The New York Times did a deep dive into Scott’s campaign spending yet could not determine much about what the "Staples-based" businesses actually do.
According to F.E.C. filings last week, the Scott campaign made $4.3 million in payments from April 1 to June 30 to a company called Meeting Street Services L.L.C. The money included $2.8 million for “placed media” and more for digital fund-raising, strategy and video production.
Meeting Street Services has no online presence, and has not been paid by any other campaign, records show. Its listed address, in North Charleston, S.C., is a Staples store. Records show that the company was set up in Delaware in August 2022, and its incorporation documents list only one name — Barry M. Benjamin — as an authorized representative.
According to business records in South Carolina, the company is managed by AMZ Holdings L.L.C., a company set up in May 2021 and based at the same Staples store in North Charleston. AMZ’s Delaware incorporation documents were also signed by Mr. Benjamin.
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The Scott campaign also made more than $940,000 in payments last quarter to Advanced Planning and Logistics, a limited liability company set up in December 2022 — again, by Mr. Benjamin — and whose listed address is a Staples store in Fairfax, Va. The company received multiple payments for air travel and event production. Again, Mr. Scott’s campaign was the only campaign that paid the company.
Sadly, it’s now common for campaigns to obscure spending, The Times notes, especially since the Federal Election Commission, which is supposed to oversee disclosures and spending, is perpetually hamstrung. But Scott stands out as “exhibit A” in brazenness, according to Times experts.
Scott’s campaign boasts about his demand for “transparency in the classroom so parents are informed as to what their children learn in school.” Shouldn’t voters have the right to be informed about how a presidential candidate spends more than $5 million? And shouldn’t we be concerned that the same candidate doesn’t want us to know?
