US Rep Duncan Hunter, wife indicted on corruption charges

SAN DIEGO — US 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 August 6 letter from Hunter's attorney, Gregory A. Vega, to US 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.

Another early Trump supporter, Republican US Rep. Chris Collins of New York, ended his re-election bid this month, days after his indictment on insider trading charges.

Hunter's Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, stopped short of calling on the congressman to resign.

"I think justice should run its course," he said.

Campa-Najjar said Hunter was "in it for his own interests" and that it is time to "get rid of the corruption and greed that has held Washington captive for too long."

The California secretary of state's office says there is no process in the elections code for Hunter to remove his name from the ballot, and there can be no write-in candidates for the November election.

In a statement, House Speaker Paul Ryan called the charges "deeply serious" and said Hunter will be removed from his committee assignments, pending resolution of the case. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Ryan should call on Hunter to resign.

In a statement, California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte said "individuals are presumed innocent" until a jury convicts them.

"The congressman and his wife have a constitutional promise to their day in court and we will not prejudge the outcome," Brulte said.

The House Ethics panel had investigated allegations that Hunter improperly used campaign funds to pay for tens of thousands of dollars in personal expenses. The panel said in March that it was delaying the inquiry at the request of the Justice Department.

According to the indictment, in 2015 Hunter attempted to set up a day tour of a US naval facility in Italy in order to justify the use of campaign funds during a vacation with his family. When the proposed date didn't work out, he told his chief of staff, "Tell the Navy to go (expletive) themselves," the documents said.

The couple spent more than $1,500 on video games in 2015; and spent $6,288.74 to take his family on a vacation to a resort in Lahaina, Hawaii, the same year, the indictment said. Other spending included dental work, lavish dinners and movie tickets, prosecutors said.

In April 2015, Margaret Hunter spent nearly $1,000 in campaign funds to fly her mother and her mother's boyfriend to Poland and later told the campaign treasurer they were campaign trips to New Orleans and Kentucky.

His lawyers said in 2017 that Hunter and his wife repaid the campaign about $60,000.

Hunter's office said at the time that one of the charges he repaid was a $600 fee for flying a pet bunny with his family. There was no intent to stick donors with the cost, then-Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper said at the time.

This story has been corrected to show indictment is 48 pages, not 48 counts.

Blood reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Christopher Weber, Robert Jablon and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

AP