Insufficient evidence Gonzalez violated campaign finance law #NewsUnitedStates

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – The City of Portland Auditor’s Office says there is insufficient evidence that Commissioner Rene Gonzalez violated the city’s campaign finance law, after the findings of an investigation were released Monday.

The investigation centered on a complaint contending that Gonzalez, a Portland mayoral candidate and current City Commissioner, spent over $6,000 in city funds to edit the “Rene Gonzalez (Politician)” Wikipedia page in connection to his run for mayor.

The complaint was officially filed on August 16, 2024, prompting the investigation.

In a determination letter, the Auditor’s Office called the decision an “exceedingly close call,” noting that is is “undisputed” that Gonzalez’s campaign office spent $6,400 retaining an independent contractor to create eight edits on the page in June 2024.

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The office noted that Gonzalez’s primary interest appeared to be centered around removing mention of a criticism of the commissioner for tagging a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer on Twitter.

They state that there is also evidence that Gonzalez knew of and approved the edits. However, they determined that there was mixed evidence on the motive behind the edits.

In a summary of the findings, the office states,

“Based on the current record, the Auditor’s Office does not believe the evidence that City resources were provided to Gonzalez in his capacity as a candidate is strong enough to definitively outweigh contrary evidence that suggests that City resources were provided to Gonzalez in his capacity as a commissioner.”

The Auditor’s Office is referring the matter to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office for further investigation.

FOX 12 reached out to the Auditor’s Office for clarification on the investigation, and received the following statement:

The City Charter prevents candidates from receiving contributions from certain sources and above certain amounts. This investigation focused on whether the Wikipedia project was a campaign contribution to the candidate, in violation of City Charter.

Separately it is a violation of state law to use city resources to promote the election of a candidate or request that employees use resources to do so. We will refer the complaint to the Secretary of State to determine if there was a separate violation based on that issue.

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