Sal Russo

Controversial Tea Party PAC Sets Up Own Super PAC

Ryan J. Reilly | January 26, 2012, 12:30PM

It seems the people affiliated with the Our Country Deserves Better PAC (a.k.a. the Tea Party Express PAC) -- known for sending much of its money to the GOP consulting firm that created it -- wants to get on the "super PAC" bandwagon.

The newly formed Tea Party Express Presidential Campaign super PAC intends to use its funds exclusively to make independent expenditures and raise funds "in unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and/ or other political committees," treasurer Kelly Lawyer wrote in a letter to the Federal Election Commission this week.

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Sal Russo

Tea Party Express PAC Keeps Funneling Money To GOP Consulting Firm

Ryan J. Reilly and Melissa Jeltsen | December 21, 2010, 8:15AM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

For the Tea Party Express, old habits die hard. TPE's PAC, Our Country Deserves Better, continued through the election cycle with its track record of raising money in support of grass-roots tea party candidates and then funneling those donations to the Republican consulting firm that founded it, recent filings show.

In a month-long period surrounding the midterm elections, a whopping 73 percent of funds raised -- totaling $599,377 -- was paid out to Russo Marsh and Associates, the Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm that essentially founded the PAC in 2008, for miscellaneous costs including travel, consulting fees and media buys.

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Sal Russo

Tea Party Express Spent Almost $600,000 To Support Miller In Alaska Primary

Ryan J. Reilly | September 21, 2010, 11:02AM

Joe Miller and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

When Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced on Friday that she was running as a write in candidate against Tea Party backed GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller, she noted the role that outside groups played in her narrow defeat.

"Alaska is not fair game for outside extremists," Murkowski said, taking a shot at the Tea Party Express and its efforts on behalf of her opponent.

A review of the Tea Party Express' expenditures by Talking Points Memo shows just how influential a role the group played. The Tea Party Express (TPE) -- or as it is known, the Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) PAC -- spent $592,174.97 to support Miller as of Sept. 17

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Mark Williams

Tea Party Express' Sal Russo: Mark Williams Is No Longer Affiliated With Our PAC

Eric Lach | July 20, 2010, 2:26PM

Tea Party Express spokesperson Mark Williams.

Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams' 'accidental' racism continues to have big consequences -- the tea party group that he's long been the public face of is now pretty much disavowing him.

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Tea Party Express

Beating Reid Has Long Been Top Priority For Tea Party Express, Memo Shows

Zachary Roth | April 15, 2010, 12:14PM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

The defeat of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was from the outset perhaps the top priority of the Tea Party Express, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico. The group's focus on unseating the Democratic Senate leader appears to bolster the charge that its priorities dovetail more closely with those of the Republican party than with the more independent Tea Party movement.

The memo (pdf) was written in April 2009 by Joe Wierzbicki of Russo, Marsh -- the California Republican consulting firm, run by veteran consultant Sal Russo, that created the PAC that runs Tea Party Express. As Politico reported, Wierzbicki proposed launching the Tea Party Express as a bus tour across the country, arguing that it would "give a boost to our PAC and position us as a growing force/leading force as the 2010 elections come into focus."

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Tea Party Express

CNN On Tea Party Infighting (VIDEO)

Zachary Roth | February 3, 2010, 5:52PM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

CNN has a lengthy (for TV) report on the infighting that, as we've detailed, is besetting the Tea Party movement.

The high-note comes when CNN gets on camera the GOP consultants who run the Tea Party Express to answer charges that their "grassroots" Tea Party group is little more than a front for the Republican Party.

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Tea Party Express

In Damage Control Mode, Tea Party Express Slams 'Smears'

Zachary Roth | February 1, 2010, 9:52AM

Lloyd Marcus

In an aggressive damage control effort launched in the wake of a barrage of negative publicity, a leading Tea Party group created by a Republican consulting firm is pushing back against what it calls "false and malicious attacks."

The Tea Party Express (TPE) yesterday sent an email to supporters slamming "attack hit pieces" by TPMmuckraker and other outlets. The recent stories, writes TPE's Lloyd Marcus under the TPE banner, amount to "a range of rumors, accusations, allegations, smears and mischaracterizations of what we at the Tea Party Express are supposedly about." Marcus, the African-American country singer who has become a prominent TPE spokesman, promises another email soon that will "debunk" the "smears."

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Tea Parties

Hands Off! The Political Insiders Accused Of Hijacking The Tea Party Movement

Zachary Roth | January 18, 2010, 12:55PM

Tea party in Hartford, Connecticut in 2009

As the Tea Party movement approaches its one-year anniversary, grassroots activists increasingly are finding themselves fighting off what they see as cynical bids by unscrupulous sophisticates to co-opt the movement for their own ends.

These new players on the Tea Party scene are lawyers, political consultants, business-people, and even Republican politicians. They're not working together for the most part, and the details of their efforts differ. But all have taken steps lately that have been denounced -- often by Tea Party activists -- as efforts to benefit personally from a movement that prides itself on its independence and incorruptability.

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Tea Party Express

Yet More Tea Party Spending Went To GOP Consultants

Zachary Roth | January 11, 2010, 10:51AM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

We told you last month that the political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm - or entities associated with it -- that created the group in the first place.

But it's actually worse than that. It now appears the figure is over three quarters.

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Tea Party Express

Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It

Zachary Roth | December 28, 2009, 6:15PM

Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo

The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.

Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.

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David McKalip

In Tea Party Civil War, McKalip Appears To Ditch Former Comrades In Favor Of GOP Consultants

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2009, 4:13PM

Tea-Partiers, and Dr. David McKalip (inset)

In a bitter internecine feud that is creating serious divisions in the Tea Party movement, David McKalip -- the Florida doctor and health-care reform foe who got in hot water this summer after forwarding a racist picture showing President Obama as a witch doctor -- appears to have sided with a group run by GOP consultants, rather than with his former grassroots allies.

In an email to fellow members of the Tea Party Patriots, sent yesterday and obtained by TPMmuckraker, Texas-based activist Gerald Merits wrote that he has been "approached by a neurosurgeon very active in the movement in Florida asking for me to get involved with the Tea Party Express because the Tea Party Patriots just don't seem to get it."

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Howard Kaloogian

Legendary GOP Bamboozler Hitches Wagon To Tea Party Brand

Zachary Roth | September 1, 2009, 2:56PM

Howard Kaloogian

Remember Howard Kaloogian? He was the Republican House candidate who in 2006 tried to pass off a picture of a quiet Istanbul street as having been taken during a trip he made to Baghdad -- then told a string of additional lies in trying to explain what happened.

Well, he's back. And this time he's taking the bamboozlement to a whole new level.

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