In 2013, Domenech was implicated in a journalism scandal that resulted in the removal of his work from "The Washington Examiner" and "The Huffington Post" after it was disclosed that he had received $36,000 from Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit and lobbyist, in exchange for writing favorable opinion pieces about the government of Malaysia without disclosing the financial relationship. The payments only came to light when Trevino registered as a foreign agent of the Malaysian government, and disclosed that Domenech was one of several young conservative writers he paid to write articles favorable to the Malaysian regime to bolster its image in conservative media.