A new bombshell investigation by The Arizona Republic revealed that election-denier Mark Finchem failed to file accurate financial disclosures, which is a violation of the law. Candidates are required to file an accurate financial disclosure report to identify any conflicts of interest and potential corruption. The glaring omissions in his report suggest that Finchem thinks he’s above the law, and that he doesn’t need to be up-front with voters about his business dealings.
AZ Central: Mark Finchem failed to follow laws on income and business disclosures, records show
Robert Anglen
09/26/2022
Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem failed for years to follow state laws requiring elected officials to report their sources of income and business ties.
Finchem did not disclose nearly $2,000 a month in pension benefits and a few businesses in which he was involved from the time he took office in 2015 until January, financial records show.
The four-term Republican lawmaker from Oro Valley reported his longtime public safety pension for the first time in seven years after launching his bid to become Arizona’s next secretary of state.
Finchem, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, was a prominent member of the “Stop the Steal” movement and has sought to overturn Arizona’s 2020 presidential election results.
If elected, Finchem would be in charge of overseeing the financial disclosures and campaign contribution reports required of every elected state official.
He declined to comment on the missing data in the reports, which he had avowed were “true and correct” and signed under penalty of perjury.
Finchem would not answer specific questions about why he left off his pension information from reports or what caused him to start reporting it this year.
Finchem regularly listed as sources of income a real estate brokerage firm where he worked as a sales agent and a medical diagnostic company that employed his wife as a scientist.
Financial disclosure statements are supposed to give the public a full picture of an elected official’s household finances, including jobs, debts and potential conflicts of interest.
Omissions in reports have prompted investigations and prosecutions, leading to fines and resignations.
Disclosures are critical to building trust in the democratic process and are one of the few ways the public has for evaluating politicians, said John Pelissero, a senior scholar in government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
“The public has a right to know where candidates are getting their money,” he said. “When there is an absence of compliance, not only do you have a likely legal problem, but you have an ethical problem.”
That’s even more true if you are in charge of the forms, Pelissero said.
“It becomes more of a problem when you are the secretary of state and you are responsible for making everybody else comply,” he said.
How can a candidate run for an office overseeing a process after demonstrating a lack of interest in complying with it, Pelissero asked.
Annual financial disclosure forms to be filed with the Secretary of State’s Office require officials to list any employer “and/or any other source of compensation who provided you or any member of your household more than $1,000.”
Records obtained by The Arizona Republic show Finchem worked as public safety officer in Kalamazoo, Michigan from 1978 to 1999, serving as a paramedic, firefighter and law enforcement officer.
Personnel records obtained by The Arizona Republic show Finchem retired in 1999 after receiving a poor rating from a supervisor, who noted “would not rehire” on forms.
Finchem’s pension was based on an average salary of $55,723, earning him a $1,942.58 monthly retirement allowance, records show. His first check was issued on Feb. 28, 1999.
Inconsistent record of disclosure
Public officials are also required to name any business, organization, trust, nonprofit or association with which they had any relation. And here, Finchem’s record is also spotty.
Records show he routinely disclosed being an officer in a now-defunct company he started called readmyrear.com, which made banners for the backs of vehicles. Finchem beginning in 2019 also reported his interest in a company called Pathway Research and Education, which operated out of his home.
Another company bounced on and off Finchem’s forms. He first reported being an uncompensated board member of United Precious Metals Association in Utah in 2018 and again in 2021 and 2022. He did not report it in 2019 and 2020.
Finchem reported having a financial stake in two other alternative energy companies. He reported equity values of less than $25,000 in Frontier Applied Sciences in Scottsdale and more than $100,000 in Clean Power Technologies in Idaho.
Clean Power CEO Steve Youngdahl confirmed Friday that Finchem is a partner in the business.
Corporation searches reveal Finchem was tied to at least three other companies he never reported on his disclosure forms. Those include 171 North Nightfall, DMAIC and Mark Finchem Professional Limited Liability Company.
The companies were created in 2007 and 2008 before Finchem was elected to office and are listed as active and in good standing, according to the Arizona Corporation Commission.
Finchem did not respond to questions about his business disclosures.
$6K from Trump unreported
One of Finchem’s three undisclosed companies got $6,037 from former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020.
The payment went to Mark Finchem PLLC on Dec. 18, 2020, according to Trump’s campaign filings. The money also was not listed on Finchem’s 2021 disclosure.
Finchem in 2021 said the payment was reimbursement “for crowd control and security costs” at a meeting he convened between Arizona lawmakers and Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani in November 2020 about overturning the state’s election results.
Disclosure forms call for elected officials to report the name “of each debtor who owed you or a member of your household a debt over $1,000 at any time” during the previous 12 months.
The form also asks officials to report the approximate amount and the financial category of the debt.
Finchem wrote “N/A” on the section about the debts even though he said the money was repayment for services rendered.
In emails to The Republic in 2021, Finchem did not address why he failed to report both the company and the payment.
The $6,037 was just the beginning of the debt repayment. In 2020, Finchem sought more money from followers to cover expenses from the Giuliani meeting, which he said topped $15,000.
He solicited donations from across the country, telling followers on Telegram and Gab to send money to a PayPal account that he promised to send to a political action committee.
A left-leaning government watchdog group called Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in April 2021, calling for an investigation over campaign finance violations.
“Representative Finchem subsequently stated his supporters had sent $10,000 to his personal Venmo and PayPal accounts in just over 12 hours after his initial solicitation,” the complaint alleged.
“It appears that Representative Finchem … committed multiple violations of Arizona law by having PAC contributions deposited into his personal accounts,” the complaint said.
The Arizona Attorney General’s office on Friday confirmed the complaint was filed against Finchem but said it was still waiting on Hobbs’ office to file the proper referral paperwork that would allow an investigation to go forward.
Finchem wants early voting ban
As secretary of state, Finchem, 65, would be in charge of running Arizona elections and first in line to succeed the governor. He has said he doesn’t trust elections and is pushing a vision of “election integrity” that would radically change the state’s voting system.
That includes abolishing early voting, posting ballot images online and switching existing ballots to paper embedded with numerous “counter fraud” features.
He also supports hand counts of results and says the state Legislature has the power to set aside presidential election results if lawmakers suspect the results were obtained illegally.
Finchem maintains he has proof the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. But despite repeated claims since 2020 that he was only days away from turning over proof of election fraud to Arizona’s attorney general, Finchem has failed to do so.
Finchem was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He claimed he was nowhere near the Capitol when it was breached and only learned about it afterward at his hotel. But his own texts revealed he was in the thick of the crowd and in direct communication with a “Stop the Steal” organizer who warned, “They are storming the Capitol.”
Finchem told constituents days after the attack that he traveled to Washington to deliver “an evidence book” to Vice President Mike Pence in an effort to sway him to reject electoral votes. It’s unclear if he actually met with Pence or turned over data to him.
He gave a different version of events Thursday during a campaign debate with Democratic challenger Adrian Fontes. Finchem said he was there to give an evidence package to Arizona U.S. Rep Paul Gosar, an election denier who has also sought to overturn the 2020 election.
A federal grand jury is probing the scheme to reject votes for President Joe Biden in Arizona and six other states. The effort has also drawn scrutiny and subpoenas from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Finchem revealed during the debate that he was interviewed months ago by both the U.S. Department of Justice and the select committee.
He described himself as “a witness.”
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