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Vermont Republican Party disparages GOP candidate's primary fundraising

Liam Madden
Liam Madden
Liam Madden

The Vermont GOP is criticizing the Republican Congressional candidate following questions over his campaign contributions.

Republican Liam Madden is challenging Democrat Becca Balint for the state’s sole U.S. House seat. Although he won the Republican primary, he calls himself an independent. During an interview on WVMTThursday, Madden said he used a legal loophole to meet primary debate criteria.

“In order to qualify for a couple debates in the primary there was a minimum bar of fundraising you had to do, which I thought was BS," said Madden. "And so the legal loophole around that was to basically just drain all of the funds out of my wife’s business operating account and distribute that to members of my family to donate to my campaign. We had to basically pay that back by quote-unquote paying the candidate, which is also legal. So I just basically made some legal loopholes happen to be resourceful to actually get into the debates which helped me win the primary.”

Vermont GOP Chair Paul Dame says the party does not support Madden’s maneuver as it “raises some serious red flags” and adds that following campaign finance laws is more important that qualifying for a debate.

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