Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), a member of the "Squad," paid her husband thousands of dollars more in campaign funds for private security and other matters during the second quarter of 2023, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.
Bush faced a flurry of ethics complaints in March over her campaign's move to keep paying Cortney Merritts, a security professional from St. Louis whom she married in early February in a private wedding ceremony. The congresswoman, between April and June, dished out $17,500 to Merritts for "wage expenses" and "security services," making his total Bush campaign haul $30,000 so far in 2023, filings show.
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"It’s nice of her to remind voters that she’s happy stealing donor money to enrich her hubby," Dan Backer, a Republican campaign finance lawyer for the Committee to Defeat the President, one of the groups that previously filed an FEC complaint over Bush paying Merritts, told the Washington Examiner.
Merritts and Bush have reportedly been together since before the congresswoman assumed office in 2021. Bush, who in recent years has come under fire from Republicans for her support of the left-wing movement to defund the police, has cut Merritts regular $2,500 checks since January of that year, according to filings.
Backer's group and the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a right-leaning watchdog, mentioned in their complaints how Merritts did not, as of late February, hold a private security license in St. Louis County or the city of St. Louis, which comprises Bush's congressional district. Moreover, Merritts didn't appear to show up in a database for licensed security professionals in Washington, D.C.
In 2022 alone, Bush's campaign shelled out $60,000 to Merritts, filings show. The Committee to Defeat the President alleged in its prior complaint that the campaign had been "falsely reporting the purpose of the disbursements."
"Her criminal act — unlawful in both Washington, D.C., and her own district — isn’t just an FEC matter; the Department of Justice and the Office of Congressional Ethics should also investigate Bush’s utter disregard for the law," Backer said. "That’s why the Committee to Defeat the President not only filed a more in-depth FEC complaint, detailing her precise criminal violations, but also sent the details to the DOJ and OCE."
The Bush campaign's security team has employed Nathaniel Davis III, a friend of the congresswoman who has purported to be a 109 trillion-year-old spiritual guru, according to the Washington Free Beacon. It has also paid PEACE Security, a St. Louis-based limited liability corporation specializing in "armed security" as well as surveillance system sales and installation, according to public records.
Meanwhile, Bush joined several House Democrats last week to reintroduce the People’s Response Act, a bill aiming to allocate funding to social workers for emergencies involving mental health rather than law enforcement. Appearing at the recent press conference on the measure was Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation board member Shalomyah Bowers, who dubbed Bush "brilliant."
Bowers was accused in a September 2022 lawsuit of illegally stealing over $10 million from donors of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which that same year disclosed spending $1.7 million on "professional security services." The lawsuit cited state and federal investigations into the foundation that spawned as a direct result of multiple Washington Examiner stories on its financial transparency lapses.
Bush's continued campaign payments for security come after the "Squad" member asserted herself as one of the top supporters of stripping police of resources after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
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"The thing about defund the police is we have to tell the entire narrative," Bush said in 2022 in her defense of the defund the police movement. "We can’t get caught up on the words. People spend more time focusing on the word ‘defund’ than they spend on caring and addressing the problem of police in this country."
The Bush campaign did not return a request for comment.