LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey will not be facing any charges, but Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel unveiled criminal charges Wednesday against two longtime Republican fundraisers who were allegedly involved in an effort to conceal the names of donors to a campaign to reduce Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nessel says Heather Lombardini of Okemos and Sandy Baxter of Caledonia helped raise money for the Unlock Michigan ballot proposal committee in 2020 and 2021 through nonprofit organizations that didn’t have to identify their contributors to get around campaign finance disclosure requirements.
If the donors had given directly to the controversial Unlock Michigan petition effort, the committee would have had to report their names. The two nonprofits, both tied to Shirkey, reportedly gave about $2.7 million to Unlock Michigan.
Lombardini has been charged by the Attorney General with three misdemeanor violations of the state’s campaign finance law and a 14-year felony of uttering and publishing. The felony was tied to Lombardini signing an affidavit in September 2020, denying that funds had been solicited through the nonprofit Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility for the purpose of giving the dollars to Unlock Michigan.
Baxter was involved in raising money for Unlock Michigan through the nonprofit Michigan! My Michigan! and Nessel says provided investigators “false information while under oath.” She is charged with perjury, a 15-year felony.
At a press conference in Lansing, Nessel said evidence will show that Shirkey “repeatedly bragged” about controlling multiple “dark money” organizations. Because he wasn’t an official officer of the organizations, Nessel says Shirkey could not be charged under current state law.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Shirkey told Midwest Communications, Inc., “This is a yet another case of weaponizing DOJ’s et al for political attacks. We followed the law strictly.”
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