The Office of Campaign Finance says it’s launched a “preliminary investigation” into complaints that Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.‘s sports youth organization, Team Thomas, may have broken city campaign finance and conflict of interest laws.

OCF says it’s also looking into whether “Thomas and members of his Council staff used government resources for other than official government business in violation of the Standards of Conduct.”

The OCF sent the D.C. Republican Party a letter informing the organization of their investigation late Tuesday afternoon. The DC GOP requested an investigation last October after alleging that Team Thomas was an unregulated “slush fund.”

For a primer on Team Thomas, please read this old LL column and this old post.

Attorney General Irv Nathan has said he expects his investigation of Team Thomas to wrap up soon. That investigation was started by Nathan’s predecessor, Peter Nickles, whom Thomas says was on a politically motivated “bloodletting” expedition.

Thomas says there’s done nothing wrong. And he has frequently said the DC GOP’s allegations should have been addressed by OCF instead of the A.G.’s office. Looks he finally got his wish.

Here’s the OCF’s letter to DC GOP Chairman Bob Kabel.

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Photo by Darrow Montgomery