Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, and his wife, Margaret, were indicted Tuesday on charges including wire fraud and campaign finance crimes, according to a federal indictment.

The document, filed Tuesday in federal court, accuses the couple of converting more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and filing false campaign finance records with the Federal Election Commission. The indictment accuses the couple of crimes including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsification of records and aiding and abetting prohibited use of campaign contributions.

The crimes date back to 2009, according to the indictment.

Hunter has been under scrutiny since April 2016, when the FEC and then The San Diego Union-Tribune began questioning expenses of campaign funds including video games, private school tuition, oral surgery and a garage door for the couple’s Alpine home. Spending of campaign funds for personal use is banned by law, to protect against undue influence by donors who might benefit from congressional actions.

By November 2017, Hunter had repaid his campaign more than $60,000 for what his campaign described as “personal, mistaken and insufficiently documented expenditures.”

The 47-page indictment lays out sweeping allegations of abuse and criminality that extended over years, long before federal regulators and reporters began scrutinizing the campaign spending.

In total, the Hunters are facing 60 counts ranging from conspiracy to wire fraud to falsification of records and prohibited use of campaign funds. If convicted of all charges, each defendant faces years in federal custody.

“Throughout the relevant period, the Hunters spent substantially more than they earned,” the indictment states. “They overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in a seven-year period, resulting in approximately $37,761 in ‘overdraft’ and ‘insufficient funds’ bank fees.”

According to the indictment, the five-term congressman and his wife experienced persistent money problems, with most of their credit cards approaching their five-figure limits.

Hunter began reimbursing the campaign account as early as 2010, after Margaret Hunter spent $704 on 12 tickets to a performance of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” at the Old Globe theater in Balboa Park, the indictment said.

“In order to lower suspicions and reduce the risk of detection, Duncan Hunter decided that they would use personal funds to repay the campaign for Margaret Hunter’s purchases,” it states.

Hunter’s campaign released a statement after news of the indictment broke in which one of his attorneys, Gregory A. Vega, attacked the credibility of prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The statement said two prosecutors involved in the investigation attended a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in August 2015.

Vega called for the U.S. Department of Justice to recuse the prosecutors.

The campaign also released a letter from Vega to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, which further accused the DOJ of a politically-motivated attack on Hunter.

“The overt political leanings of two individuals intimately involved in the investigation, combined with, among other things, the Southern District’s sudden, inexplicable rush to indict my client before the general election without affording him sufficient due process, create an actual and/or apparent conflict that cannot be ignored,” the letter said.

Hunter, a Republican, is facing a challenge from Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Democrat, on the November ballot.

“This is all political,” Hunter’s spokesman, Mike Harrison, said of the indictment.

Link

Tried to go after Devin Nunes in central California as well. He seems to be beating them back but there is no "indictment."

As with Tom Delay, it doesn't matter what is finally determined.

Timing before midterms is everything.

Some of these things are run like blocking plays to spring a runner. Bog down and block the opponent. Slow em' down. . . . just enough to take away momentum.

By the time they catch up, the play is over.

Campaign finance issues are murky.

I’m very sorry to see this. I knew his dad, the former Congressman, supported him, attended campaign events and thought he was a fine fellow, for a Congressman.

quote:

By November 2017, Hunter had repaid his campaign more than $60,000 for what his campaign described as “personal, mistaken and insufficiently documented expenditures.”

Come on. 60k? Sixty thousand dollars of "Whoops!"

Something stinks. If he's innocent, that's great, but I think one thing I've hoped everyone's learned in the last 18 years of politics is that the letter behind their name doesn't mean shit.

Hoo, boy. Does anyone know if its feasible to get someone else on the ticket?

According to Fox News, Hunter was the second politician to endorse Trump at the beginning of Trump's campaign.

I don't remember who they said was the first to endorse Trump, but that guy was indicted last week.

*Cough* Deep State *cough*

This is why we see more emphasis on controlling prosectors offices. Keith Ellison leaving Congress to be Attorney General of Minnesota.

Many of the junior AUSAs are “you knows”, and what US Attorney wants to cover up for an elected official gone bad?

Makes you admire Alcee Hastings, sort of. Look how long he has pulled it off.

There really is no excuse for this kind of foolishness. Like lawyers responsible for client trust account funds, there is no good come of playing foolish games. It isn’t that hard, provided you give it the seriousness it deserves.

I have some experience with these things, having run about a billion dollars through our trust accounts over the years, with every dime going where it was supposed to.

The San Diego Tribune noted various discrepancies in 2016 but Rep. Hunter had already instituted an audit by then and was working with the FEC.

At the time, "Hunter’s office put out a statement for this story emphasizing that the campaign fund was supervised by his treasurer and his wife, Margaret, who is also his campaign manager.
“Even though Rep. Hunter wasn't authorizing charges, he's proactively addressing expenditure issues in 2015 that came to his attention and he's already begun taking corrective action in consultation with the FEC,” Chief of Staff Joe Kasper said. “He's also undertaking an independent audit for expenditures in 2015 and will act on the recommendations.”' Link

The article noted that "(S)ome kinds of expenses of campaign money are clearly prohibited, and others fall into a gray area."

There was, apparently, a campaign credit card involved. A payment to a jewelry store, for instance, was explained as a bona fide campaign expense.

What is hard to understand is how even after the 2010 instance and other scrutiny in 2015, there were, apparently, other discrepancies in 2016.

Maybe his wife wasn't the best choice to track the campaign finances.

Campaigns have discrepancies all the time.

But, it's hard to know why there is an indictment for $250,000.00. That's a lot of fast food or missing receipts.

JALLEN, unlike a trust account, some things may be creditable campaign expenditures that are fine one time and not the next. Such things get a case by case scrutiny.

I always told people to get an expert on campaign finance when I was asked. Apparently, there is a lot of speeding on that road but if you go with the flow of traffic, you seldom get pulled over. Hunter became an outlier but I wonder if there is some dramatic over-indicting here.

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
Hunter became an outlier but I wonder if there is some dramatic over-indicting here.

Oh I don't doubt it.

So much for the claims of policy about avoiding enforcement actions in the shadow of elections.

Ted Stevens, Chris Collins, now Duncan Hunter.

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:


JALLEN, unlike a trust account, some things may be creditable campaign expenditures that are fine one time and not the next. Such things get a case by case scrutiny.

I always told people to get an expert on campaign finance when I was asked. Apparently, there is a lot of speeding on that road but if you go with the flow of traffic, you seldom get pulled over. Hunter became an outlier but I wonder if there is some dramatic over-indicting here.

My mention of trust accounts wasn’t to claim those were the same in every particular, but that the consequences of messing up are severe, keeping it straight is sometimes tricky but far from impossible. You have to give it the attention it deserves.

Darrell Issa accuses US attorney of "political misconduct" over Duncan Hunter indictment



Retiring Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, is accusing the U.S. attorney's office of "political misconduct" for indicting Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, now that it is likely too late to remove Hunter from the ballot.

Hunter was indicted Tuesday for allegedly spending about $250,000 in campaign funds on personal trips and items and for filing false reports to the Federal Election Commission. In a phone conversation Tuesday, Issa indicated to CBS News that if there were some way for Hunter to be replaced on the ballot, Issamight be open to serving as that replacement. "I'm not really interested in remaining in Congress," he told CBS News, but "I would have to look at it and say, would I serve two more years just so we don't lose the majority because we lost that seat?"

Issa, who represents the neighboring 49th congressional district, is not seeking re-election and is set to retire from Congress at the end of this term after nearly 20 years in office.

Issa says he finds the timing of the Hunter indictment suspicious, given that it was issued after the California primary had taken place. Under the state's "jungle" primary system, the top two candidates -- regardless of party -- proceed to the general election, making it difficult to replace a candidate on the ballot, should that individual drop out after advancing from the primary to the November election. Hunter, the incumbent in the 50th Congressional District, attracted the most votes, and Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar also advanced.

"I believe that the assistant U.S. attorney has totally screwed us….I believe that this is political misconduct by the assistant U.S. attorney, and I believe it simply because all deadlines, as far as I know, as far as I've been told, have passed," Issa said. "So now you have an accusation that could sink anyone, when in fact, this same information…I didn't see anything that hasn't been there for years." (It's not clear whether Issa was referring to a different federal prosecutor in the Southern District of California or to Braverman.)

He accused Braverman of holding back the indictment since last year, if not longer.

"I don't know how you make any kind of sense other than he sat on it for most of three years and certainly the last year," Issa said. "As far as I know, we've got no legal way for Duncan to get off the ballot and somebody else to get on. As far as I know that's where we stand."

Hunter has said he'll keep running for his seat. He had been expected to win re-election easily, and in the primary, he won 48 percent of the vote. Campa-Najjar was a distant runner-up, with 17 percent. While Donald Trump won Hunter's district by 15 points in 2016, Campa-Najjar has been mounting a financial challenge, raising more money than Hunter, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filing.

There had been speculation earlier this year that if Hunter's legal problems were to cause his downfall, Issa, whose neighboring district has become less favorable for Republicans, might decide to run in Hunter's district instead. He would have represented one of the GOP's best chances to hold onto the seat. And on Tuesday, Issa wondered whether Duncan could be removed from the ballot, though he was doubtful.

"The important question that we don't have an answer to, but I'm pretty sure of the answer, is -- can he get off the ballot if he chose to and can anyone else get on the ballot? And I think the answer in California is no to both," Issa said. "You kind of have a situation in which, we have to assume that he would like to use his campaign funds, [to] continue to defend himself."

Issa also told CBS News he had placed a call to Chuck Bell, a California attorney who serves as general counsel for the state Republican Party, seeking clarity on the state's election laws and the party's options in CA-5-. The eight-term congressman said he's already getting ready to leave Congress, but if he were needed, he'd probably heed the call.

"It's kind of one of those things, if the president calls and says will you serve your country, the answer always is that it's very, very likely that if you're asked to serve your country, you will. I don't want to imply for a moment that this is of great interest to me. You know, I've already started packing up offices quite a bit."

Hunter and his wife, Margaret Hunter, were indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges of using $250,000 worth of campaign funds for personal use, as well as filing false reports to the Federal Election Commission.

Link

The indictment of Representative Duncan Hunter Jr. proves yet again that members of Congress deserve all the scrutiny we can give them.

National Review
Jim Geraghty


Let’s stipulate right off the bat that the life of an elected official has a lot of challenges that aren’t immediately visible to constituents. You need to maintain residence in both the capital and your district. You’re away from your family a lot. Unless you’re independently wealthy, you’re constantly asking other people for money. You have to disclose a certain amount of your personal financial information. Not many people care if their local baker, banker, or barista is cheating on their spouse or going through a rough patch, but your marital problems are considered news fit for public scrutiny.

You never know when some nut-job might threaten your life. Whatever position you take, you’re going to upset someone. Almost everyone you meet wants something from you. People will line up and wait for hours for the chance to yell at you at a town-hall meeting. Your own allies in the legislature are probably eager to stab you in the back or step on you if you stand in the way of their ambitions. And the odds are good that there’s a well-funded, well-organized opposition party that wants to destroy your reputation and take your job.

Then there’s the news media. They ask a lot of questions about a wide variety of topics, and any time you admit you don’t know, you’ll be accused of intolerable ignorance. If you change your mind on a topic, you’ll be accused of flip-flopping. Defy the majority of public opinion on an issue and you’ll get called an arrogant ideologue; concur with the majority of public opinion and you’ll get dismissed as a mere weathervane.

You’re likely to get blamed for just about every government failure, whether or not you had any control over it. Any less-than-coherent moment in public risks becoming a viral object of mockery. Your religious beliefs will come under scrutiny. How you choose to spend your money will come under scrutiny. If you’re a Republican, you’ll constantly be asked if you denounce any old idiot who happens to have the same party affiliation. If you lose your temper about any of this, you’ll be portrayed as a deranged lunatic.

And yet, as enormous as those drawbacks are, the perks make the job worth it.

First, of course, there’s the power of the office. When you speak, people listen. You can introduce, co-sponsor, and vote on legislation. You can hold officials accountable through hearings. A lot of offices in both the public and private sectors will return your phone calls quickly. You have a hand in directing billions in federal spending. At some point, you’ll probably even meet the president, although God knows whether he’ll actually listen to you.

You say you want to make a comfortable living? Every member of the House earns, at minimum, $174,000 per year. If the member and his/her spouse have no other income, this puts them in the top 8 percent in the country. Members must abide by a few limits on outside employment, but not many. They get an office budget — currently somewhere in the $1.2 million to $1.38 million range — based upon their distance from their district (for travel expenses) and the number of people it contains. They can travel, at taxpayer expense, on “Codels” — Congressional Delegations — for official business. The post-politics career opportunities for those of them who keep their noses clean are plentiful and often lucrative, from lobbying or “consulting” for Washington law firms to serving on corporate boards to teaching at universities to writing books to becoming talking heads on television to taking appointed positions in government.

Best of all, “members of Congress become eligible to receive a pension at the age of 62 if they have completed a total of 5 years of service. Members who have completed a total of 20 years of service are eligible for a pension at age 50, are at any age after completing a total of 25 years of service. . . . No matter their age when they retire, the amount of the members’ pension is based on their total years of service and the average of their highest three years of salary.”

In other words, if you find yourself lucky enough to be elected to Congress, you are probably set for life, unless you do something stupid and/or illegal, as Representative Duncan Hunter Jr. is alleged to have done.

The indictment of Hunter and his wife makes for an eye-opening read:

The Hunters illegally used campaign funds, among other things, to purchase the following: Hotel rooms, airline tickets and upgrades, meals and food, and entertainment expenses for vacations for themselves and their friends and family, including more than $14,000 for a family Thanksgiving vacation in Italy in November 2015; more than $6,500 for a family vacation to Hawaii in April 2015; more than $3,700 for a family vacation to Las Vegas and Boise in July 2015; more than $2,400 for a Las Vegas couples vacation in August 2011; and more vacations to destinations such as Lake Tahoe, Pittsburgh, London, and Washington.

Expensive vacations would be bad enough, but there’s also a fair bit of egregious lying alleged in the prosecutors’ account. The indictment claims the Hunters purchased “personal clothing items at a golf course so that the purchase could be falsely reported to the Treasurer as ‘[golf] balls for the wounded warriors.’” In fact, Hunter seemed to make a habit of pretending his golf expenses were something much more noble:

On or about October 22, 2014, in San Diego, California, Duncan Hunter spent $204.34 in campaign funds for two greens fees, food, and drinks at the Rancho Bernardo Golf Resort, during a personal golf outing with friends, including Individual 1A. To conceal and disguise his illegal activity, he misled his Chief of Staff by describing his regular golf outing with Individual 1A as ‘a Christian thing’ with a supporter.

You’ve probably had an embarrassing notice from the bank that your check bounced, had your credit card declined, or endured other indicators that you’re trying to spend money that you don’t have. According to the indictment, the Hunters overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in a seven-year period.

The congressman and his wife will have their day in court. Perhaps the jury won’t believe the charges or will accept some explanation from the defendants. But right now, the indictment seems like a sterling example of why members of Congress need to be subjected to such relentless scrutiny and constant skepticism. Yes, it probably feels unfair, but elected officials are given a pretty sweet deal — certainly a better arrangement than what most of their constituents will ever know — and some of them just can’t resist the urge to take even more.

Link

quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:
According to Fox News, Hunter was the second politician to endorse Trump at the beginning of Trump's campaign.

I don't remember who they said was the first to endorse Trump, but that guy was indicted last week.

*Cough* Deep State *cough*

Very soon "MAGA" will mean, "My Associate Got Arrested"...

Lock him up

Lock who up?

While it is very likely a political attack, if you don't steal and do so dishonest things, then they can't charge you for your corruption. I don't care if someone else got away with it, even if it's political he gets zero sympathy from me.

He spent other peoples money for purposes they weren't intending. He's a thief and a stupid one at that $38,000 in bounced check fees. I don't want that guy working on my country's budget.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
While it is very likely a political attack, if you don't steal and do so dishonest things, then they can't charge you for your corruption. I don't care if someone else got away with it, even if it's political he gets zero sympathy from me.

He spent other peoples money for purposes they weren't intending. He's a thief and a stupid one at that $38,000 in bounced check fees. I don't want that guy working on my country's budget.

Oh I'm sorry. Did I miss his trial and conviction already? I've been camping and out of cell range for awhile so it's possible. But somehow I don't think so.

Saw on the "news" the other night that it looks like he's throwing his wife under the bus?

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Saw on the "news" the other night that it looks like he's throwing his wife under the bus?

He is. 1000%. To the point where they traveled to and left separately when entering their plea at court.

His paraphrased response:
"She's did it and this is between her and the court. Not me. By the way, I was in marines and deployed so show me some respect and vote for me."