{"id":20965,"date":"2026-07-29T13:12:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T08:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20965"},"modified":"2026-07-29T13:12:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T08:12:28","slug":"dnc-lost-big-bucks-to-email-scammer-posing-as-ken-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20965","title":{"rendered":"DNC Lost Big Bucks to Email Scammer Posing as Ken Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5728355\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5728355\" class=\"size-large wp-image-5728355\" src=\"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-1200x800.jpg\" alt=\"DNC chair Ken Martin\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5728355\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(AP Photo\/Allison Robbert)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Democratic National Committee sent approximately $29,000 to an email scammer posing as DNC Chair<strong> Ken Martin<\/strong>, a new report revealed.<\/p>\n<p>NOTUS\u2019 <strong>David Levinthal<\/strong> first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/democrats\/democratic-national-committee-email-scammer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> on the email scammer on Tuesday, citing interviews with party officials as well as records previously unreported on.<\/p>\n<p>According to a 2025 letter from <strong>Jack Baisden<\/strong>, Senior Campaign Finance &amp; Reviewing Analyst at the Federal Election Commission, to the DNC\u2019s treasurer, there was a \u201cmisdisbursement\u201d to the tune of $28,860.92. The DNC responded to the inquiry in August, explaining there was a transaction that was the result of \u201cfraudulent activity by an external third party.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The response reads:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This is in response to your July 8, 2025 letter requesting additional information from DNC Services Corp.\/Democratic<br \/>National Committee (the \u201cCommittee\u201d) regarding a misdisbursement of Committee funds. The identified transaction was the<br \/>result of fraudulent activity by an external third party. The Committee has no reason to believe that the transaction<br \/>involved any misappropriation or misconduct by Committee personnel. Committee staff discovered the issue quickly and<br \/>promptly notified its bank in order to recover the misdisbursed funds. The Committee maintains an internal controls<br \/>policy consistent with the Federal Election Commission\u2019s safe harbor policy, and the Committee is taking further steps<br \/>to avoid similar events in the future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A scammer reportedly sent a fraudulent email to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/dnc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DNC<\/a> in February, 2025, and the scammer was posing as Martin, an official told NOTUS. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/ken-martin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Martin<\/a> had entered his role only days before the email was sent out, and the staffer who sent out the payment to the scammer has since been let go from the organization. Martin became DNC chair on February 1.<\/p>\n<p>The DNC alerted law enforcement to the email scam. The error was reportedly caught in minutes, but the DNC only received $7000 of the payment that was sent out. As the report noted, the DNC has been facing cash flow issues. They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/democrats\/dnc-headquarters-collateral-loan-ken-martin-phone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reportedly<\/a> put their Washington, D.C. headquarters up as collateral in order to secure a $15 million loan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe DNC takes seriously our duty to protect the funds provided to us by millions of patriotic Americans chipping in to fund our mission,\u201d DNC spokesperson <strong>Mia Ehrenberg<\/strong> told NOTUS. \u201cThis was a one-off mistake that was promptly caught and addressed, and no similar issues have occurred since.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(AP Photo\/Allison Robbert) The Democratic National Committee sent approximately $29,000 to an email scammer posing as DNC Chair Ken Martin, a new report revealed. NOTUS\u2019 David Levinthal first reported on the email scammer on Tuesday, citing interviews with party officials as well as records previously unreported on. According to a 2025 letter from Jack Baisden,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP26013051799130-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}