White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s failed 2022 congressional campaign still has more than $326,000 in debt, according to federal filings.
The documents, first reported by NOTUS, reveal that Leavitt’s campaign for a House of Representatives seat in New Hampshire still has $326,370.50 in debts and obligations, mostly to donors owed refunds for making donations exceeding federal contribution limits.
The 2022 campaign, which would’ve made Leavitt, then age 25, the youngest woman ever to serve in the House, also has zero cash on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission, raising questions about how donors will ever get their money back.
The campaign has refunded $2,900 to each of Leavitt’s parents, NOTUS previously reported.
End Citizens United, a liberal watchdog group, filed a complaint with elections regulators in November over the stalled refunds, but the FEC has lacked enough commissioners since last May to carry out major actions despite a growing list of pending enforcement actions and the upcoming midterms.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Leavitt, by federal law, is not personally liable for her campaign committee’s debts, according to OpenSecrets.
The press secretary could donate funds to the committee to pay back the donors, or the campaign could raise more funds for the payments.
Leavitt earns a salary of $195,200, and her husband, developer Nicholas Riccio, has been described as founding a “multimillion-dollar” real estate business.
Leavitt’s congressional campaign was one of the first nationally by a Gen Z candidate.
Leavitt, who served in the first Trump administration as an assistant press secretary, later echoed the Republican’s 2020 election conspiracies on the campaign trail, winning a crowded primary but losing in the general election.
She remained in the Trump orbit, serving as national press secretary on his comeback campaign in 2024.
Since returning to the White House, Leavitt, the youngest ever press secretary, has presided over a briefing room rife with tension, as the administration sidelines professional journalists in favor of conservative social media influencers.
“They don’t view the briefing room as a way to impart information,” New York Times reporter Peter Baker told Politico last year of the dynamic. “They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.”
