In the years before his son was accepted this fall as a freshman at Stanford, California Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu contributed more than $50,000 from his campaign to the university, Federal Election Commission records show.
Lieu’s payments to the university, his alma mater, were marked as “donations” and included payments of $740 and $305 in early 2016 followed by two larger contributions of $25,000 each in September 2017 and June 2018, the FEC records show
The congressman’s son, Brennan Lieu, applied and was admitted to Stanford for the 2021 school year and he proudly boasts on his Instagram he is planning to graduate with the class of 2025.
While campaign committees can give gifts to nonprofit organizations, FEC rules state that “using campaign funds for personal use is prohibited. Commission regulations provide a test, called the ‘irrespective test,’ to differentiate legitimate campaign and officeholder expenses from personal expenses.
“More simply, if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies. Conversely, any expense that results from campaign or officeholder activity falls outside the personal use ban,” the rules add.
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