John Tecklenburg's
Dark Money Political Stunt
The Mayor is trying to create extremes where they don’t exist to divide our city. He is trying to pit us against each other hoping that people stay home and don’t show up to hold him accountable for a lackluster record. We don’t need this dishonesty that has infected Washington for too long to come to Charleston.
TECKLENBURG EMPLOYS DARK MONEY
TO SUPPRESS VOTER TURNOUT
Our campaign has discovered new information regarding
two
dark money groups
directly connected to Tecklenburg’s re-election campaign. The actions by Mayor Tecklenburg’s dark money groups are being led by Donald Trump’s Impeachment Attorney, Butch Bowers of Columbia, South Carolina.
Cogswell’s campaign was made aware of the two groups from a Facebook post from Tecklenburg supporter and local attorney Roy Willey. The post included a digital ad paid for by the dark money group propagating misinformation to
confuse voters
and
suppress voter turnout.
Mayor Tecklenburg’s campaign disclosures show a $10,000 payment to Butch Bowers this election cycle, and Bowers is listed as the incorporator for “Coalition for a Better Charleston, LLC” and “Prosperity Alliance, LLC.” One group controlled by Bowers
pretends to support Cogswell, while his other group uses that
misinformation
to support Tecklenburg.
We are urging voters to be on the lookout for more political hit pieces from these two groups.
Reporting On Tecklenburg Scandal
"As evidence of Tecklenburg’s involvement in the advertising, Cogswell’s staff pointed to South Carolina Ethics Commission filings that show Karl “Butch” Bowers Jr. as an attorney paid by the 2019 Tecklenburg campaign for legal work. Bowers also is listed as the owner of the two LLCs that ran the ad campaigns, Coalition for a Better Charleston and Prosperity Alliance, LLC, filings with the South Carolina Secretary of State’s office show."
- Post and Courier, 11/1
"The Tecklenburg campaign clearly recognizes this, and was caught earlier this week in a ham-handed attempt to tie Cogswell to the conservative Moms for Liberty group. Team Tecklenburg appears to have used Republican attorney Butch Bowers (the same attorney Alex Murdaugh allegedly attempted to have facilitate his son’s readmission in law school after his expulsion for a $40,000 fee) to purchase ads suggesting Cogswell supports Moms for Liberty, while simultaneously running ads criticizing him for receiving the group’s support.
This attempt to shift the public’s perception of Cogswell might have been more effective if a bevy of documents didn’t directly tie this dark money hit-job to Tecklenburg."
- FitsNews, 11/3
Resources
For inquiries, please contact:
Deja McMillan
media@cogswellformayor.com
