Exclusive: Virginia Congressman McGuire Likely Violated the Law
John J. McGuire III never filed financial disclosure forms in 2022 or 2024 as required by law. Disgraced former Rep. George Santos was the most recent member to not file a report.
In 2024, Republican Rep. John J. McGuire III won his Piedmont Virginia-based district stretching from Charlottesville down south through Lynchburg and spreading east into the outer Richmond suburbs. He defeated incumbent Rep. Bob Good in the Republican party primary on McGuire’s third attempt for a seat in Congress.
McGuire won his primary with support of now-President Donald Trump who endorsed him after Good, then-chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, initially supported Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
A former Navy SEAL, McGuire had been a state legislator since 2018, serving for six years in the Virginia House of Delegates and one year in the state Senate. That means he’s no stranger to financial disclosure requirements in politics, including as a U.S. House candidate in both 2020 and 2022.
However, according to an exclusive investigation by Hunter Index, Rep. McGuire never filed a candidate financial disclosure form in 2022 or 2024 as required by law for a wide range of government officials and candidates.
According to our reporting, McGuire was the only new member of Congress who failed to file a candidate form last year.
Since April 15, we have sent numerous emails, made multiple phone calls and even visited Rep. McGuire’s congressional office in Washington. On April 22, we finally spoke to Rep. McGuire’s communications director Elizabeth-Burton Jones on the phone who declined to comment on the record beyond stating that this was a campaign-side issue and promised to have the campaign contact us immediately.
When asked directly if Rep. McGuire intended to file his financial disclosure form this year as required by law as a member of Congress, Jones once again stated that we need to speak to the campaign side first.
Representatives from McGuire’s 2024 congressional campaign did not respond to our requests for comment when contacted directly by the Hunter Index.
As of time of publication, we have yet to receive a response or explanation from any of McGuire’s representatives — campaign or official congressional staff — explaining his failure to file the required candidate disclosure forms in 2022 or 2024.
The House Ethics Committee, which manages the disclosure process for candidates and representatives, declined to comment on the missing forms or whether Rep. McGuire is under investigation. Press representatives for the committee’s chair Michael Guest did not respond to request for comment. Ranking member Mark DeSaulnier’s press staff declined to comment on the record by due to the committee’s confidentiality rules.
As codified in the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, failure to file these reports could subject McGuire to fines of up to $10,000:
§104. Failure to file or filing false reports
(a) The Attorney General may bring a civil action in any appropriate United States district court against any individual who knowingly and willfully falsifies or who knowingly and willfully fails to file or report any information that such individual is required to report pursuant to section 102. The court in which such action is brought may assess against such individual a civil penalty in any amount, not to exceed $10,000.
The Department of Justice also declined to comment.
Hunter Index reporters also stopped by the Legislative Resource Center inside the Capitol building earlier this month to talk with the staff in charge of hosting and making these documents available to the public. The staff stated that every form they received is available online in the public database — i.e. if it’s not online in the database, it doesn’t exist — and that the Ethics Committee handles all press inquiries.
Rep. McGuire’s Portfolio
While we don’t have Rep. McGuire’s most recent [2022 & 2024] candidate disclosures, here’s what we know about his portfolio based on 2019 and 2020 congressional candidate disclosure forms as well as more recent state-level reports filed in 2023 and 2024 — all obtained by the Hunter Index this month.
Those reports covered January 1, 2018 until May 31, 2020 and January 1, 2022 until December 31, 2023.
Depending on the year, McGuire earned between $158k and $190k in income from his small physical training business and at least $29.6k from his salary and session earnings as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
His spouse Tracy McGuire earned between $60k and $85k per year through her real estate business.
McGuire also reported ten other income sources that each paid him at least $5k —the threshold required for disclosure. These payments were for nine motivational speaking engagements and team training sessions for various organizations across the country, including personal injury firm Allen & Allen.
Collectively, McGuire was worth at least $365k, held assets worth between $675k and $1.6 million and received between $30k and $102k in asset-driven income annually — almost entirely from two rental properties he and his wife owned in Henrico and Richmond, Va. He also disclosed owning small stakes in Facebook ($META) and Zoom Technologies ($ZOOM) worth between $1 - $1k and $1k - $15k, respectively.
McGuire also reported receiving $1,300.61 total in gifts valued above Virginia’s reporting threshold (more than $50) since 2022, including two Virginia Tech football games paid for by the Virginia Tech Foundation; a Toyota 400 race at the Richmond Raceway; two events paid for by Virginia Agribusiness Council — who are registered lobbyists in Virginia; and the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association’s annual conference in 2023, which was held at Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, owned by Sen. Jim Justice, the wealthiest member of Congress.
Editorial Note: Virginia Tech lost both games that Rep. McGuire reported attending at their foundation’s expense.
For more information about Rep. McGuire’s (or other’s) Virginia state politics background, please visit his profile on the Virginia Public Access Project’s website.
So What?
In 2023, now-former Rep. George Santos was the last member of Congress to not file a financial disclosure report, which we covered at the time. Santos also misled the public by inflating his income and assets in his previous report.
Unlike Santos, though, McGuire’s previously reported net worth and assets don’t necessarily raise eyebrows — they’d place him in the bottom third of members ranked by net worth — or suggest that he has something to hide in failing to file his disclosures.
Numerous sources who interacted with the McGuire campaign suggested that he likely did not file out of incompetence rather than negligence, as his campaign seemed disorganized at times.
McGuire clearly understands the process as he submitted candidate forms in the 2020 cycle with his signature as required. Also, his state-level forms overlapped with some of the time period that would have been covered in the 2022 and 2024 cycle congressional candidate forms.
So, beyond being a thorn in the side of journalists seeking to cover politicians’ finances (that’s us), why does this omission matter?
For one, banning members of Congress from trading stocks has become a trendy take among pundits and politicians alike.
However, a ban could be rendered ineffectual in a flawed system with little transparency and accountability with respect to the filing of financial disclosures. If a politician can decide to simply not file their annual disclosures, how would anyone know if they adhered to a theoretical ban on trading stock?
If the committee tasked with enforcing the penalties for not filing will not comment publicly on any potential fines, how can the public trust the process?
Why Does It Matter?
Please be informed of your politicians’ personal finances.
That’s our goal at the Hunter Index. We believe it is important for constituents to understand how their government officials’ personal finances may affect their policy making decisions as well as understanding the potential wide disparity between their wealth and that of the people in their home state or district.
Remember our favorite questions: Would you make a decision that costs your family money for the public good? Isn’t that what we ask of our government officials?
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Great read. Thank you for it!