In 2017 and 2018, Russian conspiracy theorist, Ted Lieu made two donations of $25,000 to Stanford University when his two teenage sons were getting ready for college. Reportedly, he used ‘campaign cash collected from donors to fund his “donation to Stanford.
RedState.com had reported the matter in 2019,
Outpoken California Rep. Ted Lieu has a reputation for philanthropy and service to his community. A look at his campaign finance records reveals that he’s especially generous when it comes to making contributions with other people’s money – namely, his donors. In light of the fact that Democrats give much less to charity than Republicans do, the fact that Lieu thinks it’s okay to use his donors’ money to fund his charitable giving (instead of his own) isn’t really surprising. He could justify it as streamlining the process, since he’s really just bypassing the IRS.
The form below is an FEC Form 3 which shows a $25,000 donation in June 2018.
While Federal law permits “charitable contributions” with the campaign money, but is a university donation termed as “charitable”?
Here, Lieu might’ve gone off the record as the law states that “The amount donated to a charitable organization cannot be used for purposes that personally benefit the candidate.”
Now, this cannot be a mere coincidence that the word spread around about Lieu’s son claims that he has been admitted to Stanford.
On 11th August 2021, RealBFolks posted this tweet which said “BREAKING: Rep. Ted Lieu funnelled $50,000 of campaign cash over to Stanford University, son gets admitted. Varsity Blues is alive and well in the ruling class.”
CDub, on Twitter, also shared a screenshot of Ted Lieu’s donation to Stanford in 2018 and 2017.