"I don't criticize the press, but the documents they were operating off of were incomplete and in material ways, inaccurate," Evan Bayh said. | Getty Bayh denies using taxpayer money for personal travel

INDIANAPOLIS — Democrat Evan Bayh on Friday rejected charges that he used taxpayer money to fund personal travel — including job hunting trips to New York — after he announced his retirement from the Senate in 2010.

"That's just not accurate," Bayh, now running in a close race to rejoin the Senate, said in an interview. "I followed all the ethical rules, No. 1. And No. 2, I've returned unspent money from my office budget to the taxpayers, almost $2 million" over his two terms in the Senate.


The Associated Press, using a copy of a schedule of Bayh's last year in office, reported Friday that the former senator spent $3,000 of taxpayer funds for trips to New York that included meetings with top banking officials and one job headhunter. The campaign asserted to the AP that the trips were Senate-sanctioned travel because he was doing official business, such as media appearances.

Bayh added: "I don't criticize the press, but the documents they were operating off of were incomplete and in material ways, inaccurate." His campaign did not dispute the authenticity of the schedule, according to the AP report, and an AP spokeswoman said the wire stands by its reporting.

The AP report also reported that Bayh did not stay at his Indianapolis condo once during 2010, according to the schedule — fueling long-running attacks against the former senator that he had long lost touch with Indiana voters. He owns a one-bedroom condo here, but also owns two multimillion-dollar residences in Washington and another in Florida.

Bayh argued that details about how often he was in Indiana are "irrelevant to the challenges voters are facing."

"You go out here, and people want to know what we'll do to help them create jobs, make college affordable, make sure their retirement is secure," Bayh said in the interview. "Not how many times I stayed in my home."

The Bayh campaign also issued a statement Friday morning disputing the report.

"This alleged schedule and others like it being shopped to competing news outlets are incomplete, riddled with errors, and clearly not reliable sources of information on how Evan Bayh's time was spent," said Dan Parker, senior adviser to the campaign.

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