A Republican candidate running to represent Missouri’s redrawn 6th Congressional District is accused of violating state and federal campaign finance laws by funneling funds from his now-suspended state Senate fundraising committee, according to ethics complaints filed by a conservative watchdog group.House GOP hopeful Nathan Willett allegedly rerouted more than $165,000, received while pursuing an open seat in the Missouri Senate, to support his current campaign for Congress.Willett, a member of the Kansas City Council, dropped out of the state Senate contest in April to join the bitter race to replace retiring Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), who withdrew his 2026 reelection bid after the Missouri legislature redrew the state’s congressional map. The Republican-led redistricting measure, which aimed to dilute Democratic voting power around Kansas City, shuffled the 13-term congressman’s safely conservative district, a rural area that is still solidly red but absorbed more of Kansas City’s blue-leaning suburbs.
Liberty Alliance, a Kansas City-based conservative group, filed complaints last week to the Federal Election Commission and the Missouri Ethics Commission alleging that Willett illegally transferred money through a Georgia charity, using it as a pass-through entity to divert cash on hand from his state coffers to a federal super PAC aligned with Willett.According to the 277-page complaint to the FEC, Willett’s state committee sent $165,384.46 to Grassroots America, a small nonprofit organization in Georgia, on the same day the committee filed paperwork terminating its existence. FEC filings show that within weeks, Grassroots America contributed $160,384.46, that near-exact amount to the penny, except for $5,000, to the Conservative Future Fund, a federal super PAC that has spent more than $207,000 on political ads supporting Willett.Liberty Alliance suspects that the difference of $5,000 between what Willett gave Grassroots America and the nonprofit organization’s contribution to the Conservative Future Fund reflects an administrative fee that Grassroots America charged for facilitating the transaction.DEMOCRATS LOSE CHALLENGE TO MISSOURI’S MID-DECADE REDISTRICTING PUSHED BY GOPGrassroots America’s treasurer, Jason Boles, simultaneously serves as the treasurer of Willett’s federal campaign committee and owns the compliance firm that Willett’s federal committee paid in the amount of $5,500 during the same reporting period as the transactions at issue. Tax forms identify Boles, the president and CEO of Tabularius Compliance, as Grassroots America’s principal officer. Both entities also list the same mailing addresses in Alpharetta, Georgia.“This isn’t a coincidence — it’s a candidate using a shell of a nonprofit that shares a treasurer with his own campaign to launder his old campaign account into a super PAC built to elect him to Congress,” Andy Bakker, the executive director of Liberty Alliance USA, said in a statement. The money that Grassroots America gave the Conservative Future Fund accounts for more than three-fourths of the super PAC’s spending on pro-Willett ads.When several donors who had contributed to Willett’s state Senate campaign requested refunds, the checks they received bounced and were returned for “insufficient funds,” according to bank statements included as exhibits, because the committee’s account had already allegedly been depleted by the outbound six-figure transfer to Grassroots America. The complaint to the Missouri Ethics Commission said that Willett personally covered the shortfall to make the donors whole, without ever disclosing those payments to the state regulators.“Nathan Willett knew exactly how much money he was pulling out of that account, and he knew his own donors were still owed refunds from it,” Bakker said. “He drained the account anyway, their checks bounced, and voters never heard a word about it until he quietly wrote personal checks to clean up the mess.”Willett’s campaign has not directly addressed the claims in the ethics complaints nor explained the dubious flow of funds.A spokesperson for Willett, however, noted to the Washington Examiner that the “frivolous” complaints against him were submitted on Monday, the same day that the Willett campaign launched a website calling conservative radio personality Chris Stigall, his primary opponent, an “anti-Trump radio host.”“This is a baseless attack from a flailing campaign desperate to talk about anything other than Chris Stigall’s history of repeated betrayals and attacks on President Trump,” the Willett campaign spokesperson said.Liberty Alliance also goes by the name Cornerstone 1791, whose leadership overlaps with the Herzog Foundation, according to a 2023 investigation by the Missouri Independent. Stigall works as a content manager for the Herzog Foundation, serving as a part-time content creator, according to The Chris Stigall Show’s website. Todd Graves, the retiring congressman’s brother, also chairs the Herzog Foundation’s board of directors.Stigall, 49, is backed by Graves, 62, who said in his endorsement announcement that Stigall is “the best suited” candidate to succeed him as he prepares to “pass the torch to the next generation.”Graves weighed in on the money-funneling allegations against Willett: “That is absolutely illegal, and I looked at the evidence, and it’s pretty convincing,” Graves told KCMO Talk Radio. “And it’s unfortunate that Nate, he tried to do this or tried to cover up. I think the cover-up is probably the worst part of all of it.”
