National Republican Congressional Committee Treasurer-'Loses' $725 grand

[Ichingcarpenter]

A scheme by a former treasurer resulted in a loss of about $725,000 to the House Republicans’ campaign arm, according to an audit released today.

Christopher J. Ward, long a trusted financial figure in Republican circles, funneled money belonging to the National Republican Congressional Committee and covered up his scheme by faking external audit reports between 2002 and 2006.

Representative Michael K. Conaway of Texas, the new head of the N.R.C.C.’s audit committee discovered Mr. Ward’s actions in late January. After Mr. Ward repeatedly put off meetings with auditors, he admitted that no audits had been performed.

An external audit has finally been performed, by Covington & Burling with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the N.R.C.C. released a summary of the findings today.

“The essence of Ward’s apparent scheme was that he used his authority to order wire transfers to direct funds through various committees and ultimately to his own accounts,” between 2001 and 2007, the report said, adding that it appeared unlikely that others knew of his actions.


http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/nrcc-lost-725000-to-former-treasurer-audit-finds/

A lawyer for Mr. Ward, Ronald Machen, had no comment on the report.

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. It looks like he's just a typical Republican stealing from republican thieves

It goes to proves 'there is no honor among thieves'

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. More fallout from NRCC embezzlement scandal

House Republicans have had to deal with the nearly $2 million tab from its embezzlement scandal ($725,000 stolen by their former treasurer, and continued legal and accounting costs trying to sort out the mess), not to mention the severe public embarrassment which allows people like me to say, "Republicans run their committees the same way they run the country."

But there's another major side-effect of the scandal, as noted by the subscription-only Roll Call:

The committee will need to hire an outside firm to conduct a standard audit of its books for 2007, and until that audit is complete, the NRCC will not be able to take out any bank loans to fund independent expenditure campaigns in late-breaking races <...>

The ability to obtain a line of credit, while standard practice for a national party committee, could be particularly important for the NRCC this fall. The committee had $6.7 million in cash on hand as of April 30 and has 30 open seats to defend and several incumbents being threatened by the cash-flush Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The DCCC closed April with more than $45 million in the bank.

The audit is only expected to last six weeks once begun (they haven't yet), but NRCC chair doesn't sound too confident about the matter.

When asked if the NRCC would be in a position to borrow money from a bank this fall, committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said: "I think so, but we’ll just have to now work that through."


http://www.dailykos.com/