U.S. Rep Duncan Hunter, wife indicted on corruption charges
SAN DIEGO — U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife were charged Tuesday with using more than $250,000 in campaign funds to finance family trips to Italy and Hawaii, golf outings, school tuition, theater tickets — even fast food purchases — and attempting to disguise the illegal spending in federal records, prosecutors said.
A 48-page federal indictment depicts the couple as binge spenders who over eight years pocketed a steady stream of dollars intended for campaign purposes, while their household budget was awash in red ink.
Prosecutors said the couple tried to conceal the spending, which ranged from the banal to lavish, by falsifying records.
In March 2015, Hunter told his wife he wanted to buy "Hawaii shorts" but ran out of money, the indictment said. She told him he should buy them at a golf pro shop so they could later describe the purchase as "some (golf) balls for the wounded warriors," according to court documents.
"The Hunters spent substantially more than they earned," the indictment said. "They overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in a 7-year period resulting in approximately $37,761 in 'overdraft' and 'insufficient funds' bank fees."
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Hunter sent an Aug. 6 letter from Hunter's attorney, Gregory A. Vega, to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein asking him to postpone the indictment.
Vega contended that there was a "rush to indict."
There was "politically motivated" pressure to wrap up the investigation in order to tarnish Hunter before the general election after he handily won a June primary, Vega contended.
Hunter was among the earliest Republican members of Congress to endorse President Donald Trump and Vega's letter suggested his outspoken support made him a target for what he described as politically biased prosecutors.
Hunter, 41, the son of a longtime congressman, represents the strongly Republican 50th Congressional District in San Diego and Riverside counties. He faces the prospect of campaigning under the shadow of a federal indictment in a year when Democrats have targeted several Republican-held House seats across the state.
University of California, San Diego political scientist Thad Kousser said Hunter would be on safe ground if the race centered on the Trump agenda.
Now, the indictment "makes it a race about (Hunter), about corruption and in some ways ties him to Donald Trump's biggest vulnerabilities," Kousser said, referring to the guilty plea Tuesday of Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, on campaign-finance violations and other charges, on the same day Trump former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of eight financial crimes.