Rep. Duncan Hunter is being investigated by the Department of Justice over whether he improperly used campaign funds for personal use, according to a statement released Thursday by the House Ethics Committee.

The committee announced that it had unanimously voted to defer its own investigation of Hunter at the request of the Justice Department. Prosecutors typically ask congressional committees to hold off to avoid having their inquiries conflict with criminal investigations.

A federal law enforcement official familiar with the investigation confirmed Thursday that the FBI is investigating Hunter for campaign finance violations.

Along with the announcement, the committee released a previously confidential one-page statement from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics which described allegations that Hunter, R-Alpine, had misused campaign funds for personal benefit. His actions may have violated House rules and federal law, the statement said.


Hunter “may have converted tens of thousands of dollars of campaign funds from his congressional campaign committee to personal use to pay for family travel, flights, utilities, health care, school uniforms and tuition, jewelry, groceries, and other goods, services, and expenses,” the report stated.

The Department of Justice has not made public the existence of an investigation, nor detailed what crimes it suspects Hunter or members of his campaign may have committed. Other lawmakers accused of personal spending have been indicted on charges including income tax evasion and making false reports to the Federal Election Commission.

Elliot S. Berke and Gregory A. Vega, attorneys for Rep. Hunter, provided a statement Thursday in response to the Ethics Committee’s announcement.

“Last year, Congressman Hunter became aware of expenditure issues confronting his campaign committee. Out of an abundance of caution, he took corrective action in consultation with the FEC and, ultimately, he and his wife personally repaid the campaign approximately $60,000,” the statement said. “Congressman Hunter intends to cooperate fully with the government on this investigation, and maintains that to the extent any mistakes were made they were strictly inadvertent and unintentional.”


The summary report released Thursday says OCE voted 5-0 to recommend that the committee “further review the above allegations concerning Rep. Hunter because there is substantial reason to believe that Rep. Hunter converted campaign funds to personal use to pay expenses that were not legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.”

The full OCE report was not released Thursday.

Although the full OCE report has not been released, Hunter’s office has apparently seen it. Spokesman Joe Kasper criticized it in January, saying “findings or implications are significantly misrepresented or even exaggerated.”

The OCE report is the result of a complaint the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), made in late April, after the FEC and The San Diego Union-Tribune began questioning what appeared to be personal spending of campaign money on video games and Hunter’s children’s private school tuition.


“Rep. Hunter has shown a blatant disregard for the rules, spending tens of thousands of dollars from his campaign for his personal benefit,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement Thursday. “This is the most egregious Congressional spending scandal since Aaron Schock. We are glad to see the Office of Congressional Ethics voted unanimously for an investigation and will be closely following the FBI’s criminal investigation in Congressman Hunter.”

Reports of improper spending of campaign and office funds by Schock, R-Ill., prompted CREW to file a complaint. As questions about his finances continued to mount, the congressman resigned in March 2015. He was later indicted in the District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Schock has pleaded not guilty to all 24 charges.

Since April, Hunter has repaid his campaign some $62,000 for expenses it identified as mistaken, personal or insufficiently supported. The expenses included oral surgery, a family trip to Italy, purchases from a Disneyland gift shop, and about $600 in airline fees for in-cabin transportation of one of Hunter’s children’s pet rabbit.

The campaign had flagged some of the charges, such as a $1,137 payment to an oral surgeon in El Cajon in June 2015, as “mistaken — to be reimbursed” in original reports filed with the FEC. The oral surgeon reimbursed part of the expense, but Hunter didn’t repay the remaining $811 until April 2016 — a few days after the Union-Tribune asked about the charge.


When the Union-Tribune asked last spring about payments his campaign made for video games, Hunter said his son had mistakenly used the campaign credit card instead of his personal card. He said both cards were blue.

He also said at the time that he and his wife, Margaret, who was also the campaign manager, were the only two holders of the campaign credit cards — and that he would be the only cardholder going forward.

At a town hall meeting in Ramona earlier this month, Hunter addressed questions about the spending.

“I am not going to make excuses for it,” he said. ...“It was my responsibility for my family, for the charges my kid made, that’s on me,” he continued. “And I take responsibility for it. I fixed it, and as far as I am concerned, end of story.”


Hunter also said his campaign was no longer paying Margaret Hunter for consulting services. She had been earning $3,000 per month, and she ranked as the campaign’s second-highest paid vendor in the 2016 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org.

The campaign paid her $69,000 in 23 payments for “campaign consulting” in 2015 and 2016, according to the Union-Tribune’s review of FEC reports. The campaign’s last reported payment to her was Nov. 29, 2016.

Staff writer Joshua Stewart and Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau writers David Lauter and Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.

Previously: Hunter


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morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com