Representative Cori Bush (D-BLM) deserves to have a happy and long-lasting marriage. Let’s just state that up front. What is in question is if paying her boyfriend-now-husband out of campaign funds is ethical.

Local Missouri news broke last night that Cori Bush and Cortney Merritts, who worked for Bush’s campaign as a security guard, got married at some point last weekend after filing their marriage license in St. Louis on February 11th. Now, we have covered in the past the congresswoman’s double standard on security. You see, SHE is important and needs security. However, her entire election platform and membership in The Squad is predicated on “defunding” the police. She resolved this obvious hypocrisy in 2021 with three words: “suck it up.”

Bush—a defund-the-police activist who has shelled out nearly $70,000 on a personal security detail using campaign funds—defended the spending during a Thursday CBS News appearance, telling her critics to “suck it up, and defunding the police needs to happen.”

“So if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend $10 more on it, you know what, I get to be here to do the work,” Bush said. “So suck it up, and defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets, because we’re trying to save lives.”

Well, Cori Bush never stopped spending campaign money on private security, and now that could be a problem. Because even though she did hire an actual security firm to protect her, she apparently paid her then-boyfriend-now-husband directly for “security.” And she has spent A LOT of money on private security. But Merritts has apparently been with her a whole lot longer than the security firm.

Merritts, a veteran of the U.S. Army, has worked for Bush’s campaign as a hired security guard. Campaign finance records show the Bush campaign has paid him $62,359 in direct payments in 2022. Most of the payments were listed for security services, while $2,359 of them were for cash reimbursements.”

Merritts’ social media posts show he traveled with Bush on her trips to her first inauguration in January of 2021, to the Ed Sullivan Theater for her appearance The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and to Central America on a trip with a Congressional delegation.”

The first direct campaign payments to Merritts were reported in 2022 after their relationship began.”

Bush began spending significant money on hiring security guards in August 2020. Between then and now, her campaign spending records show $627,088 in security-related expenses.”

Um, so he has been around for a while, tagging along on trips and the like. Was she paying him out of her own pocket before then? The timing is an open question. The Bush campaign did not announce the happy couple’s union until after the local news story broke, and their announcement could hold some potential pitfalls for Cori Bush.

Congresswoman Bush's Chief of Staff confirms the wedding occurred earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/8E1XB0UbPg

— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) February 27, 2023

Okay, so if Cortney Merritts was her “partner” BEFORE she began in Congress (which would match the social media posts), then who was paying him before the campaign began making direct payments in 2022? Also, the news report said that the campaign reported the payments AFTER they began their relationship – in 2022. So, whose dime was he traveling on when he was going with Bush to her inauguration and everywhere else? Was the campaign paying her “partner” and NOT reporting it? Did Cori Bush pay for everything? Did he pay his own way? And what is it with The Squad paying their romantic partners with campaign money? Ilhan Omar did the exact same thing with husband number three, though she had to stop using his consulting firm once the obviousness of their affair and marriage came out, and she went through an ethics investigation by the Federal Elections Commission, which ended up being dismissed because the FEC couldn’t prove that she “knowingly and willfully” broke the law.

Is Cori Bush counting on no one looking too deeply into her campaign finance records? I would not take that bet.

Beyond the regular partisan sniping in Congressional politics, these particular campaign expenses to an apparent fiancé have the potential to draw the scrutinizing eye of the FEC and the Congressional Ethics Office.”

Federal election law and House ethics rules prohibit the use of campaign funds for personal use, but guidance issued from the Federal Election Commission has allowed some members of Congress to pay family members if they performed “bona fide service.”

Bush would hardly be the first member of Congress to use campaign funds to enrich family. The practice, while relatively rare, appears to be a bipartisan practice, according to campaign finance reporting from election watchdogs at Open Secrets.”

House ethics rules also ban members from borrowing campaign funds, which raises further questions about a campaign making direct payments to a partner.”

But her office would like everyone to “respect her privacy” and be reassured that her new husband “is not employed by her Congressional office.” With all due respect, that wasn’t the question. The campaign has been the one paying him directly, in addition to cash reimbursements. Nice try, though. And as far as “respecting her privacy” – no one is questioning the validity of their relationship (though I suppose this is one way to save on security – just marry the guy protecting you). What IS being questioned is the financing of it all. Someone was paying his way between 2020 and when he appeared on the campaign’s books in 2022. Do her constituents have a right to know that? Once the relationship was disclosed in 2022, the campaign paid both Merritts AND a security firm directly for her protection? It does not appear that Merritts is an employee of the security firm, or at least there has been no comment from the firm either confirming or denying that yet. While $62,359 doesn’t seem like a LOT compared to what Bush’s campaign has been paying for security, it is right around the median income for the state of Missouri. That’s pretty good pay for only part-time work, considering the campaign was also paying for the security firm.

Cori Bush has apparently learned how to play the Swamp game well, a game played by both right and left, of how to pay close family members or romantic partners with campaign funds through loopholes. Will she get away with it? I think her odds are good, but she won’t like the publicity she will get in the meantime. Should we crack down on everyone who pays family members for campaign services, no matter which party? Absolutely. And while you’re at it, crack down on those in Congress who have used insider trading to get wealthy as well.

Congratulations to the happy couple, and good luck job hunting to Cortney Merritts. It’s going to look really awkward if Cori Bush tries to keep paying her husband with campaign funds, so unless she plans on supporting them both on her salary (which she could, considering she makes $174,000 a year), he’d better brush up that resume.

Featured image: Representative Cori Bush via US Department of Labor Flickr, cropped, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)