation form

The chairman of a political action committee that has involved itself in legislative primaries, including one seeking to oust Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, said Wednesday he made a clerical error in saying that the PAC’s main source of funding was an estate auction house in Brea, California.

Youssef Khalaf, the chair of Securing Arizona, said in an e-mail that naming Yellow Dog Sales, located in Orange County, California, as the source of more than $227,000 in contributions to the political action committee was a mistake that would be corrected.

Khalaf, who is also the chief executive officer of 100 Squared Financial, a consulting company specializing in campaign finance, did not return a phone message left Tuesday. He did not answer follow-up questions sent by email, beyond saying that an updated campaign finance form would be filed. He also said he generally avoids speaking to reporters.

“This was a clerical error and nothing more,” Khalaf wrote in an email.

The campaign finance form filed by Securing Arizona on Friday said that $227,200 had been donated by Yellow Dog Sales, listing the Brea, California, address of the business, including a suite number.

But in a phone interview on Monday, the owners of Yellow Dog Sales, Jennifer and Joseph Hefner said that they did not make any such contribution. “We don’t even know anybody in Mesa,” Jennifer Hefner said.

Khalaf said that the campaign finance form filed Friday used the wrong address for the company that made the donation, which he said was also similarly named Yellow Dog Sales.

No company by that name exists in Arizona Corporation Commission records.

Khalaf said in his email that the PAC was “making every effort to correct that error in a timely fashion.”

As of the time of this story’s publication, no updated campaign finance form was filed with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

Who paid $2M to promote Kari Lake campaign? The source of donations remains unclear

The Yellow Dog Sales contribution was one of a pair of contributions to Arizona political action committees listed in reports filed with the state’s elections office on Friday. Owners of both businesses denied making the contributions.

The other contribution provided $2 million in funding for a political action committee called Put Arizona First. That PAC spent it’s money to promote the gubernatorial campaign of former television news anchor Kari Lake.

The campaign finance report for Put Arizona First said it received $2.1 million in funding from a company called SPH Medical LLC that shared the same address — a UPS Store in north Phoenix — as Put Arizona First.

The owner of SPH Medical, also in Orange County, California, denied making that contribution.

That report became the subject of a complaint filed with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office Wednesday by the Public Integrity Alliance. That advocacy group is led by Montague, a political consultant who represents traditional Republican candidates.

The spending by both Put Arizona First and Securing Arizona was part of an intra-party rift in the Arizona Republican Party as the August primary draws near. Early ballots have already been sent out to voters in the race.

Both groups represent candidates more aligned with the brand of politics practiced by former President Donald Trump. Their opponents in the primaries are more traditional Republicans whom their opponents brand as RINOs, an acronym for Republican In Name Only.

Securing Arizona, in its report filed on Friday, said it had spent nearly $64,000 on the race between Bowers, the House Speaker who gained a national profile after testifying before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Bowers, in his testimony, described fending off pressure from Trump and his team to somehow toss out the certified election loss of Trump in the state. Bowers refused to do so.

His opponent, David Farnsworth, is a former lawmaker who, in a debate, called Trump’s election loss in Arizona a conspiracy possibly concocted by “the devil himself.”

Securing Arizona also reported on Friday spending $50,000 on the race between state Sen. Tyler Pace and retired police sergeant, Rob Scantlebury, who has received Trump’s endorsement.

On Tuesday, Securing Arizona filed an updated report showing additional spending. It reported spending more than $60,000 in the past week on additional political materials for both the Pace/Scantlebury and Bowers/Farnsworth races.

It also reported, for the first time, spending $18,863 on a race on a Republican legislative primary in the western suburbs of Phoenix.

It reported creating flyers and door hangers for Steve Montenegro, a former state lawmaker looking to return to office, and for Austin Smith, a former employee of Turning Point USA, the non-profit started by conservative political personality Charlie Kirk.

Securing Arizona reported spending for mailings and auto-dial calls for Janae Shamp, a registered nurse spurred to go into politics, according to Trump’s endorsement, over concerns about the 2020 election.

The report filed Tuesday also showed Securing Arizona hired a firm owned by Arizona Rep. Jake Hoffman to produce ads advocating the defeat of Bowers and Pace.

Hoffman’s firm, 1Ten, was paid $8,300 to produce the pair of ads, according to Securing Arizona’s report. It was the first time Securing Arizona reported hiring Hoffman’s firm.

That same Hoffman company was the one hired by Put Arizona First to produce the $2.1 million in ads designed to help Lake win the Republican nomination for governor.

As for the source of the funds for Securing Arizona, although no current company exists in state corporate records called Yellow Dog Sales, a company with that name was a subsidiary of an essential oil company called Healing Solutions, LLC, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Healing Solutions was owned by Jason Hope, a millionaire tech entrepreneur. It was sold to a company called Mohawk Group Holdings in 2021. That purchase was subject of a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of investors in Mohawk, court records show.

Hope agreed to pay $2 million to the state of Texas in 2012 in a settlement over his text messaging company. The company, under the settlement, did not admit guilt.

Hope said he designed the JAWA messaging service as a way for people to “stay connected” to information and entertainment while out and about. Verizon, though asked a court to block the company from using its network. Texas alleged users were not property notified of potential charges for the text messages.

Hope did not return messages seeking comment.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: PAC trying to oust Rusty Bowers cites 'clerical error' in campaign form