Ron Johnson's $280k cash gifts to chief of staff and wife draw U.S. Senate ethics complaint

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and his wife paid his former chief of staff and his wife $280,000 in cash gifts while they worked together, an arrangement Democrats say is a breach of Senate rules, according to an ethics complaint filed Monday.

Noting the cash gifts in the complaint had been publicly available for years, Johnson spokesperson Alexa Henning called the complaint frivolous and said the Oshkosh Republican hasn’t done anything wrong by gifting money to his former chief of staff and longtime friend, Anthony Blando.

Henning declined to specify why Johnson made the payments, but noted Johnson first contacted Blando in 2003 after Blando was diagnosed with cancer, and Johnson offered to pay for his continued treatment.

The Senate has ethics rules meant to limit how much congressional aides can be compensated and also how much and from whom they can receive gifts. The Johnsons’ cash gifts to Blando appear to follow one guideline allowing aides to receive gifts from senators, but appear to clash with another guideline saying cash gifts aren’t acceptable. They also raise questions about whether they are an attempt to circumvent the compensation limits.

Federal records reported on LegiStorm, a website that tracks congressional staffing, show Johnson and his wife gave Blando and Blando’s wife each $24,000 in fiscal year 2014, $28,000 in 2016 and in 2017, and $30,000 in 2018 and 2020, for a total of $280,000.

Blando’s salary was $168,999.85 in fiscal year 2014; $169,458.96 in fiscal years 2016, 2017 and 2018 — 4 cents shy of the maximum in those years; and $172,789.68 in fiscal year 2020, according to the complaint filed by Wisconsin resident Laurene Bach.

Blando left Johnson’s office in January 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Senator Johnson violated both the Ethics rules and the clear intent of Congress to set salary and compensation maximum thresholds,” wrote Bach, who worked in conjunction with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to file the complaint.

Bach, who federal filings show has donated hundreds to Democratic efforts, called for the committee to investigate “this violation of Senate gift rules” and refer the case to the Department of Justice “if necessary.”

In response, Henning said in a statement, “These were all legitimate gifts of the Senator’s personal funds that have all been previously disclosed for years and fully comply with all Senate rules and the Senate Ethics Committee.”

She added that Johnson “has always gone above and beyond to abide by Senate rules” and is confident this “frivolous” complaint will be dismissed because “he has done absolutely nothing wrong, and in fact, has been a faithful steward of taxpayer dollars.”

U.S. Senate rules limit the gifts that senators and their employees may accept, with prohibitions and limits depending on the gift’s nature and value. There is a clarification in the Senate Ethics Manual stating senators and U.S. Senate employees may receive gifts from senators and U.S. Senate employees “with no restrictions on the dollar value of the gift.”

But separate guidance in the Senate Ethics Manual says, “A gift of cash or a cash equivalent (for example stocks or bonds) is not an acceptable gift, unless it is from a relative or is part of an inheritance.”

Kedric Payne, an executive at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, said exemptions from the gift rules for senators make it likely the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee “will interpret the rule to allow cash gifts from Senators, but not when the gift is used to violate the staff compensation rules.”

“These ‘gifts’ appear to violate the rules for when a Senator uses personal funds to compensate staff,” he said. “An investigation is needed to determine if these payments were intended as compensation for staff work, which requires tax and other payroll withholdings under the ethics rules.”

Aside from the cash gifts, records from the Federal Election Commission show Blando received tens of thousands more from Johnson’s campaign.

Blando told the Oshkosh Northwestern in 2010 that he had been good friends with Johnson for about seven years.

“The senator first contacted Tony in 2003 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer,” Henning said in a statement Monday. “The senator heard about a treatment at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and offered to pay for Tony’s continued treatment. For almost 20 years, they have been in each other’s lives, on family vacations and their children’s weddings.”

The Appleton Post-Crescent reported in 2015 that early in their friendship Johnson offered to fly Blando and his family to receive groundbreaking cancer treatment, but Blando declined. He has repeatedly battled the disease, the newspaper reported.

In May 2010, it was announced Blando was taking a leave from his position as president of the United Catholic Schools of Oshkosh to join Johnson’s campaign as an aide. At the time, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported, Johnson was a member and president of the Lourdes Foundation, which oversaw the Catholic school system’s financial endowments and scholarships.

In a letter to school system families obtained by the Oshkosh Northwestern, Blando explained his leave: “I have given this venture a great deal of thought and prayer and have come to the conclusion that God is calling me to this. Ron and Jane Johnson have been great friends and stewards of UCS — we would not be where we are today without them.”

Blando also reportedly said he was taking his leave in an effort to separate politics from the school. But around two months later, Blando sent an email asking United Catholic Schools parents, students and staff to walk with Johnson in an Independence Day parade in Oshkosh, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported. He later said he “screwed up” for having sent the email.

By late November 2010, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported Blando would leave his United Catholic Schools position in early December to join Johnson’s transition team. He would join Johnson’s office as the state director days later, the paper reported.

He became Johnson’s chief of staff in December 2012, Blando’s LinkedIn profile states, and left in January 2021. He currently lists his job as a customer success executive at Cisco.