SOS Investigating Alleged Campaign Finance Violations by Political Operative Gregory Graf

Gregory Graf, a political operative in Idaho, is being investigated by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office for alleged campaign finance violations.

Idaho Dispatch submitted a report to the SOS office this week after we investigated the alleged violations, which did not yield Sunshine reports (Electioneering Communication, Independent Expenditure, and/or 48-hour) for four Facebook ads Graf ran earlier this year under “Political Potatoes,” a political blog operated by Graf.

Our report to the SOS office alleged that campaign violations may have occurred by Graf, Political Potatoes, Snake River Strategies (owned by Graf), and/or Take Back Idaho, a Political Action Committee that pays Graf for his services.

Before submitting our report to the SOS, Idaho Dispatch did everything we could to find campaign finance reports listed by Political Potatoes but found nothing. We then expanded our search to determine if Graf had possibly filed the reports under other names. Here are all the search names we used to try and find the reports:

Gregory Graf
Graf
Political Potatoes
Potatoes
Snake River Strategies
Strategies
Take Back Idaho

None of those search results returned the reports the SOS office would require for the Facebook ads. TBI does have several monthly reports listed on the SOS site, but no EC, IE, or 48-hour reports that cover the ads.

In addition to the EC or IE report that should have been filed, a 48-hour report should have been required for one ad because the amount spent was over $1,000.

When Graf’s Facebook page Political Potatoes purchased the advertisement on Facebook, he spent between $3,000 and $3,500. Below is a screenshot from the Facebook library of that ad:

The ad is a voter guide that Graf created with funds from TBI. Below is a screenshot from the voter guide website’s “About” section, which credits TBI (see 2nd paragraph) for their financial contributions.

The paragraph says that without donations from TBI, the guide would not exist. The fact that a PAC is responsible for the creation of the guide would almost certainly exclude any exemptions to disclosure.

Idaho’s Sunshine laws require that a report be filed with the SOS office anytime a candidate’s name is mentioned in an ad, even unambiguously, within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.

The date of the primary was May 21. The three primary ads in question fall well within the 30-day reporting period:

May 13 to May 19 ($100-$199)
May 13 to May 22 ($3,000-$3,500)
May 17 to May 21 ($100-$199)

The general election was on November 5, and the final ad in question was from October 22 to October 30 ($500-$599), well within the 60-day reporting period.

There are exemptions to filing an EC report, but none of the exemptions listed in Idaho Code 67-6602 appear to apply to Graf or the entities in question. The exemptions are:

“(i) Any news articles, editorial endorsements, opinion or commentary, writings, or letter to the editor printed in a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical not owned or controlled by a candidate, political committee, or political party;
(ii) Any editorial endorsements or opinions aired by a broadcast facility not owned or controlled by a candidate, political committee, or political party;
(iii) Any communication by persons made in the regular course and scope of their business or any communication made by a membership organization solely to members of such organization and their families;
(iv) Any communication that refers to any candidate only as part of the popular name of a bill or statute;
(v) A communication that constitutes an expenditure or an independent expenditure under this chapter.”

It is possible that TBI paid Graf to create the website and had him allocate money for the ads.

During 2024, TBI paid Snake River Strategies $33,000 in “Management Services” and an additional $42,200 in “General Operational Expenses” for a total of $75,200. If part of that $75,000 was to run ads on Facebook, either TBI or SRS should have disclosed the expenditure.

TBI has paid Graf’s business 78% of the total expenditures on the year, a chunk of which likely came from Democrat donors.

For instance, former Democrat gubernatorial candidate A.J. Balukoff is a donor to TBI. Additionally, Representatives Todd Achilles (D-Boise), Rick Just (D-Boise), and House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel (D-Boise) are also donors to TBI. And it is unclear how many registered Democrat voters also donate to the organization.

Those donors are in addition to one of TBI’s board members, former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones. Jones has published dozens of anti-conservative, anti-Republican opinion pieces over the last year. Jones also encouraged Democrats to crossover into the Republican Party for the primary.

Some conservatives and conservative organizations will be closely watching this investigation. Complaints from conservatives in years past were accusations that the previous SOS administration did not treat everyone the same when it came to campaign finance violations.

Idaho Dispatch would have contacted Graf to comment on the article, but Graf told us several years ago that he would not respond to questions from the Dispatch. Here is what Graf said at that time:

“Let me revise my previous stance on never commenting on articles in your propaganda network, I’ll be happy to comment on the story about your losing the lawsuit I’ve filed against you. That’s the only story I will comment on.”

Graf dropped his lawsuit after a judge had thrown out most of it, and he was left with trying to prove defamation as a public figure.

Do you believe Graf and/or TBI violated Idaho’s Sunshine laws? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Tags: A.J. Balukoff, Ads, Elections, Facebook, Gregory Graf, Illana Rubel, Jim Jones, Political Potatoes, Rick Just, Secretary of State, Snake River Strategies, Sunshine Laws, Take Back Idaho, Todd Achilles, Voter Guide

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