“Today, the non-partisan ethics watchdog, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), filed a complaint requesting the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability investigate and take appropriate action against Muriel Bowser, Mayor of Washington, DC, to determine if she accepted illegal gifts of travel and hospitality regarding several of her recent prominent trips. Despite public inquiries, the mayor’s office has either ignored questions or provided false information about her travels,” says a press release from the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT).

“In 2023, Mayor Bowser and four of her staffers traveled to Doha for the UN Climate Conference in Dubai. No record showed who funded the trip (except a three-night $3,500 taxpayer-paid hotel stay in Dubai from Bowser’s Chief of Staff). When the press questioned this, the mayor’s office initially said the trip was paid for by the DC Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber later said that was not true. Then, the mayor’s office said the trip was paid for by the US Conference of Mayors.”

“That was also false. Then in February, the mayor’s office sent a letter to Qatar because it was Qatar who actually paid for their trip. The letter requested an expense breakdown, labeled the payments as an ‘in-kind donation’, and sought a retroactive donation agreement – despite the trip occurring years earlier. Shockingly, it wasn’t until a March 2025 FOIA request that it was publicly revealed Qatar had paid over $61,930 for the 2023 trip the mayor’s office now claims was a donation. As of May 2025, the District still lacks a record of Qatar’s payment. In addition to their Qatar excursion, the Mayor has taken a handful of other trips which have gone unreported – including to the Masters Golf Tournament, Las Vegas, Miami, and Mar-a-Lago,” the watchdog’s Tuesday press release continued.

Lest there be any mistaking the nature of “FACT,” previous four press releases listed on their website are headlined “FACT Calls for Investigation into Senator Warnock for Failing to Disclose Free Housing on Financial Disclosures,” “Ethics Watchdog Calls for Investigation into Senator Booker for Linking Senate Floor Speech to Request for Campaign Contributions,” “FACT Calls for Investigation into Senator Jon Ossoff for Tying Campaign Donations to Official Senate Actions,” and “Ethics Watchdog Urges OCE to Investigate Representative Cherfilus-McCormick Regarding the Missing $5 Million Mistakenly Paid to Her Company by The State of Florida.” So they went four for five on Black Dems.

And the other one’s the Jewish guy… Plus from 2014 through 2017 FACT’s executive director was future Acting US Attorney General and current US Ambassador to NATO Matthew “Big Dick Toilet Salesman” Whitaker. In 2015 and 2016 he was the sole employee of the outfit, pulling in $400,000 a year to write these kinds of complaints that don’t mean shit and never go anywhere. That goes for ethics complaints filed by groups on both sides – with the possible exception of CREW, who have kicked some serious ass in a number of major cases, like when they got the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt “charity” status of the Donald J Trump Foundation. The rest are all just glorified political agitprop and screed-ish op-eds packaged as an official legal complaint to some oversight body that’s already been neutralized or purposely bricked by Republicans one way or another.

All that said… Actually what need be said about a MAGA “watchdog” calling attention to a Dem for accepting travel to fucking Qatar and Mar-a-Lago? Who the hell thought this was a good idea and an effective means of practicing political advocacy for the conservative movement?