Chabot's campaign paid son-in-law's firm more than $150,000 for web consulting

Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot on the stormy start to Trump’s presidency. Video by Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steve Chabot’s campaign has paid his son-in-law’s company more than $150,000 for website design and other Internet services since 2011.

Kevin Bischof, who married Chabot’s daughter Erica in 2006, runs a consulting firm called Right Turn Design. On his LinkedIn page, Bischof says he started the company in 2010 as “a premier new media partner for conservative campaigns and organizations.”

Chabot, a Cincinnati Republican, began using Right Turn Design soon after Bischof launched the firm, paying out between $40,000 and $58,000 for each two-year election cycle, according to campaign finance reports. Right Turn Design has earned Internet consulting fees from the congressman’s re-election account, as well as from Chabot’s leadership PAC, called WinNovember.

So far this year, Chabot’s campaign has paid Right Turn Design about $11,000, records show.

Good government advocates say it smacks of nepotism and self-dealing, although it’s also perfectly legal and quite common. The money comes from donors, not taxpayers.

“The rules allow candidates to engage in these kinds of self-dealing transactions,” said Meredith McGehee, chief of policy at Issue One, a nonprofit group that advocates for stronger ethics and campaign finance rules. She said lawmakers’ campaigns are often “a family and friends affair.”

Indeed, a USA TODAY investigation in 2013 found that 32 lawmakers had hired relatives to work for their campaigns — paying out more than $2 million in campaign money, during the 2012 election cycle, to children, spouses, parents and in-laws for a gamut of different jobs. The practice is considered legal as long as the relatives are qualified and earn market rate for their work.

Jamie Schwartz, a longtime Chabot campaign adviser, strongly defended Bischof’s work and the congressman’s decision to hire a family member for campaign consulting.

“By its very definition, nepotism would suggest that the individual employed is not qualified to do the job, and my answer to that is Kevin is more than qualified,” said Schwartz. “He has the technical experience superior to others that I know in the field.”

He said Bischof does a gamut of work for Chabot, from fending off cyberattacks to maintaining the congressman’s email list.

“He’s redesigned the website three times and is in the middle of a fourth redesign right now,” said Schwartz.

He also said the Democrats were pushing the story as part of an effort to defeat the congressman in the 2018 elections. A spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which has yet to recruit a big-name challenger in Chabot’s district — declined to comment.

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Bischof did not respond to specific questions, but he sent a statement saying he has worked in “the web design/development business for 17 years” and has two registered businesses: Right Turn Design and Bischof Design. He said most of his work is in the private sector through the latter company.

He and Chabot’s daughter currently live in Watertown, N.Y., a small city in the northern part of the state. According to his LinkedIn page, Bischof graduated from the College of Wooster with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, sociology and computer science.

Bischof worked as a web producer at Xavier University for five years, starting in 2005, before starting Right Turn Design. The firm’s website boasts of its ability to provide “uniquely designed websites paired with innovative tools” to help candidates win campaigns.

“We set ourselves apart from other internet technology companies by providing campaign focused solutions,” the website declares.

Right Turn Design’s own website is a bare-bones landing page with a phone number, an email address, and little else. Chabot’s campaign website — designed by Bischof — is more sophisticated, though not a tech-savvy standout.

Several experts consulted by USA TODAY said the site is fine from a technical standpoint, though outdated and a bit clunky.

“It looks like it was designed 5 or 10 years ago. It’s your plain, boring site from 2010,” said Rob Haggart, a web designer based in New York.

The website lists Chabot’s position on key issues — a standard feature for every candidate. It also includes a “campaign news” section, although the most recent entry is a September 2016 link to parade photos posted on Chabot’s Facebook page.

The main feature of the site is Chabot’s weekly blog post, which the congressman writes himself. Chabot also finds and adds the photos he wants to use in the blog.

The congressman’s leadership PAC, started in 2012 but apparently inactive now, has paid Bischof’s firm about $23,000 over three election cycles. Chabot promoted it in a 2012 blog, but the PAC’s website currently just says “coming soon.”

Bischof’s political client list is equally minimal; Chabot is the firm’s only current congressional client, according to a search of federal campaign records.

In his statement to USA TODAY, Bishof said he doesn’t have any other political clients right now. “The majority of my business has been, and continues to be, under Bischof Design doing projects in the private sector, unrelated to political campaigns,” he said.

McGehee, of Issue One, said Bishof’s scant campaign list seemed like a “red flag” for questionable work.

“I would describe this is as the epitome of a self-dealing transaction,” she said.

Schwartz said he has worked with Bischof on two other campaigns, and he was the person who hired the congressman’s son-in-law for both. One was Boone County Judge Executive Gary Moore’s bid for Congress in the 2012 election. The second was the Union Terminal campaign in 2014, when Schwartz tapped Bischof to set up a website promoting the sales tax hike, which paid for Union Terminal’s renovation.

“The team I was working with I brought him along because he’s always done such a good job,” said Schwartz.

Moore told USA TODAY that he didn’t have any direct interactions with Bischof or his firm, since Schwartz handled that, so he couldn’t speak to his skills.

Schwartz said that Washington Democrats were “fishing for anything” they could use to tarnish Chabot.

“We were able to see that on Oct. 17 … there was a surge from their (the DCCC’s) domain name hitting our website,” he said. “So they’re desperately trying to throw anything at the congressman … (but) this isn’t going to stick.”

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Contributing: Fredreka Schouten

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