Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) referred his Republican primary opponent, Dan Bilzerian, to the FBI over an alleged $1 million election-spending scheme with possible foreign interference, Florida’s Voice reported on Monday.
The Jewish congressman reportedly asked federal authorities to investigate the source of roughly $1 million in allegedly unreported campaign expenditures by an unregistered political organization called the Florida First Action Network, as well as possible coordination between the group and Bilzerian’s campaign.
Bilzerian, who is challenging Fine in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, has made Jew-hatred the center of his campaign against the Jewish congressman. Last week, Bilzerian posted an artificial intelligence-generated campaign with pro-Hitler and antisemitic messaging.
“For the first time in American history, it appears that foreign actors are directly purchasing campaign advertising in an effort to manipulate election results in the United States,” Fine stated, per Florida’s Voice. “They have already spent a million dollars attacking me and are working directly with a foreign citizen, Las Vegas resident Dan Bilzerian, who is running for Congress.”
Fine also reportedly referred Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini and Sabatini’s law firm to the FBI, asking authorities to investigate whether the spending involved prohibited foreign funds or illegal coordination with Bilzerian’s campaign.
Documents submitted to cable operators identify Sabatini as the sole agent for the Florida First Action Network, according to Florida’s Voice.
Federal Election Commission records show that Bilzerian’s campaign has paid at least $10,000 to Sabatini Law, P.A., and uses the firm’s office address as its campaign headquarters, the outlet reported.
The referral asks investigators to determine the source of the roughly $1 million, whether the Florida First Action Network coordinated with Bilzerian’s campaign and whether any of the funds came from foreign nationals or other prohibited sources, according to Florida’s Voice.
On Aug. 13, Bilzerian posted a two-and-a-half-minute AI-generated video that repeatedly calls Fine a “fat Jew” and a “Jewish supremacist” and depicts him clutching a bag of money and growing horns.
It also refers to Fine as “Shylock” and, over footage of Adolf Hitler, asks, “Should we revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions?”
Fine condemned Bilzerian’s video, saying voters face a choice “to embrace the kind of Nazism that led to the Holocaust or to repudiate this filth and reaffirm American values and character.”
Fifteen Jewish congressional Democrats denounced Bilzerian’s “grotesque antisemitic campaign.”
The American Jewish Committee stated that Bilzerian’s video “is Nazi propaganda, aimed at a Jewish American running for office.”
“This unadulterated Jew-hatred has no place in America—not in our politics, not in our political parties,” the AJC stated. “Leaders in both parties have condemned it. It’s time for America to say enough is enough.”
Republican leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, also denounced Bilzerian’s messaging.
