Exclusive: Libertarian Party is Paying Chair's Domestic Partner Through Unidisclosed Hidden Delaware LLC

Has been paid over $45,000 since February 2024 after LNC ended boyfriend's direct contract. The undisclosed payments are in clear violation of October 2023 policy manual addition.

A few weeks ago, we broke the story on how Libertarian Party Chair, Angela McArdle lobbied the Libertarian Party to accept a joint fundraising agreement that secretly paid her domestic partner $12,000 through a hidden Delaware LLC. Today, we are breaking a much bigger story.

Chair McArdle’s domestic partner, Austin Padgett, was hired by the Chair in 2023 to help with party fundraising. His contract was not immediately disclosed to the Libertarian National Committee and his contract was eventually ended with the last payment being received by Padgett in January 2024.

Padgett received $32,465.38 directly from the Libertarian Party between August 2023 and January 2024.

In February 2024, the Libertarian National Committee starts paying Freedom Calls LLC approximately $4,000 per month totaling $45,600 from February 2024 to November 2024.

Documents sent to us by an attorney who was able to track down the original Certificate of Formation show that Padgett is listed as the incorporator of Freedom Calls LLC.

This appears to have violated the policy manual amendment which passed in October of 2023 which states:

Any proposed contracts or agreements for financial renumeration with a closely related party (legal relative, domestic partner, business associate) to a sitting LNC member or staff member shall be disclosed to the LNC prior to execution and shall be approved by a 2/3 vote of the Executive Committee or a majority vote of the LNC. This relation shall also be disclosed on the LNC’s member’s listing of potential conflicts of interest.

This brings the total payments to Padgett from the Libertarian National Committee to $78,065.38 from August 2023 to November 2024.

How Far They Went to Hide It

Freedom Calls LLC launched a website on January 8, 2024, to apparently show the corporation as being an active business. The business was officially incorporated in Delaware, a difficult state to identify incorporators, on January 12, 2024.

Oddly, we were unable to find any payments from any other federal candidates or committees other than the Libertarian National Committee to Freedom Calls.

The website lists no phone, address, or owners like most businesses would.

The address listed on the FEC payments links to a Legal Zoom virtual mailbox address which also deposits checks mailed there to corporations.

It will be interesting to see if the Libertarian National Committee takes any action or forwards this evidence along to the authorities in the coming days.

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