Mike Lawler Corruption & Ethics New York

Mike Lawler's Campaign Has Paid $502,000 to the Consulting Firm He Co-Founded. The Man Who Runs It Still Owes Lawler Up to $250,000.

Lawler's congressional campaign has paid Checkmate Strategies $502,538 since 2022. He didn't sign a deal to sell his half of the firm until 2025, and his newest disclosure shows he is still owed $100,001 to $250,000 on that sale — paid, the firm's head says, out of his own pocket — while the campaign's monthly fee to the firm went up.

MAGA Report Cards · Sep 17, 2026

Mike Lawler's Campaign Has Paid $502,000 to the Consulting Firm He Co-Founded. The Man Who Runs It Still Owes Lawler Up to $250,000.

Mike Lawler co-founded a political consulting firm called Checkmate Strategies in 2018. His partner was Republican strategist Chris Russell, who runs it today.

Since Lawler first ran for Congress, his campaign committee has paid that firm $502,538. And his newest financial disclosure, filed last month, shows he is still owed between $100,001 and $250,000 for his share of it — paid out in installments, with interest, by the man whose firm his campaign keeps hiring.

None of this is illegal. That is the problem. On September 15, the Times Union laid out how Lawler's campaigns, the groups he led, and the local party he chairs have all sent money to the firm he started. We checked the federal records ourselves. Here is what they show.

The campaign money

Every dollar a federal campaign spends has to be reported to the Federal Election Commission. Lawler for Congress, Inc. has reported paying Checkmate Strategies for mailers, ads, palm cards, research, "media tracking" and a monthly public relations fee. By year:

2022: $180,758 (his first run for Congress)
2023: $31,803
2024: $157,547
2025: $52,864
January through June 2026: $79,566

That adds up to $502,538 — about the $500,000 that Politico has reported.

The monthly public relations fee is the steadiest line. In 2024, the campaign paid Checkmate $7,500 every month. In March 2026, the fee went up to $10,500 a month, and it stayed there through June.

He owned half the firm while his campaign paid it

When Lawler first ran for Congress in 2022, his candidate disclosure listed a "50% Interest" in Checkmate Strategies. The same form shows the firm paid him $160,404.59 in 2021 and $81,250 in the first half of 2022. That summer, his congressional campaign started writing checks to it.

Back then, City & State asked about it. A Lawler spokesperson said he had told the firm's accountants to "firewall him from any profits resulting from his campaign."

Lawler did not sell his stake after he won. According to Russell, Lawler left the firm when he was sworn into Congress in 2023, but did not sign a buyout deal until 2025. Politico also reports that Lawler divested in 2025.

That means the campaign's 2023 and 2024 payments to Checkmate — $189,349 — went out before Lawler had signed the deal to sell his share of the firm.

His first two yearly reports as a congressman put no dollar value on that share. The 2023 report doesn't list Checkmate as an asset at all. It says only that a "separation agreement is pending." The 2024 report lists Checkmate with a value of "None" and $15,001 to $50,000 in "separation payment" income.

The money he's still owed

Reading that 2024 form, Politico reported in May that selling his stake netted Lawler up to $50,000.

The 2025 report, filed August 13, 2026, shows a bigger number. It lists a "Note from the sale of ownership interest, payable in installments over several years with interest," and gives the amount still owed as $100,001 to $250,000. It also reports another $15,001 to $50,000 in capital gains and interest from that note in 2025.

So the sale was worth more than $50,000, and at least $100,001 of it has not been paid yet.

Who writes the checks

Russell told the Times Union that the buyout payments come from him and his wife personally, not from the firm. He showed the paper scans of five checks written between January 2024 and this past July, each for $18,610, made out to Lawler and his wife. Russell called the idea that Lawler profits from his campaign hiring Checkmate "100% false."

Lawler went further in emails to the paper: "There is no self-dealing. I'm not benefiting from or seeing one penny from any work that Checkmate does, either directly or indirectly."

Take them at their word, and here is the arrangement that is left:

As of June, Lawler's campaign was paying Chris Russell's firm $10,500 a month, plus extra for ad design and palm cards.
Russell and his wife are personally paying Lawler for his old share, with $100,001 to $250,000 still owed.
Russell also serves as Lawler's campaign spokesperson, Politico reported in May.

The campaign money comes from donors. Whether the buyout checks are drawn on a business account or a personal one, the man paying Lawler runs the firm Lawler's campaign is paying.

It didn't start with Congress

Before Lawler reached Congress, groups he ran also paid his firm. Politico found that organizations he controlled paid Checkmate at least $221,515 between 2019 and 2021:

New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, a natural gas advocacy group, paid Checkmate $97,000 to lobby for it while Lawler was its director — and Lawler was listed as its lobbyist.
17 Forward 86, an economic development group he led, paid Checkmate $95,000 for lobbying.
The Orangetown Republican Committee, which he chaired, paid Checkmate more than $26,000 for mailers and consulting.

His own 2022 disclosure lists the clients that paid more than $5,000 for his work, including the New York Republican State Committee, the Rockland County Republican Committee and the Orangetown Republican Committee.

Lawler now chairs the Rockland County Republican Committee. The Times Union found that in 2025, a year after he took that job, the committee paid Checkmate $2,283, according to state Board of Elections records.

Lawler told Politico he was put in charge of those two advocacy groups because they wanted Checkmate to work for them.

Rachael Fauss of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany told Politico: "These kinds of self-dealing transactions should be banned." She told the Times Union that if a government hired a vendor this way, it would be a clear conflict of interest. "In a campaign finance context, the rules are not strong enough, but that doesn't mean it isn't problematic for the public."

We've seen this pattern before. In Oregon, Christine Drazan's nonprofit paid $96,000 to a consulting firm she owns.

What the filings show

Mike Lawler's congressional campaign has paid Checkmate Strategies, the firm he co-founded, $502,538 since 2022 — including $189,349 in 2023 and 2024, before his 2025 deal to sell his share of it. His latest House disclosure shows he is still owed $100,001 to $250,000 for that share — which the firm's head, Chris Russell, says he and his wife are paying personally — while the campaign's monthly fee to Russell's firm rose from $7,500 to $10,500 this year.