Tag Archives: St. Charles County

by - 0 comments

Deceptive Political Fundraising: A Cautionary Tale

Politicians running deceptive political fundraising campaigns can’t count on hiding in the dark. 

A case in point.

Earlier this year I started getting bombarded with high-intensity inflammatory emails, such as one urging me to support President Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act and another telling me, “Without mandatory voter ID in ALL 50 states, your vote will be replaced by an illegal alien”. And, of course, every email asked for a contribution. 

I noticed none of the emails actually listed a political candidate associated with it, just something called Bill PAC.  It turned out BILL PAC is a political action committee associated with William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County who’s now seeking the post of St. Charles County Executive. Some more digging revealed he’s running a deceptive national fundraising campaign targeting vulnerable seniors. 

That motivated me to write a couple stories:

Those stories came to the attention of Rudi Keller, Deputy Editor of  The Missouri Independent, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy. It’s an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. The Capitol Chronicle in Oregon is part of the network. 

Keller took a more exhaustive look at Eigel’s BILL PAC  and wrote a story that ran today in the Missouri Independent and The States Newsroom. His in-depth story further exposed the deceptive tactics of Eigel’s BILL PAC:

Republican Bill Eigel is once again facing accusations that his campaign relies on deceptive fundraising tactics to lure out-of-state donors to give recurring contributions

Former State Sen. Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring, shown in a 2024 photo, is using recurring donations from across the country to finance his bid for St. Charles County executive (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

Keller exposed how people across the country, overwhelmingly seniors, are being lured into contributing to BILL PAC, unaware that it is supporting a local Missouri Republican, not a national conservative campaign. 

 A retired man from Reston, VA, a consistent donor to Republican state and federal candidates and committees, made an astonishing 65 separate online donations to BILL PAC, according to reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025.

Keller tracked down some donors who had unwittingly committed to monthly recurring donations. 

A retired woman in Texas has contributed $1,205 in 74 separate donations since December. All are about the same dates each month.

A 92-year-old Korean War veteran from Nebraska named Russell Wood, made 35 donations totaling $1,050 over the last year to Bill Eigel’s campaign for St. Charles County executive. But Wood told Keller he has never heard of Eigel or set foot in St. Charles County and had no idea he had made so many donations to Eigel’s campaign.

People running for public office at the federal, state and local level always run the risk of taking an “ends justifies the means” approach to campaigning, observes Judy Nadler at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

“The conduct of the campaign itself can say a lot about the ethical principles a candidate brings to public life,” she says.  That’s something Eigel, Missourians and all voters should ponder.

by - 0 comments

Picking Seniors’ Pockets: Deceptive Online Political Fundraising Is Dialing Up Discord

I’ve written some of this story before.

Last time I wrote about how a local Missouri politician running for a county office is raising millions through deceptive online advertising that relies on highlighting inflammatory national issues.  

This time I’m writing about how he and his online marketers are dialing up discord while cynically targeting deceptive fundraising pleas at overly trusting and vulnerable retired seniors, exploiting them in a new form of elder abuse other politicians across the country may be tempted to emulate.

William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County, lost in 2024’s Missouri Republican gubernatorial primary. Now he’s running to be St. Charles, Missouri’s County Executive, probably to establish a political perch to mount another gubernatorial race in 2028.

William C. (Bill) Eigel

To support his Charles County campaign, Eigel is soliciting contributions for his Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC. Why doesn’t the PAC’s name say it’s connected to Eigel?

“Some states require PACs backing single candidates or with specific donors to include the politician or the funders in their name,” the Missouri Independent has explained. “Not Missouri. Instead, PAC names can be a set of initials used for a reason no one can remember, a feel-good name that doesn’t have anything to do with the interest being promoted or even the name of a favorite television character.

Not only is Eigel blurring his association with BILL PAC, but his online nationwide fundraising campaign is reaching out to potential supporters by emphasizing inflammatory national hot-button issues, not St. Charles County concerns. Recent email pleas focus on “mass deportations” and deporting “criminal illegal aliens”, federal payment of $5,000 “DOGE checks” to citizens, and “mandatory voter ID in ALL 50 states”.

A BILL PAC email that came today urged me to sign a petition to deport Ilhan Omar, a controversial Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota. An email I received recently went so far as to urge recipients to support President Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act, an alarming move that would gives him broad powers to authorize uses of the military in the domestic sphere while providing neither a role for Congress nor a basis for serious judicial review. Eigel’s message:

We only have until midnight to act, so sign our petition in support of using the Insurrection Act to destroy Antifa once and for all and reclaim our cities from these anarchists.

The Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) requires that political candidates file quarterly reports on their fundraising and spending. The reports filed by Bill PAC in 2025 reveal that about 99% of the contributions Eigel has reported receiving have come from people who live out of state and identify themselves as “Retired”.  It’s clear that retirees outside Missouri are Eigel’s primary target. 

Seniors are a prime target for all sorts of online scams due to factors like social isolation, a trusting nature and declining cognitive function. Many also live alone, have significant savings and have no one overseeing their spending. (By the way, I’m retired, which is probably why I’ve been getting Eigel’s emails.)

The most recent emails I received from BILL PAC focused on deporting undocumented immigrants and “defunding a United Nations Global Climate tax”, issues that are hardly within the purview of St. Charles’ County Executive.

The deportation email said only:

“122 residents of your neighborhood have signed the GOP petition to deport every illegal alien, but your name is MISSING!

 Join your neighbors ASAP:

JOIN YOUR NEIGHBORS: SIGN NOW“

If you “Sign Now” you’ll be asked for a donation of $12.50 to $250 and up. And if you don’t uncheck a yellow box, you’ll be committing to making a recurring monthly donation of your initial pledge Ad infinitum. This is a practice the ACLU says  “routinely takes advantage of older donors and first-time donors who are unfamiliar with navigating campaign fundraising platforms”.

Most individual online donations to Eigel detailed in reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025 have been in small amounts, but they add up over time.  Frequently, individuals have been making multiple contributions on the same day, almost as though they have been stuck in a loop, forgetting they’d already given that day:

For example, a retired man from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey made six separate donations ($10, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $4.75) on June 29, 2025. Another retired man from Spokane, WA made seven contributions ($20.24, $35, $10, $10, $10, $9.50, $10) on April 27, 2025.

Many prolific contributors seem almost addicted to online donations. An 86-year-old  retired woman from Lititz, PA made online donations to Bill Eigel’s Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC, 26 times.[1] A retired woman from Dalton, Georgia made donations 28 times[2].

Then there’s a retired man from Reston, VA, a consistent donor to Republican state and federal candidates and committees, who made an astonishing 65 separate online donations to BILL PAC, according to reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025[3].

Organizations including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Council on Aging and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) repeatedly warn seniors about financial scams targeting them. The warnings, however, usually caution seniors about things such as funeral scams, phony investment schemes, telemarketing/phone scams and impersonation scams. 

Clearly, it’s time to warn seniors about political fundraising scams, too. 

[1] $36.44, $36.44, $36.44; $18.22; $36.44; $36.44; $36.44;$33.25; $15, $15, $20, $20.82, $10.41, $10.41, $15; $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $6.51, $15; $12.50, $3.25, $3.25; $12.50; $15; $15.

[2] $10.41, $7.81, $7.81, $7.50, $7.50, $7.50, $20, $14.25, $10, $5.21, $5, $2.50, $5, $10.41, $3.75, $3.75, $3.75, $19, $12.50, $15, $15, $10, $15, $5, $12.50, $10, $15, $10

[3] $5.87, $5.87, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $6.11, $4.57, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $3.06, $3.06, $4,  $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $3.25, $18, $9.37, $4.68, $10, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $4.16, $4.75, $10.41, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $4.75, $5.87, $6.11, $6.11, $5.87. $6.11, $6.11, $3.06, $6.11, $4.57, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $3.06, $3.06, $4, $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $3.25, $18, $9.37, $4.68, $10, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $4.16, $4.75