Two Republican super PACs paid nearly $1 million this month to quietly settle an inquiry into whether they illicitly coordinated with the campaign of Lee Zeldin, a member of President Trump’s cabinet, during his 2022 run for governor of New York.
The state’s top elections watchdog spent years investigating the matter, using subpoenas to try to show that there was illegal overlap between the Zeldin campaign and two groups that spent $20 million supporting it, Save Our State Inc. and Safe Together New York.
An agreement to settle the case, reached in recent days, ultimately does not include an admission of wrongdoing by the super PACs, a copy of the document obtained through a Freedom of Information request shows. Mr. Zeldin, who is now the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was not a party to the agreement.
But the $900,000 fine is the largest ever paid in a super PAC coordination case in New York, where the free-spending groups seeking to sway elections have grown in size and number over the last decade.
In an unsealed report of the state’s chief election enforcement counsel provided to The New York Times on Thursday, an investigator wrote that he had found that “substantial evidence demonstrates that respondents knowingly and willfully coordinated with candidate Lee Zeldin, both directly and through agents, resulting in unlawful contributions.”
James Featherstonhaugh, an Albany lawyer who represented Save Our State, disputed that his client had done anything that violated the law, but said the group wanted to end the back and forth.
“Frankly, from our point of view, the nuisance value of the case was what we agreed to give them,” he said.
Eric Wang, a lawyer for Safe Together, did not respond to a request for comment.
Eric Amidon, who was Mr. Zeldin’s 2022 campaign manager, said the campaign had “no involvement whatsoever” in the investigation. He called it “nothing more than political extortion by New York aimed at silencing political opposition.”
Still, the yearslong saga shines an unwelcome glare on Mr. Zeldin, who is leading Mr. Trump’s push to unravel bedrock environmental regulations, as well as on some of New York’s top Republicans. In addition to Mr. Zeldin, the case has touched party operatives, a pollster for Mr. Trump and Ronald S. Lauder, a billionaire cosmetics heir who helped bankroll the groups.
The current chairman of the New York Republican Party, Edward F. Cox, is also linked to the investigation and his emails are included in the documents as a leader of one of the pro-Zeldin super PACs.
Michael L. Johnson, the state’s chief election enforcement counsel, did not comment on the contours of the investigation in a statement. But he said that he hoped the settlement “disproves the conventional wisdom that unlawful coordination between independent expenditure committees, candidates and candidate committees could not be investigated, and evidence found.”
It has typically been extremely hard for investigators at either the state or federal level to prove unlawful coordination between super PACs — which can accept unlimited donations — and campaigns, which face stricter contribution limits.
Mr. Lauder, one of the Republican Party’s most generous financiers, spent more than $11 million trying to elect Mr. Zeldin. He paid a majority of the fine, according to two people familiar with the case, who were not authorized to discuss it. (A spokesman did not comment.)
The settlement comes as Republicans are preparing for another bid next year to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent. Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican who represents an upstate district north of Albany, is considering running and has said she will make a final decision after the November elections.
The case dates back roughly three years to the 2022 elections. Mr. Zeldin, a conservative Long Island congressman at the time, was trying to unseat Ms. Hochul and become the state’s first Republican governor in decades.
The super PACs played a significant role in the race, effectively closing the spending gap between the Zeldin campaign and the governor, who was better financed. The groups blanketed the state in ads amplifying Mr. Zeldin’s law-and-order message and attacking Ms. Hochul in terms that mirrored those of his campaign.
Campaign finance law allows outside groups to raise and spend unlimited sums of money on election activity, but only if they agree not to coordinate strategy or spending with the candidates they are supporting.
Illegal coordination can be difficult to prove, though, particularly in New York’s relatively tight-knit Republican circles. Political figures often have overlapping titles and relationships that can grow tangled over time.
Mr. Johnson opened an investigation in the final weeks of the 2022 campaign, after Democrats filed a formal complaint outlining connections between Save Our State, Safe Together and the Zeldin campaign.
Republicans accused Mr. Johnson, who was nominated by a Democratic governor, of trying to hurt Mr. Zeldin’s electoral chances. Republican members of the Board of Elections then were able to prevent him from issuing subpoenas to the campaign and super PACs before Election Day.
Mr. Zeldin ultimately lost the race and joined Mr. Trump’s administration earlier this year to lead the environmental agency. But the investigation continued quietly for years afterward until recent weeks.
The documents released to The Times included a 123-page investigative report, dated November 2024, that used subpoenaed emails and other records to describe various ties that the watchdog said demonstrated coordination. There was also a detailed rebuttal arguing that while the parties involved all wanted to support Mr. Zeldin, they put firewalls in place to make sure they stayed within the law.
Mr. Johnson’s office found that John McLaughlin, a longtime pollster for Mr. Trump, was working for Mr. Zeldin and was paid by Safe Together for radio advertising. Those involved in the radio ad, which was made in 2021, argued that it was meant to oppose one of the governor’s legislative proposals, not her campaign.
Mr. McLaughlin declined to comment.
Joseph Borelli, a Republican politician, was serving as both the co-chairman of Mr. Zeldin’s campaign committee and the spokesman for Save Our State. He stressed at the time that the first role was ceremonial and the second was unpaid.
“This was always a ridiculous case,” Mr. Borelli said in a text message.
Allen H. Roth was vice chairman of the New York State Conservative Party, which was working directly with the Zeldin campaign. Investigators found he was also a close political adviser to Mr. Lauder and had operational control over Safe Together for a time.
In an affidavit included in the files, Mr. Roth said that when Safe Together, which was originally created in 2020 to influence other contests, decided to spend on the governor’s race, he resigned from its board in September 2022.
Still, the blurry roles were captured in one email exchange that month. Mr. McLaughlin passed along a “confidential” new ad to Mr. Roth, who replied that he had already seen it the night before, and added, in reference to the super PAC, “My guy giving $2.5 million to IE.”
Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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