“Two California men and one Texas man have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Austin, Texas, for their alleged involvement a scheme to operate two fraudulent political action committees (PACs) during the 2016 federal election cycle. The indictment was unsealed yesterday after being returned on Nov. 2. As alleged in the indictment, Matthew Nelson Tunstall, 34, of Los Angeles, California; Robert Reyes, Jr., 38, of Hollister, California; and Kyle George Davies, 29, of Austin, Texas, solicited contributions to Liberty Action Group PAC [Pro-Trump] and Progressive Priorities PAC [Pro-Hillary] under the guise that the PACs were affiliated with or meaningfully supporting specified candidates for public office. Between January 2016 and April 2017, the defendants obtained approximately $3.5 million from unwitting donors based on false and misleading representations and used those funds to enrich themselves and to pay for additional fraudulent advertisements soliciting donations”

“Tunstall and Reyes are also alleged to have laundered more than $350,000 in illegal proceeds from the scheme through a third-party vendor to conceal the use of those funds for their own benefit. If convicted of all counts, Tunstall and Reyes both face a maximum total penalty of 125 years in prison. If convicted of all counts, Davies faces a maximum total penalty of 65 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors” – DOJ Press Release.

From a CNN article “Group making anti-Trump robocalls is closely tied to a pro-Trump PAC” published February 17th, 2017: “During the 2016 election, a political action group called Liberty Action Group raised nearly $3 million through radio advertisements and robocalls by asking for contributions to help elect Donald Trump… Now, the individuals behind Liberty Action Group have turned their attention to the progressive movement, soliciting donations for a different group, Progressive Priorities PAC. Several people have reported receiving phone calls in the past month from Progressive Priorities PAC that play a recording of former President Barack Obama followed by a request to contribute to ‘help Obama impeach Trump.'”