Jesse Benton's Relationship with Ron Paul Has Proven to be Very Profitable

Ron Paul's political career may have ended, but his legacy survives. Devoted followers carry on in his name, and his son, a U.S. senator, is mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate.

And one individual in the Paul orbit has moved into the GOP mainstream after his association with the family. Jesse Benton has been part of Paul's political network since 2007, when he joined the candidate's presidential campaign as a spokesman. Before long, the connection became familial as well: He married Paul's granddaughter, Valori Pyeatt, in 2008.

Over the next few campaign cycles, Benton worked for two of Ron Paul's congressional campaigns, another of his presidential bids, his leadership PAC(Liberty PAC)and Campaign for Liberty, Paul's 501(c)(4) nonprofit. In the middle of all that, he was also the campaign chairman for Rand Paul's successful 2010 Senate race, replacing the previous person in that slot after a flap over remarks the candidate made about the Civil Rights Act.

So it was no small thing when Benton jumped horses last fall, leaving the Paul organizations in order to run Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) 2014 Senate campaign.

Benton leaves behind him a trail of controversy, with Paul's hardest-core tea party and libertarian acolytes freely critiquing how he ran Paul's campaigns. He was accused of not raising sufficient rabble, being overly concerned about positioning himself for his next career move and drawing too much money from the Paul network for himself.

We can't settle most of those questions. But we can make an accounting of how much Benton has earned from all the Paul organizations, now that year-end and other campaign finance and tax reports have been filed. We found that over the last three election cycles, Benton has been paid about $1.1 million by the various Paul entities -- although more than $450,000 of it was described as reimbursement for expenses he incurred, most of them unidentified.

Here's how it breaks out: In the 2008 cycle, he received more than $78,000 in salary and expense reimbursement working for Ron Paul's presidential and congressional campaign committees. Toward the end of that year his wife came on the payroll, too, bringing the total for the pair to more than $86,000.

Benton's compensation increased in 2010. Rand Paul's campaign gave him north of $142,000 for political consulting and salary. He also brought in nearly $22,000 in consulting fees and salary from Liberty PAC, and received nearly $28,000 from Ron Paul's congressional campaign, along with close to $22,000 in reimbursement for mileage and other unidentified expenses. Benton's wife made more than $30,000 working for her dad's campaign, along with another $1,500 in reimbursements.

But Benton's most lucrative cycle was the one that just ended. From January 2011 through the end of 2012 he received more than $682,000 from Ron Paul's presidential and congressional campaign committees and Liberty PAC. In fairness, just $226,000 was described as "salary" or "consulting." Close to $456,000 of it was described as reimbursement.

What accounts for the huge reimbursement figure? "Charter airlines was the big bulk of it," Benton told OpenSecrets.org. "I put charter airlines for the campaign onto my personal AmEx and got reimbursed for it. That practice stopped as soon as we got a proper line of credit."

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Jesse Benton's Relationship with Ron Paul Has Proven to be Very Profitable