Ronny Jackson Corruption & Ethics Texas

The Ethics Office Told Ronny Jackson to Stop Paying for His Private Club With Campaign Money. He Kept Paying — and Changed What He Called It.

Jackson's campaign spent $11,928.27 at an Amarillo dining club that gives him and his wife unlimited access to the dining rooms, gym and a national network of country clubs. The ethics office referred him twice. He refused to be interviewed. So did the club.

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 11, 2026

The Ethics Office Told Ronny Jackson to Stop Paying for His Private Club With Campaign Money. He Kept Paying — and Changed What He Called It.

In October 2020, a month before he was first elected to Congress, Ronny Jackson joined the Amarillo Club — a private dining club on the top two floors of a downtown Amarillo office tower.

His campaign started paying the dues. It has never stopped.

The Office of Congressional Ethics — the independent, nonpartisan board that screens ethics complaints before the House Ethics Committee sees them — looked at those payments and referred Jackson to the Ethics Committee. Then it looked again three years later and referred him a second time, because he had kept right on paying.

Both times, the board found there was "substantial reason to believe" he had converted campaign money to personal use.

What the membership buys

The OCE described the club in its March 2024 referral — a public document you can read yourself. Jackson's membership gives him and his wife unlimited access to:

the club's dining rooms
a gym and a yoga room
banquet and meeting rooms
club events
reciprocal privileges at Invited, a national network of private golf, country, city and stadium clubs across the United States

The club's own marketing, quoted in the report, sells members on a place to "wine and dine" with "luxury service," an "elegant ambiance," and a "newly remodeled upscale dining room, all while taking in a West Texas sunset."

Between October 2020 and January 2024, the report found, Jackson's campaign committee — Texans for Ronny Jackson — spent $11,928.27 at the club on dues, fees, meals and other services. Of that, at least $6,839.18 was membership dues, paid at about $175 a month, every month, for years.

The rule is not ambiguous

Federal election rules list, by name, the things campaign money can never be spent on. One of them is this, quoted in the OCE report:

"Dues, fees or gratuities at a country club, health club, recreational facility or other nonpolitical organization, unless they are part of the costs of a specific fundraising event that takes place on the organization's premises."

Jackson's lawyers argued the membership was really about meeting space for the campaign. The FEC anticipated that argument thirty years ago and closed it. From the same report:

"this exception does not cover payments made to maintain unlimited access to such a facility, even if access is maintained to facilitate fundraising activity. The exception is limited to payments for the costs of a specific fundraising event."

You can charge the campaign for a fundraiser you hold at the club. You cannot charge the campaign for a membership.

He was warned in 2021. He kept paying.

The first OCE referral went to the Ethics Committee on December 17, 2021. The committee released it publicly on May 23, 2022. Jackson knew.

Here is what happened next, in the OCE's words:

"Instead of halting the expenditure of campaign funds toward membership at the social club, Rep. Jackson's campaign continued to make consistent payments to the Amarillo Club."

The payments didn't change. The labels on them did. The OCE tracked how the campaign described those monthly disbursements in its FEC filings over time:

"Registration Fees"
"Membership Fees"
"Food/Beverage"
"Membership Fees Food/Beverage Site Fee"
"Membership Dues"
"Membership for Exclusive Campaign Purposes"

Same club. Same monthly charge. New paperwork.

Between October 2021 and January 2024 — that is, entirely after the first referral was in the Ethics Committee's hands — the campaign made 28 more monthly dues payments, totaling $4,910.11.

Then he refused to answer questions

The OCE opened its second review in December 2023. It asked Jackson for documents and an interview. It asked the Amarillo Club for records.

Both said no.

The report is blunt about it. "The following individuals refused to cooperate with the OCE's review: (1) Rep. Jackson; and (2) The Amarillo Club." Jackson's counsel handed over some invoices, then told the office he would not respond further because, in his view, this was just the old case again. "Ultimately, Rep. Jackson declined to interview or provide any additional documents or testimony."

That refusal had a purpose, and the report spells out the consequence:

"Since Rep. Jackson and employees of the Amarillo Club refused to cooperate with this review, the OCE could not determine to what extent his use of the club and the campaign committee's food and beverage spending at the club was campaign related."

Nobody can say how many of those steak dinners were campaign meetings and how many were dinner, because the congressman and the club both declined to say. The OCE board — voting 6 to 0 — recommended that the Ethics Committee subpoena them both.

How it ended

It ended quietly, on December 30, 2024, in a batch statement issued the week between Christmas and New Year's.

The Ethics Committee closed the Jackson matter along with three others, saying the FEC's own rules in this area are "often ambiguous" and contain "significant gray areas." Its finding, verbatim:

"In several of the matters that the Committee is resolving, there was evidence that the Member's campaign did not fully comply with the applicable standards relating to personal use of campaign funds, as well as reporting or recordkeeping requirements for campaign expenditures. However, there was no evidence that any Member intentionally misused campaign funds for their personal benefit."

Read that twice. There was evidence the campaign didn't comply. There was no evidence he meant to.

That is not a finding that nothing happened. It is a finding that the committee wasn't going to punish anyone — after the OCE had told it, in writing, that it couldn't establish intent one way or the other because the congressman wouldn't sit for an interview and asked for subpoenas that were never issued.

Jackson's own reaction: "I did everything by the book and have fully complied with the committee since these false allegations were first referred by the OCE in 2021." He said this about a review in which, as the Texas Tribune reported, he provided a written response but never sat for an interview.

Why this is worth $12,000 of your attention

It is not the money. Twelve thousand dollars is nothing next to the $4,679,322.13 he reported having in the bank at the end of March 2026.

It's the pattern. A watchdog office tells a congressman, on the record, that what he's doing looks like converting donors' money into a country-club membership for himself and his wife. He doesn't stop. He relabels the line item and keeps going. When investigators come back, he won't answer their questions — and the club that holds the records won't either.

Not answering is a habit. When a reporter asked him in July 2026 about a Texas Republican candidate's crude insult aimed at the women of Moms Demand Action, Jackson refused to answer and headed up the Capitol steps. The same month, he found the time to demand a federal investigation of two Wall Street advisory firms for being "woke."

Other members treat an ethics inquiry as something to answer. Mike Kelly sat for the Ethics Committee and got reproved unanimously — largely for how he answered. Jackson's approach was simpler: don't answer at all, wait, and let the file close.

The people who gave money to Texans for Ronny Jackson gave it to elect a congressman. Some of it bought a gym membership and reciprocal privileges at golf clubs around the country.

We deserve better.