Prosecutors say California GOP Rep. Hunter used campaign funds for affairs

"To finance this lifestyle, they treated Hunter's campaign treasury as their personal piggybank, regularly embezzling funds to make personal purchases that their own finances could not support," prosecutors wrote.

By Matt Zapotosky | Washington Post

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors alleged in a new court filing this week that Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., used campaign funds to help facilitate extramarital affairs, and they want to show jurors evidence of the relationships at his upcoming trial.

The filing on Monday alleges Hunter used campaign money to fund trips, dinners and drinks with women with whom he was romantically involved – including three lobbyists, a woman who worked in his congressional office and another who worked for a member of House of Representatives leadership.

In the new filing, prosecutors detailed how Hunter’s alleged romantic entanglements blossomed as he used campaign money for large expenses – such as a ski trip near Lake Tahoe – and small ones, such as Uber rides to and from the women’s homes.

Hunter’s defense attorneys did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Hunter told Politico Tuesday: “You have criminally political prosecutors in this case on a personal smear campaign,” but he declined to say whether the allegations were false.

Hunter and his wife, Margaret, were charged last year with using more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for family vacations, theater tickets and other personal expenses. His wife pleaded guilty in the case this month and agreed to “tell everything,” according to a copy of her agreement with prosecutors, though Hunter is fighting the charges. They have three children.

The latest filing came as prosecutors and Hunter’s defense attorneys traded motions about what evidence they hoped would and would not be admitted at his trial, which is scheduled to begin in September.

As part of their effort, prosecutors pulled back the curtain on Hunterss messy personal life – describing how the Congressman was financially stretched from the moment he took office, and drew on campaign money to live beyond his means. They alleged that the Hunters’ overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in seven years – incurring more than $37,000 in overdraft fees from their banks – yet they still were able to travel overseas, eat well and play “seemingly endless rounds of golf.”

“To finance this lifestyle, they treated Hunter’s campaign treasury as their personal piggybank, regularly embezzling funds to make personal purchases that their own finances could not support,” prosecutors wrote.

Hunter has continued serving in Congress and won reelection last year despite being charged. Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., forced Hunter to resign his seats on the Armed Services and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, leaving current House leaders with few options to respond to the latest revelations.

Current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said at the time of Hunter’s indictment that he ought to resign, calling the charges “further evidence of the rampant culture of corruption among Republicans in Washington today.”

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest revelations.

Prosecutors say evidence of the affairs shows Hunter was using campaign money for purely personal purposes.

“Precisely because each of the women worked as lobbyists or congressional staffers, Hunter may suggest that he was justified in spending campaign funds on all of his ‘meetings’ with these individuals,” they wrote. “Evidence of the intimate, entirely personal quality of Hunter’s specific encounters with these women is essential to demonstrate that his spending to facilitate those encounters was improper.”

The filing does not name the women with whom Hunter was said to be involved, but it spares few other details – tracing chronologically how Hunter met and embarked on a relationship with each.

The first alleged affair prosecutors described began in 2009 – the year Hunter took office. Hunter, prosecutors alleged, befriended a lobbyist he met through work, and their relationship “soon blossomed beyond a mere friendship.”

Prosecutors said Hunter began living with the woman in her Washington-area home, and used campaign funds to pay for food and drinks. The pair also took trips together, prosecutors alleged, including an early 2010 ski vacation to a resort near Lake Tahoe and a weekend “double date” road trip to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In both instances, prosecutors alleged, Hunter paid with campaign funds, which amounted to more than $1,000 in each case between the hotel tabs and transportation costs.

Prosecutors said that relationship ended in April 2012, and by August of that year, Hunter was involved with another woman who worked in the office of a member of House of Representatives leadership. As their relationship developed, prosecutors alleged, Hunter began staying at the woman’s house every night – and paying for his Uber rides there with campaign funds.

In 2015, prosecutors said, Hunter started another romantic relationship with a woman hired to work in his office – and used campaign funds to pay for their and others’ tab at the District of Columbia’s H Street Country Club and Matchbox Pizza.

Later that year, prosecutors said, he used campaign funds in what prosecutors described as a more fleeting encounter. At an event at the Hamilton Hotel, prosecutors said, Hunter met up with a lobbyist he knew because she had organized events and fundraisers for him.

“That night, however, was not about business,” prosecutors wrote. They said Hunter and the woman went to the woman’s home “where they engaged in intimate personal activities unrelated to Hunter’s congressional campaign or duties as a member of Congress,” and Hunter used campaign funds to pay for $42 in Uber fares.

Prosecutors said the congressman similarly used campaign funds to pay for Uber rides back to his office in 2016 after an affair with a different lobbyist.

For their part, Hunter’s attorneys sought Monday to get the charges dismissed – or the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego recused from the case – because they alleged two assistant U.S. attorneys who played a role in the investigation had attended a 2015 fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and thus were conflicted.