By Thomas Anderson
I wrote this a few months ago and thought it would be good to republish since Congressman Ritchie Torres has stepped onto the international scene with his criticism of Bibi Netanyahu:
The problem with NYC machine politics is that it produces compromised elected officials who are forced to dabble in corrupt acts as a way of showing loyalty to the machine over everything else. Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres, AKA the Crypto Prince of Congress, is the latest version of NYC pol to enter the swamp we call Washington DC. He’s the Oprah-endorsed, young, gay, minority, progressive who also happens to be a staunch supporter of Israel.
On paper, he’s the perfect politician but scratch slightly under the surface and what you find are the beginnings of a long career of corruption, fraud, and abuse of power. I’ve written many times before about the broken windows theory of law enforcement and how I believe it needs to be applied to elected officials like Torres. Raise the concerns early before shady individuals and organizations take a promising young politician’s career and turn it into a graft machine.
The OCE of the House of Representatives has a complaint I filed with them concerning a trip he took to Kosovo in late 2022. I filed the complaint because I saw that he had a traveling companion with him who has been financially benefitting from the Congressman’s campaign and leadership PAC while failing to file proper disbursements with the FEC on things like travel expenses. When following this trail I came across a set of campaign expenditures that appear to show the Congressman purchased two private club memberships at a unique high-society social club called Zero Bond. The disbursement was a little over $6,000 but was listed as paying for “meals” at the social club. The membership fee for Zero Bond is $3,000, so it appears that Torres and his travel companion to Kosovo received memberships to Zero Bond, not “meals” as they claim with the FEC.
The good thing about the FEC is we can compare expenditures to a vendor from different political campaigns. In this case, Zero Bond was only ever paid by Torres several times and one other PAC. By looking at the expenditures it becomes apparent $6,000 for “meals” at Zero Bond is beyond anything imaginable compared to the other Torres expenditures at Zero Bond.
When “meals” cost more than event space for a massive fundraiser, and the cost of the meals lines up more with membership fees questions should be asked. The other problem surrounds the “event space” Torres paid for. The “event space” was for a huge fundraiser hosted by the cryptocurrency folks. A fundraiser that led to Congressman Torres being accused of trying to hamper an SEC investigation into FTX! Yes, Torres, who represents the poorest district in NYC had a swanky fundraiser at a private club hosted by cryptocurrency players. He then turned around and got involved in the FTX investigation, maybe even hampering it.
There’s no way to know what’s really going on here without an investigation from the OCE, at the minimum. But what is clear is Torres and his travel buddy are taking full advantage of his office for travel, dinners, and compensation as huge reimbursements and consulting payments consistently go to this travel buddy of his. One such disbursement not only violates FEC rules for itemized disbursements but it may also violate Congressional income rules for members and staff who must file financial disclosure forms.
It’s possible this staffer spent over $4,000 on purchases of less than $200, which is why there are no itemized transactions linked to this disbursement. The problem is such a scenario is so rare, I’ve never seen it happen in over 20 years where a staffer spends thousands of dollars in increments of under $200. This is more likely a way to pocket campaign money without getting caught, as the FEC rarely audits campaigns for activity like this. The problem here is this staffer also gets the max in “consulting fees” from the Torres Leadership PAC, which is now over $30,000, on top of his salary which is the maximum allowed for staffers to receive.
Traveling abroad with a travel companion on the dime of a charity not properly registered, as according to my OCE complaint, while milking the campaign for thousands in reimbursements for swanky expenditures, while cavorting with the crypto industry at high society private clubs the campaign may have paid memberships for is a wild ride for any member of Congress- even for swamp standards. The Crypto Prince is on a very tough road, NYC pols know it well. It’s a road of corruption and heartache and it hurts not only the Congressman but his constituents and the rest of the nation. Let’s hope this little bit of sunlight gets him back on the road of constituent services Oprah touted him for before the arrival of the cryptocurrency lobby.