{"id":178780,"date":"2018-08-21T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/21\/boy-oh-boy-this-day-just-keeps-on-giving\/"},"modified":"2018-08-21T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T01:30:00","slug":"boy-oh-boy-this-day-just-keeps-on-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/21\/boy-oh-boy-this-day-just-keeps-on-giving\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy Oh Boy, This Day Just Keeps on Giving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and his wife have been charged with illegally diverting campaign funds to their personal use<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Republican congressman and his wife with using more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for family vacations, theater tickets and other personal expenses.<\/span>

<\/span>Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (Calif.) and his wife, Margaret, were charged in a 47-page indictment that details how they allegedly used campaign money to live beyond their means, funding trips to Italy, Hawaii and other places, as well as school tuition, dental work and theater tickets. The Justice Department said in a news release that the couple also allegedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on more modest items, such as golf outings, video games and even home utilities.<\/span>

<\/span>Hunter\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He and his wife, who was paid $117,000 from the campaign for work between 2010 and 2017, are scheduled to be arraigned in court Thursday.\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>The Justice Department alleged the couple falsely described their purchases in Federal Election Commission filings as \u201ccampaign travel,\u201d \u201cdinner with volunteers\/contributors,\u201d or by using other seemingly innocent descriptions. They allegedly described the payment of their family dental bills as a charitable contribution to \u201cSmiles For Life,\u201d and tickets to see \u201cRiverdance\u201d at the San Diego Civic Theater as \u201cSan Diego Civic Center for Republican Women Federated\/Fundraising.\u201d <\/span>

<\/span>The indictment also alleges that Hunter spent campaign funds on social outings with another congressman, who is identified only as \u201cCongressman A.\u201d In March 2010, for example, the indictment alleges that Hunter spent more than $120 at Birchmere Music Hall with that congressman and two others, and the next month, Hunter claimed a $256 reimbursement for driving his car on a trip to Virginia Beach with the same group.<\/span>

<\/span>He also spent $238 in December 2013 while watching a San Diego Chargers game at a Washington-area restaurant with another unnamed congressman, the indictment alleges.<\/span>

<\/span>The Justice Department said Hunter\u2019s campaign treasurer made \u201crepeated inquiries\u201d about his purchases. The agency alleged in its indictment that the Hunters dismissed the treasurer\u2019s concerns as \u201csilly,\u201d and Duncan Hunter said staffers were accusing campaign staff of disloyalty by \u201ctrying to create some kind of paper trail on me\u201d when they raised concerns.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder who is, “Congressman A” is.<\/p>\n

It does seem that the Republican Party is going pear shaped lately. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and his wife have been charged with illegally diverting campaign funds to their personal use: The Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Republican congressman and his wife with using more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for family vacations, theater tickets and other personal expenses.Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (Calif.) and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[513,447,368,486],"class_list":["post-178780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-campaign-finance","tag-congress","tag-corruption","tag-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}