A watchdog group is demanding the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigate if Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., violated federal law by allegedly using an accounting loophole to rake in more than four times the outside income limit for senators in 2022, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
The Foundation for Accountability, in a complaint, said it wants the panel to determine if Warnock lied on his 2022 financial disclosure. At issue is his $155,000 salary for serving as the part-time pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
There is a $30,000 outside limit for Senators.
Warnock claimed $125,000 of his pastor pay in 2022 was actually "deferred compensation" for work he did for the church before he assumed political office on Jan. 20, 2021, the Beacon reported.
"Either Sen. Warnock and his church had a deferred compensation agreement that both have conspicuously failed to report the existence of for years, or he received outside income of over four times the legal limit," FACT executive director Kendra Arnold said.
"In either case, this would be a major breach of Senate ethics laws that must immediately be investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. The applicable laws and rules are clear and the people he serves deserve to know what occurred here."
The watchdog group noted that if Warnock is found to have lied about his "deferred compensation" arrangement to rake in money past the legal limit from his church in 2022, he could be fined up to $50,000 or sent to prison for up to a year.
Pete McGinnis, communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, said last month an investigation is warranted into Warnock's financial arrangement with Ebenezer Baptist Church.
"We don't know if the newly declared 'deferred compensation' was, in fact, earned prior to becoming a senator, and the failure of both the church and Rev. Warnock to disclose it was a mistake, but it certainly deserves investigation," McGinnis told the Free Beacon. "Georgia can hardly handle any more dysfunction these days than it already has."