The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a non-partisan ethics watchdog, has filed a bombshell complaint against Georgia Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff.
FACT has accused Ossoff of violating Senate ethics rules by directly linking official action to a request for campaign contributions.
Oshoff is accused of using the recent Senate vote on averting a government shutdown to solicit personal campaign contributions.
FACT sent a letter to Ethics Committee Chairman Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Vice-Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) in which they stated:
On March 14th, 2025, Senator Ossoff sent out an email that contained only two subjects: (1) that he planned to vote against a specific bill; and (2) a request for a campaign contribution. The email began with the statement, “I will vote ‘NO’ on the Trump/Musk/Johnson ‘CR.’” Following several statements about the bill, he then makes a direct request for a campaign contribution: “If you can afford it, please rush $5 to Jon Ossoff’s re-election campaign today. If you’ve stored your info with ActBlue, we’ll process your contribution instantly.”
TOWNHALL: Ethics Complaint Comes for Sen. Jon Ossoff After He Fundraised Off of Voting to Shut Down the Government pic.twitter.com/CFSM5bLO3d
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) March 28, 2025
“Senate Ethics Rules specifically prohibit Senators from soliciting campaign contributions based upon any action taken in their official capacity,” the letter continued.
“By linking a promise of official action with campaign contributions, a Senator violates a ‘basic principle’ of Senate Ethics that guards against conflicts of interest.”
“Voting on legislation is one of the primary jobs of a Senator, which simply cannot be tied to campaign fundraising. The ethics rules forbid certain practices in campaign fundraising, and linking it to official action is one that is simply not allowed–and for good reason. This fundraising tactic dangerously incentivizes Senators to take official action based on their estimation of what will raise the most campaign funds. Senators, who are nearly always raising campaign funds, will be rightly seen as making important official decisions based on what will bring in the most money—not on the merits of an issue,” said Kendra Arnold, Executive Director of FACT.
This is not the first time that Ossoff has been under the microscope of ethics watchdogs while in office.
Last year, Ossoff co-championed a bill that would ban members of Congress their spouses or children from trading stocks while in office and require them to place pre-existing assets into a blind trust – or divest them entirely.
However, it was reported by multiple outlets that Ossoff himself owned between $1 million and $5 million in Apple stock prior to setting up his own blind trust in early 2021 – and is likely still a shareholder, even while sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee responsible for regulating the company.
Ossoff won his seat in the Senate in 2021 in a run-off election after GOP candidate David Perdue defeated him in the November 2020 general election but narrowly missed getting 50% of the vote.
His victory in the run-off election, along with Raphael Warnock’s win in another run-off, gave Georgia two Democratic U.S. senators and gave the Democrats a majority in the Senate.
Ossoff is up for re-election in 2026, but reports indicated that he will be opposed by Georgia’s popular GOP governor, Brian Kemp.