‘Something potentially very wrong is afoot,’ ethics watchdog says
When it comes to the lavish $1 million Atlanta home where Sen. Raphael Warnock has lived rent-free since 2023, the Georgia Democrat can’t expect to have his cake and eat it too, an ethics watchdog alleged in a complaint filed Monday.
Warnock’s lavish DeKalb County home came equipped with a plethora of luxury accommodations, including a 100-bottle wine fridge, a bluetooth-enabled cooking range, and remote-controlled privacy curtains. The senator hasn’t paid a penny out of his own pocket to live there because the church where he serves as a part-time pastor is footing the bill, the Washington Free Beacon reported. It’s a great deal for Warnock, but it may violate Senate ethics rules that limit how much lawmakers can accept from outside employment, the ethics watchdog Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) alleged in a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee.
“This is a matter of plain common sense,” FACT executive director Kendra Arnold said in the complaint. “It is difficult to fathom [how] any citizen could look at this situation (a U.S. Senator being a part-time employee of an organization that happens to buy him a million-dollar house to live in for free after he was elected to Congress, and after which he sells his own house) and not think something potentially very wrong is afoot.”
In her complaint, Arnold said Warnock’s free luxury housing arrangement likely violates the Ethics in Government Act, which could carry a range of sanctions for the Georgia Democrat including public reprimand, fines, or censure. She said Senate ethics rules only allow for Warnock’s free housing deal if it’s customary for Ebenezer Baptist Church to provide free luxury homes to its part-time pastors and if it’s something the church provided to Warnock independently from his position as a senator.
Those requirements “have not been met,” Arnold said in her complaint, noting that the value of Warnock’s housing benefit appears to far exceed the part-time nature of his work with the church.
“Especially given the limited amount of time Senator Warnock has for outside employment and the $31,815.12 annual salary he receives from the church in addition to the housing, it appears clear that the housing is excessive and unreasonable for the services he is actually performing,” Arnold wrote.
Arnold’s belief that Warnock’s housing benefit is excessive is shared by Dr. Albert Paul Brinson, a former associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was ordained at Ebenezer Baptist Church by the civil rights icon in 1965. Brinson said during an interview with a local activist in March that King “would have never endorsed” church funds being used to facilitate luxury living for its pastor. Brinson said Ebenezer Baptist Church’s housing allowance was designed to provide modest accommodations for its pastors.
Warnock’s financial entanglements with Ebenezer Baptist Church have been a consistent political headache for the Georgia Democrat. During his 2022 reelection campaign, Warnock came under fire for accepting a $7,417-per-month tax-free housing allowance from the church to cover his Atlanta living expenses, an arrangement that enabled him to exceed the Senate’s outside income limitations. At the same time the church underwrote Warnock’s living expenses, however, it also owned a low-income Atlanta apartment building that tried to evict residents during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic for as little as $28.55 in past-due rent, the Free Beacon reported.
The circumstances of the church’s purchase of Warnock’s luxury DeKalb County home in October 2022 are also suspect, Arnold said. Ebenezer Baptist Church purchased the luxury home just a few months before Warnock secured his reelection bid that year and before he purchased his own $1.15 million townhome in Washington, D.C., in January 2023. Warnock then sold his personal Atlanta home shortly after moving into the church’s luxury house. The timing, Arnold said, “suggests his position as a Senator was a consideration in providing this specific housing,” the watchdog said.
Even if the Senate Ethics Committee clears Warnock of any wrongdoing for accepting free housing from his church in lieu of the $7,417-per-month he received during his first Senate term, Arnold said he would run into another problem: The Georgia Democrat didn’t disclose the value of his free luxury housing in his 2023 financial disclosure in what she said is a violation of the Ethics in Government Act. “There is simply no contrary argument that it is not disclosable,” Arnold said.
“One must ask, if the laws written do not prohibit this particular situation or, at the bare minimum, at least merit a mere investigation, then what were they even written for?” Arnold said. “It is inarguable that the known facts do not appear to comply with the Senate Ethics rules, whether the Senate Ethics Committee will act upon it, enforce the law, and maintain the public’s confidence is another question.”
Warnock’s office did not return a request for comment.
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