Watchdog Group calls for investigation into Senator Warnock’s earnings

A watchdog group is demanding that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigate whether Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., broke federal law by allegedly using an accounting loophole to earn more than four times the income limit external senators in 2022. Washington’s Free Lighthouse reported

The Foundation for Accountability, in a complaint, said it wants the panel to determine whether Warnock lied on his 2022 financial disclosure. At issue is his $155,000 salary for serving as a part-time pastor at the ‘Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta.

There is an outside limit of $30,000 for Senators.

Warnock claimed that $125,000 of his pastor’s pay in 2022 was actually “deferred compensation” for work he did for the church before taking office on January 20, 2021, the Beacon reported.

“Either Senator Warnock and his church had a deferred compensation arrangement, the existence of which both have blatantly failed to report for years, or they received outside income of more than four times the legal limit,” said the FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold.

“In any event, this would be a significant breach of Senate ethics laws that must be immediately investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. The applicable laws and rules are clear and the people it serves deserve know what happened here.”

The watchdog group noted that if Warnock is found to have lied about his “deferred compensation” deal to get money beyond his church’s statutory limit in 2022, he could be fined up to $50,000 or sent to prison for up to to a year

Pete McGinnis, director of communications for the Functional Government Initiative, said last month a research is warranted in Warnock’s financial deal with Ebenezer Baptist Church.

“We don’t know if the newly declared ‘deferred compensation’ was in fact earned before he became a senator, and the failure of the church and Reverend Warnock to disclose it was a mistake, but it certainly deserves an investigation,” McGinnis told the Free Beacon. “Georgia can hardly handle more dysfunction these days than it already has.”