Former Rep. John Ratcliffe’s campaign paid $11,000 to the firm that designed his new personal website.
The expenditure could violate @FEC rules.
Here's how @forbes was able to report the story—
1/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
The expenditure could violate @FEC rules.
Here's how @forbes was able to report the story—
1/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
@FEC @Forbes In July 2021, a tipster pointed out that Trump's former DNI John Ratcliffe was paying his wife $3,000/month to manage the books of his old campaign.
FEC filings confirmed it, and we reported it.
2/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
FEC filings confirmed it, and we reported it.
2/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
@FEC @Forbes I added Ratcliffe's to my running list of campaigns to check on the FEC deadlines.
And, sure enough, he kept paying his wife.
3/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
And, sure enough, he kept paying his wife.
3/
forbes.com/sites/zachever…
@FEC @Forbes When reporting the latest installment of "Ratcliffe pays his wife $3,000/month with campaign funds" last week, I was curious how many transactions his zombie campaign even had for his wife to keep track of.
So I started scrolling through his latest filing to count.
4/
So I started scrolling through his latest filing to count.
4/
@FEC @Forbes The count stopped though when I came across $7,200 in payments for "website design."
Seemed like a lot of money for the website for a dormant campaign!
5/
docquery.fec.gov/pdf/092/202201…
Seemed like a lot of money for the website for a dormant campaign!
5/
docquery.fec.gov/pdf/092/202201…
@FEC @Forbes A search on Google showed that Ratcliffe had launched a website since his last filing,
And SelectTools > Date show the date Google first indexed the site too.
6/
And SelectTools > Date show the date Google first indexed the site too.
6/
@FEC @Forbes Searching just Ratcliffe's new site (using Google's "site:" function) for the name of the firm his campaign paid for web design turned up the first bit of evidence that Telegraph Creative designed his new personal website.
7/
google.com/search?q=teleg…
7/
google.com/search?q=teleg…
@FEC @Forbes And a reverse IP search showed that John-Ratcliffe dot com was on the same server as Telegraph Creative's own websites.
Took a couple more hours to track down, but at least 23 of the 24 sites on the server are corrected to Telegraph Creative too.
8/
viewdns.info/reverseip/?hos…
Took a couple more hours to track down, but at least 23 of the 24 sites on the server are corrected to Telegraph Creative too.
8/
viewdns.info/reverseip/?hos…
@FEC @Forbes Still felt more proof was needed though to show that Telegraph Creative performed "website design" for Ratcliffe's campaign though.
So I turned to @z3dster.
9/
So I turned to @z3dster.
9/
@FEC @Forbes @z3dster With a few minutes, @z3dster found it—
Metadata from the video that on the site’s homepage shows that the file was stored in a folder called “John Ratcliffe” which was a subfolder of “Telegraph Clients.”
Thanks @z3dster!
10/
Metadata from the video that on the site’s homepage shows that the file was stored in a folder called “John Ratcliffe” which was a subfolder of “Telegraph Clients.”
Thanks @z3dster!
10/
@FEC @Forbes @z3dster As for the search that Ratcliffe hadn't hired Telegraph Creative to create an actual campaign site, I looked at
-Ratcliffe's campaign site
-its source code
-snapshots of it in archive dot org
-Telegraph Creative's site & social media to see if it advertised any such work...
11/
-Ratcliffe's campaign site
-its source code
-snapshots of it in archive dot org
-Telegraph Creative's site & social media to see if it advertised any such work...
11/
-Ratcliffe's earlier campaign finance filings
-FEC records for any other campaign ever paying Telegraph Creative
-Google and Lexis Nexis for sites referencing both Ratcliffe and Telegraph
-registration info for Ratcliffe's campaign site
12/
-FEC records for any other campaign ever paying Telegraph Creative
-Google and Lexis Nexis for sites referencing both Ratcliffe and Telegraph
-registration info for Ratcliffe's campaign site
12/
And, of course, @hunchly was running in the background, quietly preserving a copy on my computer of every web page I visited.
13/
13/
Many of the search techniques came from @IntelTechniques. Highly recommend reading the latest version of his "Open Source Intelligence Techniques."
14/14
inteltechniques.com/book1.html
14/14
inteltechniques.com/book1.html
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