But on Wednesday, Rick Scott, governor-turned-apparent campaign finance expert tried to explain to reporters that he is “only responsible for the campaign account” and – for those who missed it the first time – “The campaign account is what we’re responsible for.” Ever helpful, Rick Scott then suggested “You’d have to reach out to people at New Republican…I’m responsible for the campaign account. You have to separate it when you have federal races.”
The latest development occurred Thursday afternoon when new evidence was discovered linking Rick Scott with New Republican. In a poll released by the New Republican in late March, the dateline shows the Super PAC conducting polling on Rick Scott’s candidacy between March 10 – 13, 2018 – a full month before Scott announced his candidacy and days after the Washington Post reported Scott was fundraising for the Super PAC.
“After addressing the RNC, Scott plans to head across the peninsula to Naples, where his home is, for a dinner with donors to a super PAC he is chairing called New Republican.” [Washington Post, March 3, 2018]
“We appreciate Rick Scott’s advice to ‘reach out to the people at New Republican.’ We’d like to remind Rick Scott that as chairman of New Republican, he is the ‘people’ responsible and accountable for this violation, said Adam Bozzi, communications director of End Citizens United. “We can only imagine his confusion trying to manage so many campaign committees and raise so much soft money. It truly is a tangled web. But, the fact is, Rick Scott still needs to give Florida voters an answer as to why he broke election law to advance his own political ambitions.”