2 Rep. super PACs pay nearly $1 mil. to settle inquiry into Zeldin campaign

Two Republican super PACs paid nearly $1 million this month to quietly settle an inquiry into whether they illicitly coordinated with the campaign of former U.S. Congressman Lee Zeldin, during his 2022 run for governor of New York. Nicholas Fandos and Shane Goldmacher report in THE NY TIMES that the state’s top elections watchdog spent years investigating the matter, using subpoenas to try to show that there was illegal overlap between the Zeldin campaign and two groups that spent $20 million supporting it, Save Our State Inc. and Safe Together New York.

An agreement to settle the case, reached in recent days, ultimately does not include an admission of wrongdoing by the super PACs, a copy of the document obtained through a Freedom of Information request shows. Zeldin, a Republican from Shirley, Long Island, who is now the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was not a party to the agreement.

But the $900,000 fine is the largest ever paid in a super PAC coordination case in New York, where the free-spending groups seeking to sway elections have grown in size and number over the last decade.

In an unsealed report of the state’s chief election enforcement counsel provided to The New York Times yesterday, an investigator wrote that he had found that “substantial evidence demonstrates that respondents knowingly and willfully coordinated with candidate Lee Zeldin, both directly and through agents, resulting in unlawful contributions.”

The current chairman of the New York Republican Party, Edward F. Cox, is also linked to the investigation and his emails are included in the documents as a leader of one of the pro-Zeldin super PACs.

Eric Amidon, who was Mr. Zeldin’s 2022 campaign manager, said the campaign had “no involvement whatsoever” in the investigation. He called it “nothing more than political extortion by New York aimed at silencing political opposition.”

In addition to Lee Zeldin, the case has touched party operatives, a pollster for President Trump and Ronald S. Lauder, a billionaire cosmetics heir who helped bankroll the groups.

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The Butterfly Effect Project is a nonprofit, community-oriented organization which seeks to empower young girls by giving them the tools to achieve emotionally stable and self confident futures, in hopes of bringing forth a generation of women who are strong, independent and knowledgeable. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that volunteers with the Butterfly Effect Project have brought the historic Tuthill farmstead in Jamesport back to its roots, creating a garden club to help bring fresh food to local families and teach gardening to the next generation. The garden club was created “as a means for kids to meet safely outside and also provide supplemental nutrition for the community,” said Brienne Ahearn, the BEP’s garden club coordinator. It supports the nonprofit organization’s mission of encouraging collaboration and youth empowerment.

The garden club first launched at the First Baptist Church in Riverhead, where the Butterfly Effect was headquartered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Butterfly Effect Project moved its headquarters to the Daniel and Henry P. Tuthill family farmstead, at 1146 Main Road in Jamesport last year…where it will host a ribbon cutting on Saturday, Oct. 4 from 12 to 2 p.m. to celebrate the new community garden. The public is invited to attend.

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On Saturday, September 27…that’s tomorrow…from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., the Hamptons Marathon will run through the Village of Southampton. The Southampton Village Police Department is advising motorists that they should expect sporadic travel delays as the event takes place. The event includes a 5K (3.1-mile race), marathon (26.2 miles) and half-marathon (13.1 miles), that will be run south of Hill Street and Hampton Road in Southampton Village. Pond Lane will be closed for the duration of