The FBI searched the Indianapolis home of a former congressional candidate with Evansville tied on Wednesday, although it’s unclear why.
The agency confirmed to IndyStar that it executed a search warrant at a home where public records show Gabe Whitley lives – news first reported by IndyPolitics. There is no indication that anyone has been arrested, IndyStar reported.
Whitley, who ran in the Republican primaries in Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, declined to comment when approached by an IndyStar reporter at his home. Whitley previously declared his candidacy for mayor in Evansville but never mounted a campaign. The local Republican Party kept him off the ballot in 2022 when he tried to run for state representative.
Bobby Kern, who also lives in the house and ran for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor this month, told IndyStar that agents searched the home Wednesday morning and confiscated Whitley’s devices. The FBI has neither confirmed nor denied this.
Whitley posted on Facebook later in the day, writing that he was “ok” and would make “an appropriate statement when the time is right.”
“It’s an ongoing investigation into the corruption going on in our community,” he said. “Thank you for our wonderful law enforcement doing their jobs.”
Whitley has been in the news several times as he mounts his political campaigns, including this year when complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission accused him of submitting excessive campaign contributions and fraudulent donors during his tenure in Congress.
Whitley’s campaign finance records were the subject of a Courier & Press investigation last year. In early 2022, he submitted an annual report to the Indiana Election Division showing him raising more than $15,000 for an exploratory committee the previous year, with some donors giving him hundreds — and in one case, thousands — of dollars at a time.
But there was a problem: Several of the listed donors told the Courier & Press they didn’t remember giving Whitley any money. Some said they didn’t even know who he was.
They also lived hundreds of miles away. The only donor listed on the report with an Evansville address was Whitley himself. Others came from distant locations such as New York, California and Utah, among others.
In January 2023, Whitley denied any wrongdoing and told Courier & Press reporters that he had hired a “consulting firm” to handle fundraising for the campaign. He couldn’t remember the name, though, and his 2022 annual report didn’t show any payments to a consulting firm.
“A lot of people donate to fundraisers,” he said at the time. “We emailed. That’s all we did. We emailed.”
Just over a month after the investigation was published, Whitley filed suit against the Courier & Press, USA Today and reporter Thomas B. Langhorne in U.S. District Court. Claiming slander, he asked for more than $14 million in damages and an apology article.
Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed the complaint without prejudice on November 11 “for lack of jurisdiction”.
In May, Whitley lost the 7th Congressional District primary to Jennifer Pace despite having died after presenting his candidacy and before the primaries. A convention of party members selected his replacement on the ballot, John Schmitzwhose campaign sign is on Whitley’s lawn in Indianapolis.
This article originally appeared in the Evansville Courier & Press: FBI searched Gabe Whitley’s Indianapolis home
