For coordinating campaign consultant, elections were big business

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Photo credit: 401kcalculator.org via Flickr

A Sunlight Foundation analysis of campaign disclosures finds Tyler Harber, the congressional campaign manager who used an alias to moonlight as the director of a super PAC, earned more than $437,000 working for campaigns and super PACs in the 2014 elections, working on everything from fundraising, to communications consulting, to campaign strategy. Previously unreported is the fact that Harber’s firm worked for six different Republican Senate campaigns in the midterms, including sitting Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and David Perdue, R-Ga.

Harber was also contracted by the Colorado Republican Committee, who paid him a little over $12,000 for work on campaign mailings.

The Department of Justice announced Feb. 12 that Harber pled guilty to breaking federal super PAC coordination laws, which prohibit candidates and super PACs — which can raise unlimited sums of money from individuals, corporations and labor unions — from sharing staff or strategy. The rules are supposed to prevent large donations to super PACs from influencing the candidates those PACs support, potentially leading to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

While working as the campaign manager for Chris Perkins, a Virginia Republican who ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Gerry Connolly, D, in 2012, Harber was also directing a super PAC that supported Perkins and funneling money to himself and a family member, among other violations.

You can see all the 2013 and 2014 payments made to Harber’s firm, Harden Global of Alexandria, Va., in the table below:

The financial disclosures shows Harden Global worked for each of the following Senate campaigns in 2014:

  • David Clements, New Mexico
  • Sid Dinsdale, Nebraska
  • Shak Hill, Virginia
  • Mike Lee, Utah
  • James Lankford, Oklahoma
  • David Perdue, Georgia

Harden Global also served in a fundraising capacity for another super PAC in 2014, a committee called Winning the Senate PAC. Formed just three months before the general election, the group did not report running any campaign ads until six days before the election, spending $40,000 on five digital ads in five closely contested Senate races.

The committee raised a little over $114,000 all told, paying Harber’s firm $29,000 in what was listed as a “Fundraising Commission.” In total, Harden global earned $41,856 for its work for the PAC.

Efforts to reach Winning the Senate’s treasurer Jason Emert, a former Republican candidate for Tennessee’s House of Representatives, were unsuccessful.