As per the New York Times article published today, it appears that the NRCC's financial records are coming under direct scrutiny by the Feds - at the GOP's request.
Financial irregularities are nothing new when it comes to politics, but this isn't just an irregularity - it's beginning to smell a lot like longterm fraud, with a side dish of embezzlement.
And when it comes to this kind of activity, one thing at least right now is certain: you can't perpetrate this kind of crime alone.
The audits were ordered after the abrupt departure several weeks ago of Christopher J. Ward, who had been treasurer of the committee. Lawmakers said that Mr. Ward, who served a similar role for dozens of individual members of Congress and their political committees, is the focus of the F.B.I.’s criminal investigation.
The committee has acknowledged publicly that it was aware of "irregularities in our financial audit process" and that it had called in the F.B.I. in February because "these irregularities may include fraud."
But until now the committee has not acknowledged that any money was missing from its bank accounts or that the financial irregularities might extend beyond the national committee to the campaign funds of individual Republican lawmakers who also worked with Mr. Ward, a longtime party operative.
This incident first came to light - if obtusely - earlier this year, when the NRCC chairman, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, released a short statement that even in its brevity, managed to say a lot:
"We are aggressively and thoroughly investigating the matter and, while we determine the details, we have terminated our relationship with a former employee who was engaged as an outside vendor."
The employee they're referring to is one Christopher Ward, then the RNCC's treasurer. According to the New York Times, Republican Mike Conway (R-TX), himself a CPA and the chairman of the RNCC's auditing committee, began to suspect something was awry when he attempted to request meetings with the RNCC's auditors and was repeatedly rebuffed.
"I just kept insisting that we meet with the auditors," Mr. Conaway said in an interview. "It finally came into my head, and as the circumstances unfolded, that no audit had been done."
As it later turned out, there'd been no actual audits since 2003. Ward had been forging everything, up to and including the letterheads. It only took some basic queries of those who were supposed to have been performing these audits to determine something was afoot, and that hundreds of thousands of dollars had vanished into the ether.
With the GOP campaign funds dwindling, this discovery couldn't come at a worse time. And to make things worse, many Republicans who dealt with Ward are having to check their own books or, in some cases, cover their own tracks. According to TPMMuckraker commenter Mrs Panstreppon, there could be a link between his actions and that of Republican Tom Reynolds, who it appears paid $65,000 from his campaign expenditures to a Potomac Company, LLC based in Miami, Florida.
There is no Potomac Company, LLC registered with the State Department in Florida.
And Reynolds named Ward to be treasurer five years ago, after he stepped down as chairman just last year - and the irregularities surfaced at the beginning of February. And Deloitte & Touche, a respected Big Four auditing firm, could also be caught up in the scandal - how do you not notice that you're not being paid for your fake audits? Simple answer: You don't. Either someone noticed and was told to keep it quiet, or there's more going on than meets the eye. And you can bet the IRS is going to be extremely interested in what happens next.
Mrs. Panstreppon offers up this extra breadcrumb for our consideration:
As an aside, Christopher J. Ward and Susan Arceneaux, former Dick Armey aide, were partners in Political Compliance Services until January.
Arceneaux, through PCS, handles the books for Swift Boat Vets. She also handles the books for the Admiral Roy F. Hoffmann Foundation. Roy Hoffman is a Swift Boat Vets co-founder and overall nasty person.
In February 2006, Swift Boat Vets ostensibly contributed $100k to the Admiral Hoffmann Foundation, according to its 8872 filed in the first quarter of 2006.
But in its 2006 990, the Admiral Roy F. Hoffmann Foundation failed to report a $100k contribution from Swift Boat Vets.
Maybe someone should ask Susan Arceneaux where the $100k went.
I expect the Feds would love to do just that. In the meantime, the DNC needs to pull its head out of its delegational backside, and focus on tearing this latest instance of GOP corruption wide open.
Well. I always was something of an optimist.