Lavish meals, pet airfare, Italy trip: Rep. Duncan Hunter and wife accused of misspending $250,000 in campaign funds

They dropped more than $14,000 on their family excursion in Italy. They racked up $3 three hundred at In-N-Out, Carl’s Jr, Taco Bell, and other speedy-meals eating places. Over the years, prosecutors allege, Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret, picked up Fandango film tickets, a $250 plane journey for the family rabbit, video games, and vitamins from Costco — and as soon as 30 tequila shots for a bachelor birthday celebration.

“Our deal with,” Hunter (R-Alpine) and his spouse informed their pals when they picked up the $1,164 tab at the Montage Inn in Laguna Beach for food and drinks.

A federal grand jury indicted the couple Tuesday, alleging they funded a lavish way of life of travel, first-class eating, items, and different fees with illegal usage of marketing campaign money, then filed false campaign finance reviews with the Federal Election Commission to cover it up. Prosecutors stated the Hunters spent more than $250,000 on private prices concealed as marketing campaign-related presents, donations, and journeys.

Family dental bills, the indictment alleges, were listed as a charitable contribution to “Smiles for Life.” Tickets for the family to peer “Riverdance” at the San Diego Civic Theatre became “San Diego Civic Center for Republican Women Federated/Fundraising.” A golf trip was characterized as “a Christian issue” with a supporter. SeaWorld tickets worth over $250 have been called an “instructional excursion.”

For all of the spending, the government said the couple was, without a doubt, broke. After his election to Congress in 2008, the indictment said Duncan and his spouse overdrew their financial institution account more than one hundred times, racking up more than $37,000 in overdraft fees. The couple is accused of treating the marketing campaign coffers “as if they have been personal financial institution accounts,” U.S. Atty. Adam Braverman stated in an assertion. “Elected representatives have to jealously defend the general public’s accept as true with, now not abuse their positions for private gain.”

During the term, the indictment covers — from 2009 to 2016 — Hunter was reelected four instances, while his spouse, Margaret, dealt with his marketing campaign finance reviews and became paid as his campaign supervisor. His marketing campaign, the indictment, was politically stimulated and connected to his guide for President Trump. It said in a statement that the federal legal professionals involved in the charge attended a “Hillary Clinton for President” fundraiser on Aug. 27, 2015, and must have recused themselves from the case.

The campaign stated Hunter has no plans to drop out of his reelection race. But House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Tuesday that Hunter — chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee — may be eliminated from his committee assignments until the case is resolved.

Gregory Vega, Hunter’s lawyer, said an indictment simplest three months before the election and nearly  years since the research began “reflects a lack of impartiality and looks to be an attempt to derail Congressman Hunter’s reelection.” The San Diego Union-Tribune and the FEC identified several questionable spending greater than two years in the past, triggering federal research by the Justice Department.

Defending himself towards the research has largely drained Hunter’s campaign conflict chest. He and his wife offered the family domestically and moved in with his parents. The five-time period congressman holds a seat his father, Rep. Duncan Hunter Sr., as soon as held for decades.

It became greater than $1 three hundred in online game purchases that first drew the newspaper’s attention. Hunter blamed his son for those purchases at the time, announcing he had used the incorrect credit score card to enroll in a routine buy. But the 47-page indictment info years of unchecked spending and deception, beginning in 2009, when Duncan Hunter requested marketing campaign credit scorecards for himself and his spouse. At the time, his campaign treasurer warned him: The cards could be used most effectively for campaign-associated fees.

On Jan. 25, 2010, consistent with the indictment, the congressman spent more than $1,000 in marketing campaign funds on a 3-night skiing ride with a pal. On that identical day, his family financial institution account had a negative balance and incurred six expenses for the insufficient budget. He had approximately $35 in his private account. Later, in 2010, the treasurer pressed Hunter roughly a $160 spherical of golf and beer at Riverwalk Golf Club with a chum, asking if the expenditure became marketing campaign-related.

Soon after, his wife spent $seven-hundred on a dozen tickets for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” falsely labeling the fee as a “vacation gift certificate,” prosecutors said. They spent $2,000 to send a family member to a Pittsburgh Steelers game for a party.

When the treasurer wondered him again, Hunter asked if he was “looking to create some paper path” on the congressman, in line with the indictment. The spending allegedly persisted for years. The Hunters took a circle of relatives holidays to Boise, Idaho, and Washington, D.C. Margaret Hunter booked flights for her sister and different own family members to wait for a funeral in Tucson in 2012, saying the rate became for a flight to Baltimore for a “wintry weather assembly” at a Republican collecting, files stated.

“We want to up the 1k daily limit to 4 or 5,” Margaret Hunter told the treasurer in February 2015 regarding the marketing campaign card. The following month, Duncan Hunter told his wife he was planning to shop for his “Hawaii shorts” but had run out of money. She advised him to shop for the shorts from pro golf save. In that manner, they may describe the purchase as “a few [golf] balls for the wounded warriors,” the indictment alleges.

During the family experience in Italy in 2015, Hunter attempted to install a day tour of a U.S. Naval facility there to justify the use of campaign finances, consistent with the indictment. Navy officials said they might offer a most effective excursion on a certain day.