Mike Rogers (MI) Corruption & Ethics Billionaires & Big Business Michigan

Mike Rogers Spent More Than $100,000 of Campaign Cash on Luxury Travel in Three Months, Most of It on Private Jets

Campaign records reviewed by The Intercept show Mike Rogers' Senate campaign paid $93,152 to one charter company in September alone, including a single $40,000 bill, plus chauffeurs, limos and a stay at The Breakers in Palm Beach, while Michigan families pay war-driven fuel prices.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 20, 2026

Mike Rogers Spent More Than $100,000 of Campaign Cash on Luxury Travel in Three Months, Most of It on Private Jets — Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

Michigan families are paying the fuel prices that came with the Iran war. Mike Rogers (MI), the Republican running for Senate in Michigan, has been flying private.

Campaign finance records reviewed by The Intercept show that Rogers' campaign spent more than $100,000 on luxury travel from July through September, most of it on private jets. One charter bill came to more than $40,000 by itself.

What the filings show

According to The Intercept's review of the campaign's spending:

$93,152 to JL Jets in September, for at least five private charter flights. That includes the single transaction of more than $40,000.
$4,527 to Blacklane, a luxury chauffeur company, from July to September, including one $2,078 charge on August 17. Around the time of the jet payments, the campaign spent another $500 with Blacklane.
$683 on two limo rides in August and September.
$2,000 at The Breakers, a luxury oceanfront hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, plus $1,295 at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa in Michigan and $200 at the Palazzo at The Venetian in Las Vegas.
$2,165 for car repairs at a BMW dealership in Bloomfield Hills, paid to his deputy campaign manager. The campaign told The Intercept the car was used for campaign work.

The campaign did buy some regular airline tickets — about $29,000 for 10 flights on airlines like Frontier and Southwest. But luxury transportation was the vast majority of what it spent on travel last quarter.

It isn't the campaign schedule

Every campaign travels. The Intercept compared Rogers' spending with his opponent's. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's campaign spent more on travel in total, about $330,000 last quarter, but it went to Delta and American Airlines tickets, Hertz rentals, gas, Uber, Lyft and hotels. El-Sayed had also run in a busy, competitive primary, with more than 500 events before August, according to his campaign. Rogers was the presumed Republican nominee from early on and has kept a more relaxed schedule into the general election.

In its statement to The Intercept, Rogers' campaign didn't explain the jets. Its spokesperson attacked El-Sayed's spending instead and told The Intercept to "take a long hard look at Abdul."

Set against the Senate office travel figures Axios reported, The Intercept found that only two sitting senators — South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand — spent more on private flights than Rogers' campaign did last quarter, and their totals cover a year and a half. Rounds' private flying, which Axios reported cost taxpayers $625,000 in charters, is a story we've covered before.

The rules on campaign cash

Federal rules allow a campaign to pay for travel and cars only when they're strictly for campaigning. Using campaign money for personal travel is generally illegal. If a trip mixes personal and campaign business, the candidate has to pay the campaign back within 30 days, and a campaign-paid car can only be used for campaigning.

Nothing in The Intercept's report says Rogers broke those rules. The point is how he chooses to spend his donors' money, and whose company he keeps while he does it.

A long habit of expensive tastes

The jets fit a pattern. While he was in Congress, Rogers argued for letting lawmakers accept gifts and other benefits from restricted nonprofit groups, according to The Intercept. He helped defeat a 2006 bill that would have cracked down on lobbying by former members of Congress and banned some privately funded trips.

In 2013 and 2014, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rogers and his wife went to weekend retreats at The Cloister, a five-star resort on Sea Island, Georgia, paid for by the American Enterprise Institute. CBS News later described the 2014 gathering as "a private, off-the-record gathering of conservative leaders and wealthy donors." After he left Congress, he joined IronNet, a cybersecurity company founded by the former NSA director who spoke at that same retreat. Rogers was paid more than $700,000 there and held stock worth $250,000 to $500,000, according to his financial disclosures. IronNet later went bankrupt.

His campaign is backed by billionaires, including the DeVos family, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, and Elon Musk, whose super PAC has put more than $6 million into the race. He is already collecting a taxpayer-funded pension from his years in the Michigan Legislature despite being worth millions.

Jeffrey Hauser of the Revolving Door Project told The Intercept that Rogers "has developed a real taste for the finer things." "That means he is likely to want to continue to court, and be courted by, the economic elite, which portends badly for working class Michiganders who prefer their Senator have some understanding of their lives and identification with their interests."

The bottom line

From July through September, Rogers' Senate campaign spent more than $100,000 on luxury travel, including $93,152 to one private jet company in September and a $2,000 stay at The Breakers in Palm Beach. His opponent spent more on travel overall, but on airline tickets and rental cars. In its statement to The Intercept, Rogers' campaign didn't defend the jet spending. It pointed at El-Sayed instead.