Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) may have flouted federal law over his move to use an apparent loophole to rake in large sums through his part-time pastor gig, a watchdog group says.

On his 2022 financial disclosure, Warnock listed a salary of $155,000 from Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, though he alleged $125,000 of the amount was "deferred compensation for services before Jan. 20, 2021," allowing him to claim he didn't bypass the roughly $30,000 outside income limit for senators. But because the $125,000 wasn't listed as an asset on Warnock's 2021 disclosure or 2020 and 2021 church financial records, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust on Tuesday demanded the Senate Select Committee on Ethics "immediately investigate" whether Warnock ran afoul of ethics rules.

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"The fact that neither Senator Warnock nor his employer reportedly disclosed the 'deferred compensation' agreement prior to it being paid in 2022 indicates that it was likely not actually deferred compensation earned before Warnock became a senator," FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold wrote in the complaint, reported on by the Washington Free Beacon.

"Nevertheless, even if the parties entered into a deferred compensation agreement before he was a senator, it should have been disclosed before it was," Arnold added. "When the facts presented so clearly indicate a violation has occurred, it is incumbent on the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate, inform the public to maintain citizen confidence, and hold the senator responsible for violations should they be found."

Warnock has been a pastor since 2005 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which counted Martin Luther King Jr. as a co-pastor from 1960 until his 1968 assassination and is affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention. In addition to the outside income limit law, the watchdog noted in its complaint how federal rules require senators and Senate candidates to report all "deferred compensation" plans as well as the "parties, dates, and terms of the agreement."

FACT said the Ethics in Government Act "does not allow members to break the law without consequence," and pointed to provisions on how lawmakers skirting it could face fines of up to $50,000 or as much as one year in prison. Warnock's 2022 disclosure made no mention of him being approved by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics for the "deferred compensation" arrangement.

The committee, which reviews misconduct allegations against lawmakers and is composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, greenlit Warnock in 2021 to bypass the earned income limit. The senator had disclosed earning $120,000 from Ebenezer, with $89,000 of that sum purportedly coming from a nontaxable "parsonage allowance" the senator obtained to pay for his home in Atlanta worth $1 million, records show.

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"Either Sen. Warnock and his church had a deferred compensation agreement that both have conspicuously failed to report the existence of for years, or he received outside income of over four times the legal limit," Arnold told the Washington Examiner.

Warnock's office and the Senate Ethics Committee did not reply to requests for comment.