Four newly elected Republican Congressmen have such legal problems that they may well not serve out their terms, and one or two of them may not get seated at all.
"Winning" House Republicans with legal issues
Candidate |
District |
Win
Margin
|
Allegations of Possible Felonies |
Duncan Hunter |
CA CD-50 |
2.6% |
Federal Indictment: used campaign funds for self & mistresses
|
Chris Collins |
NY CD-27 |
0.9% |
Federal Indictment: insider trading
|
Ross Spano |
FL CD-15 |
6.0% |
Admits he may have violated campaign finance laws. |
Mark HArris |
NC CD-9 |
0.6% |
Campaign committed fraud, election rerun probable |
North Carolina’s election board is investigated whether there is enough evidence of fraud to force a new election in NC CD-9 where Mark Harris supposedly won by 905 votes.
www.politico.com/...
His campaign apparently paid for illegal handling of absentee ballots as noted in various other diaries. Even North Carolina Republicans are now talking about rerunning the election.
www.washingtontimes.com/…
Meanwhile, Ross Spano, the Republican victor in FL CD-15, accepted large loans from friends during the campaign and then turned around and loaned his campaign nearly the same amounts, something that will surely spark an ethics investigation at least and there is some talk among Democrats of not seating him in January.
www.rollcall.com/...
Spano borrowed $180,000 in four installments from June to October at an interest rate of 5 percent. The candidate lent his campaign committee $167,000 in personal funds over roughly the same period.
Spano accepted $75,000 from a lender on Oct. 29, eight days before the election, and directed $70,000 to his campaign on the same day.
Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins are both under federal indictments, but won reelection in their Republican districts anyway. Both may have to resign their congressional seats if they accept plea deals rather than going to trial.
Ethics violations and law breaking are not new or limited to one party, but Republicans seem to be having more than their share of this problem.
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Not surprisingly the problem is not limited on congressional Republican candidates.
December 6, 2018 at 4:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 19 Comments
Mother Jones finds evidence which suggests that the National Rifle Association and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign may have illegally coordinated campaign ad spending.
“The two purchases may have looked coincidental; Red Eagle and AMAG appear at first glance to be separate firms. But each is closely connected to a major conservative media-consulting firm called National Media Research, Planning and Placement. In fact, the three outfits are so intertwined that both the NRA’s and the Trump campaign’s ad buys were authorized by the same person: National Media’s chief financial officer, Jon Ferrell.”