Old campaign money flows to former intelligence chair’s new group, and former staffers

As they await January 2, 2016 — the day they can legally become lobbyists — former Rep. Mike Rogers(R-Mich.) and his former chief of staff, along with two more of Rogers’ onetime staffers, have found a use for some of the lawmaker’s $1.3 million leftover campaign funds.

It doesn’t involve many contributions to other candidates or the Republican party — two of the more common deployments of unneeded election money.

So far this year, the staffers and a new Rogers-led nonprofit have received $272,644 from his old campaign account, most of which was raised last cycle from industry political action committees. Rogers was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when he announced his retirement in March 2014, declaring he’d serve out the rest of his term and leave Congress to do a radio show.

But he also became honorary chairman of a new group called Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security (APPS), which received $200,000 of the campaign funds this year.

Back in January, Rogers converted his principal campaign committee into a PAC called Securing America’s Future. Securing America’s Future hasn’t raised a dime of its own in 2015 (as of June 30) but has spent more than $413,000 of the money raised while Rogers was in office — including the $200,000 to APPS, which is labeled “donations.”...

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/11/leadership-pacs-2/