LEBANON — Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill, D-Lebanon, faces a $1,000 fine for violating the state’s rules for campaign finances during the 2024 election cycle.
Liot Hill’s campaign was one of one of four from last year that received finance-related sanctions issued by the New Hampshire Office of the Attorney General, according to a Friday news release.
The Attorney General also issued three fines to a top Republican lawmaker and two Republican political committees.
House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, is listed on two of the penalties, one for violations within his personal campaign committee and one for issues with the Committee to Elect House Republicans, which he chairs. Fines totaled $3,500.
The political advocacy group Granite Solutions also faces a fine of $500. Deputy House Majority Leader Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, was the committee’s chairman and treasurer.
All of the politicians, including Liot Hill, had taken corrective action before being fined, according to the four letters, but they were still penalized and ordered to cease and desist from further violations of state campaign finance law.
In New Hampshire, politicians or political committees that raise or expend more than $1,000 during a campaign cycle are required to file campaign finance reports with the Attorney General’s Office monthly during the campaign cycle.
The Attorney General’s office launched all four investigations in response to complaints it received, according to the letters signed by Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell.
The election law unit typically launches an investigation after receiving a complaint “or other information indicating a potential violation” of state election law, Mike Garrity, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said in a Monday email.
Liot Hill’s finances first came under scrutiny after a complaint was lodged against her in December alleging she improperly used campaign finances to cover personal expenses, including clothing and cleaning services.
After receiving the complaint, the Attorney General’s Office requested more information from Liot Hill about her expenditures, including changes she had made in amended reports. Liot Hill answered questions from O’Donnell and repaid her campaign $4,600 to cover the improper expenditures.
Though she corrected the reports and repaid the costs, Liot Hill has maintained that she considers the purchases appropriate uses of campaign funds, such as buying campaign-appropriate clothing and paying a cleaning company to prepare her house for a campaign event.
“While I respectfully differ with the AG’s Office on the interpretation of certain aspects of New Hampshire’s campaign finance law, I have taken the corrective actions requested and paid the fine in the interest of resolving the matter,” Liot Hill said in a Friday statement. “My campaign has fully cooperated throughout this process and will remain in compliance. My focus continues to be on serving the people of District 2 and the State of New Hampshire with transparency and accountability.”
New Hampshire Republicans have used Liot Hill’s campaign finance issues and the alleged misuse of her political email address as grounds to call for her resignation or impeachment.
In August, Sweeney, whose political committee also was fined last week, called for the Legislature to impeach Liot Hill after she was accused of improper use of her political email address.
Last month, he filed a House legislative service request, which will become a bill in the January legislative session, “instructing the house of representatives to investigate whether grounds exist to impeach” Liot Hill.
Under state law, an executive councilor can be impeached by lawmakers of the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate for offenses including “bribery, corruption, malpractice or maladministration.”
On Monday, New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman James MacEachern issued a statement saying that Liot Hill “broke the law and betrayed the trust of voters.” MacEachern’s statement did not acknowledge the sanctions on Republicans imposed Wednesday.
Sweeney’s group Granite Solutions was ordered to pay a $500 fine for failing to file two reports in the 2022 election cycle.
Osborne received the highest sanction of $2,000 for failing to file any reports for the 2022 or 2024 election cycles for his candidate committee, Friends of Jason Osborne, and for taking more than seven months to file the reports after being ordered to do so by the Attorney General’s Office in January.
The Committee to Elect House Republicans was issued a $1,500 penalty for failing to file a report in the 2022 election cycle and for “several substantial discrepancies” in its filings for the 2024 election cycle, including not accounting for past surplus funds and amending a report more than a year after it was filed.
Osborne was the committee’s chairman and its treasurer was state Rep. Jim Kofalt, R-Wilton.
Even after hiring an accounting firm, the committee still was unable to reconcile some of its month-over-month expenses from 2022, according to the Attorney General’s Office letter.
