Chelan County Sheriff Brian Burnett's Campaign Under Investigation for Alleged Violations of State Election Laws
And we take a deeper look at the ties between Grace City Church and Burnett's campaign
In September, the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission opened an investigation into Chelan County Sheriff Brian Burnett’s re-election campaign for two alleged violations of state campaign law. One alleged violation regards failing to disclose expenditures or in-kind contributions, and the second involves failure to include full sponsor ID on political advertising.
The original complaint was filed by a Wenatchee resident named Shelley English, who wrote that Chelan County citizens had a right to know how involved Grace City Church has been in Burnett’s re-election bid.
“Burnett puts his association with Grace City church in the forefront of his job and campaign. He has collaborated with them on issues such as covid restrictions. The videos on his website are VERY similar in style to videos produced by Grace City,” she wrote. “Regardless of the origin of the videos, the production value passes the $50 threshold for reporting whether he paid for them or they were donations in kind. He should be reporting this activity to the PDC as required by law.”
She included links to Burnett’s “Candid” video series on his website, which was produced by a newly-formed LLC named “Killing Robots.”
Killing Robots is a joint venture between former Grace City Church staffer Chaz McClaine and GCC digital producer Danny Salas.
Salas’ headshot was recently removed from GCC’s website, but he’s still in the group photo on the “Our Leadership” page as of Oct. 24, 2022.
You may recall that Salas and GCC Pastor of “City Groups” Adam James led a church trip to Atlanta with convicted sex offender Nicolas Clerk around the time that Clerc was participating in GCC’s “school of ministry” program. I reached out to them with questions about that at the time I was writing about it but got no response.
We’ll get more into the connections between Grace City Church and Burnett’s campaign in a minute, but first, let’s focus on “Killing Robots LLC,” which seems to have been producing campaign videos for Burnett’s campaign before it was even a legal entity.
Burnett’s first teaser for his “Candid” video series was published on his campaign Facebook page on July 15. That means Salas and McClaine would have had to start production on the series prior to that – probably weeks before the first trailer was ready to post.
Yet, Salas didn’t register the LLC until August 4, 2022.
According to a PDC report filed Sept. 12, Burnett's campaign paid Killing Robots $7000 the very next day.
“And why did he not pay them a dime until August? Oh, because they weren't a company until 8/4,” English wrote. “They knew the heat was on and they had to do something. So Salas formed an LLC to make them look legit.”
English isn’t the only Chelan County citizen who noticed a distinct similarity in style between Burnett’s videos and Grace City Church’s media.
I reached out to Burnett’s campaign right after the first full-length “Candid” video was released to ask who was producing his video content and who his campaign manager is.
Jul 26, 2022, 9:34 PM – To electburnett:
“Hello, Sheriff Burnett and campaign staff,
I had a few questions about the campaign so far. Who is producing your videos?
And how is Drew Zabrocki involved? Is he your campaign manager?”
I received no reply from Burnett or his campaign, but according to his e-signature on the response letter to the PDC investigation, Zabrocki is his campaign manager.
At the time I reached out to Burnett’s campaign, there was no production company title card at the beginning of his videos. That makes sense because there was no Killing Robots LLC. So, of course, there was no website for the business. Now that there is, I am reaching out to Salas and McClaine to ask about their current relationship with GCC and why they started producing content for Burnett before they had even formed a business. If I hear back, I will update this piece.