Just a short diary about some new developments in an interesting story. As was mentioned last week in the NYT, the National Republican Congressional Committee called in the FBI to investigate financial "irregularities" at the NRCC, possibly including fraud. Now the RNCC has called in a forensic auditor. Ouch. Hard to tap donors when your accountant has his hand in the till.
Politico reports that the forged audits might go back before 2006, and that the NRCC is worried about perception of donors. http://www.politico.com/...
Top House Republicans were told in recent days that a former employee of their campaign committee may have forged an official audit during the contentious 2006 election cycle and that they should brace for the possibility that an unfolding investigation could uncover financial improprieties stretching back several years, according to GOP sources briefed on the members-only discussions.
As Kos frequently points out, the DCCC has a massive advantage in cash on hand, something like 10:1, with the DCCC raising 1.5 times as much per month as the RNCC. The RNCC apparently has a much higher burn rate, too. Stay tuned in the next weeks as concrete information comes out on why that burn rate is so high... but for now, it sure looks like the GOP got burned.
"There is a sense that this could be very damaging to the committee," said a Republican insider close to the GOP leadership.
The accountant, Christopher Ward, worked for the NRCC since the early 90's, so nobody knows how far back the fraudulent accounting might go. It seems there are also interesting links with other GOP politicians who are certainly under suspicion or actually convicted of corruption, including Jerry Weller and he was the accountant for Bob Ney's PAC. I wonder if there are connections to Abramoff?
Over the years, Ward has also served as the official treasurer for numerous congressional Republicans, their PACs and other GOP candidates running for Congress. They include retiring Reps. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, James T. Walsh of New York and Jerry Weller of Illinois, as well as Reps. Steve Buyer of Indiana, Phil English of Pennsylvania and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, among many others. He was also listed as the treasurer for incarcerated former Ohio Rep. Bob Ney’s American Liberty PAC.
The NRCC will be holding a closed door meeting tomorrow to discuss the ramifications. Around here, this scandal hardly seems surprising. After all this guy was an accountant for a party based largely on the glorification of self-interest. But it does seem, uh... a little awkward to be approaching donors in one of the worst fundraising environments in years with an admission that you can't manage your own resources and don't have the controls in place to detect long-term, multi-year fraud.
Update: Please see this similar diary about Tom Reynolds and the NRCC scandal: http://www.dailykos.com/...