We’ve spent plenty of time here covering lurid tales of members of Congress who have been found to be lining their own pockets (or those of their families) with campaign donations paid to third-party companies. It happens in both parties to be sure, but I found a headline today from the Daily Caller to be particularly disappointing (if true) because it involved Texas GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw. (He’s been a favorite of mine for some time.) The headline reads, “EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Dan Crenshaw Campaign Paid Firm That Employs His Wife.”

Well, that certainly doesn’t sound good at first glance. But we’ll need to dig a bit further into the details to get a grip on just what’s going on here. It turns out that his wife, Tara Crenshaw, works for a “boutique branding agency” named Pink Cilantro, based in Houston, Texas. And Crenshaw’s campaign has paid them more than $350,000 over the past few years. But that topline summary hardly tells the entire story.

Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s campaign has paid a small agency that employs his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2020, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reviewed by the Daily Caller.

The firm, Pink Cilantro, is a boutique branding agency based in Houston, Texas. The agency’s website, in service since 2013, went offline as recently as June, according to the internet archive called “The Wayback Machine.” Pink Cilantro’s owner, Basya Benshushan, told the Caller that they are in the process of “rebranding” the agency and that’s why the website is down.

Since 2020, Crenshaw’s campaign has paid Pink Cilantro more than $350,000. A Crenshaw spokesperson confirmed to the Caller that Tara Crenshaw is still an employee of Pink Cilantro but said her work is separate from the work the agency does for Crenshaw’s campaign.

Okay, so the initial facts don’t appear to be in dispute. Tara Crenshaw “works for” Pink Cilantro. And she is compensated for her services. But beyond that, the picture begins to look a lot less sinister than it might have initially.

First of all, Tara Crenshaw did not receive $350,000 for her services. In fact, not only does she not own or run the company, it’s arguable that she barely works for them. She receives no salary from Pink Cilantro. All of her work is done on commission. The owner of the company checked her records and said that Tara had received a total of roughly $60,000 over the period in question. And all of that commission was paid based on book sales. While it’s not specified, it’s possible that her work involved publicizing Crenshaw’s 2020 book.

I’m not going to make light of any campaign money going to family members, but $60,000 spread out over two or three years isn’t exactly going to be sending the couple to Barbados for a long summer break. And since it was commission work, Tara Crenshaw would have had to deliver respectable book sales through her promotional and branding work in order to earn those payments.

In the end, this story will deliver some unfortunate optics for Crenshaw, but not much more. His wife is entitled to earn a living and Pink Cilantrol probably saw her as a good acquisition if it gave them access to someone of her husband’s profile. (They do a lot of other work for Crenshaw’s campaign that his wife is not involved in or paid for.) I suppose the entire affair would have looked better if she hadn’t worked there at all, but is he really going to tell his wife “you can’t take that job?” That depends on how much he enjoys sleeping on the couch, I suppose.

And before we blow this story too far out of proportion, let’s keep one thing in mind. Dan Crenshaw is still several lightyears away from getting into the same league as many other Washington swamp creatures, particularly Maxine Waters and James Clyburn. And yes, they are back in the news again this week for the same reason, dealing with sums of money that Tara Crenshaw can likely only dream of.

Top House Dems continue paying family members thousands of dollars using campaign funds https://t.co/zjb8e9Smpo

— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) October 17, 2022