FEC wants to know if ex-gay troll Milo Yiannopoulos scammed Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is looking for answers from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about far-right ex-gay troll Milo Yiannopoulos and his use of a credit card associated with her campaign to allegedly scam her campaign out of $7,000.

In late 2022, Yiannopoulos used a credit card in the name of Greene’s campaign consultant Isaiah Wartman to pay $7,020.16 for a domain name for rapper Ye West’s 2024 presidential campaign. West’s campaign reimbursed Yiannopoulos $9,955 for the domain name. He and white supremacist Nick Fuentes briefly worked for West’s campaign before Yiannopoulos got fired.

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“For Milo Yiannopoulos, it seems like embezzlement — what under the law is called ‘conversion to personal use’ of the Kanye West campaign’s funds,” Saurav Ghosh, Federal Campaign Finance Reform Legal Director for the Campaign Legal Center, said at the time. “In essence, he was getting reimbursed for something that he didn’t pay for.”

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Yiannopoulos, to defend himself, said that he charges $40,000 a month for political consulting, so he would only steal “for more than ten thousand.” He said that, despite those terms, he “never will” steal.

In May 2023 — shortly after news of his use of the card broke — Yiannopoulos paid Greene’s campaign $7,020.16 for “use of campaign credit card for personal use,” according to a receipt included in an FEC filing uncovered in July.

Now the FEC wants to know more about what happened, RawStory reports. The commission sent a letter this week to Greene’s campaign committee asking for “information essential to full public disclosure of your federal election campaign finances.”

The letter brought up the receipt and said that further legal action might be taken.

“This receipt appears to be related to an apparent unauthorized use of Committee funds,” the letter states. “The Commission notes your explanation of the unauthorized activity. Although the Commission may take further legal action regarding this apparent improper use of Committee funds, any further clarifying information that you can provide will be taken into consideration.”

Greene’s campaign isn’t commenting on the matter.

Yiannopolous rose to fame on the right by attacking transgender people, and he got himself banned from Twitter for harassing actor Leslie Jones for her role in the Ghostbusters movie. He was out as gay at the time and made it a central part of his act.

In 2017, Yiannopoulos was fired from Breitbart News after videos surfaced featuring Yiannopoulos condoning statutory rape and sexual relationships between boys and men. While defending himself, Yiannopoulos revealed his own relationship with a 29-year-old man while he was 17. The age of consent in the U.K. is 16.

In the fallout, Yiannopoulos lost his job and a book deal. A scheduled speaking engagement at UC Berkeley was canceled after student protests turned violent.

Yiannopoulos claimed that he was so devastated by Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 elections that he renounced homosexuality several months later, a performance he made complete by allegedly throwing a $150,000 “sodomy stone” engagement ring into the ocean.

Last year, Yiannopoulos called for executing “unrepentant sodomites,” including gay conservative podcaster Dave Rubin.

Yiannopoulos worked as an intern in Greene’s congressional office last year, but it was unclear why he would have access to a credit card associated with her campaign.