Unpaid farewell mailer lands former SC Freedom Caucus chair with ethics violation
Former state Rep. Adam Morgan did not report over $4,000 worth of services from former state Rep. RJ May’s political consulting firm, an investigation by the state ethics commission found.
The House Ethics committee ordered the former Freedom Caucus chair to pay the remainder of money in his state House bank account to the Children’s Trust of South Carolina. His state campaign finance account has a balance of $4,590, according to Morgan’s 2025 third quarter report.
Morgan was charged with four ethics violations, including failing to disclose his spouse’s income, accepting two in-kind donations and not reporting them and making an independent expenditure for another House candidate.
May’s consulting firm, Ivory Tusk Consulting, paid for a “Farewell Mailer” on behalf of Morgan. The mailers cost $3,989.82, according to the ethics commission report. Morgan sent fliers because he was running for Congress, not seeking state House re-election, according to a complaint form.
Morgan never paid Ivory Tusk for the service, an investigation found, and General Assembly candidates can only accept contributions up to $1,000. Morgan never reported the nearly $4,000 “Farewell Mailer” or another $737 “Birthday Mailer” in-kind contributions from Ivory Tusk, according to the ethics commission.
May helped many hard-right Republicans’ campaigns through his consulting firm. The former SC House Freedom Caucus co-founder is in Edgefield County Detention Center, awaiting sentencing on five federal counts of distributing child pornography. May resigned his seat in the legislature in August.
May and Ivory Tusk had its own financial woes, another ethics investigation found. The South Carolina Department of Revenue was unable to find tax records for Ivory Tusk over three election cycles, and now May is facing state charges for failing to pay his income tax for three years. Morgan said he did not receive an invoice for the service from Ivory Tusk.
“I didn’t realize I didn’t have the invoice,” Morgan said. “Nobody realized that the invoice wasn’t paid. And my understanding is that’s happened with some other people who use the same vendor, so it’s not just a one-time occurrence.”
Morgan was a co-founder and chair of the South Carolina House Freedom Caucus. In 2024, he ran to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. William Timmons in the 4th Congressional, District but lost by four points in the June primary.
Timmons filed the complaint against Morgan with the State Ethics Commission in September 2024. The commission forwarded its investigative findings to the House Legislative Ethics Committee. The committee agreed with the commission’s findings and charged Morgan with four counts of violating campaign ethics law.
Timmons outlined additional complaints against Morgan, but the State Ethics Commission did not find evidence for the claims in its investigation.
“As I said from the beginning, any issues, and specifically, any filing or reporting issues, which is what it came down to, I was eager to get corrected and resolved,” Morgan said.
The investigation also found Morgan made an independent expenditure to state Rep. Stephen Frank by endorsing him on his “Farewell Mailer,” which is not allowed. Morgan said he disagreed that the mailer was an expenditure for Frank.