WCGOP lawyer and key Stearman ally fined $25K for OK elections ethics breach
A lawyer connected with the Washington County Republican Party (WCGOP) and a key figure in Wendi Stearman's 2020 legislative seat win agreed to pay a $25,000 fine for violating Oklahoma Ethics Commission rules.
Jonathan Krems, who defended the WCGOP in court and is the treasurer of a now-defunct super PAC that supported Stearman, must pay the fine out of his own personal funds and not from any campaign accounts, according to the June 14 settlement.
Krems admitted to multiple violations of Ethics Commission rules, including failing to register Make Oklahoma Great Again as an Oklahoma PAC, not filing reports on contributions and expenditures, and failing to report independent expenditures. He also agreed to undergo education and training as specified by the Ethics Commission before representing any PAC in the future.
Krems didn't response to attempts to reach him for comment.
Make Oklahoma Great Again PAC, which listed an Edmond address, was formed on June 10, 2020, 20 days before the primary. Krems is known as a conservative activist and attorney running Liberty Legal Solutions.
According to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance data, a super PAC called Conservatives for a Great Broken Arrow, also known as Vote Safe, founded by James Tackett, solely funded Krems' PAC with $50,000 for the 2020 election cycle.
It is unclear who Vote Safe's donors are, but Federal Election Commission filings link some of Tackett's for-profit companies and other super PACs connected to Tackett to Vote Safe.
Krems' Super PAC pours money into local House race
In August 2020, The Frontier reported that Krems' PAC spent $45,000 on multimedia to support then-House District 11 candidate Stearman. Stearman initially reported spending no money on her campaign during the same period.
Stearman later amended her campaign report to show she spent $4,000 on political consulting with Moir and Associates, based in Gilbert, Arizona. By the end of her 2020 campaign, which defeated incumbent state rep. Derrel Fincher and won the November 3 general election, she had spent $28,000 with the company.
Stearman lost her 2022 reelection bid against challenger John Kane. None of the PACs or Krems overtly supported or funded Stearman's reelection campaign. Stearman didn't response to requests for comment about her connection to Krems.
Since losing her seat, Stearman has focused on building a "grassroots" movement in the WCGOP leadership that has caused turmoil and split the GOP into two competing groups.
With a vow to fight political corruption and a promise to refuse lobbyist money, Stearman launched an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Oklahoma State Sen. Julie Daniels.
The FEC notified Krems on December 18, 2020, that he had failed to file a report of receipts and disbursements as required by law. Krems' PAC's last report was filed on December 31, 2020. The FEC terminated the Make Oklahoma Great Again PAC on June 8, 2023.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Lawyer for WCGOP agrees to $25K fine for ethics violations
