NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A money trail leads from state Sen. Brian Kelsey’s state campaign account to an outside conservative group that ran radio ads supporting the Germantown Republican’s unsuccessful bid for Congress.

The Tennessean reports that the transfers illustrate the difficulty in policing a ban on state campaign funds from being used in federal races.

In Kelsey’s case, the newspaper found the lawmaker gave $106,000 from his state account to a political action committee run by the private Standard Club in Nashville on July 11. Within days, $66,000 of that money made its way to the American Conservative Union, a national group that then started running radio ads for Kelsey

Kelsey ended up coming in fourth in the Republican primary for the open seat ultimately won by freshman Republican Rep. David Kustoff.