House Republicans show how to lose $1 million
The National Republican Congressional Committee’s accounting scandal has been percolating for a couple of weeks, but given the scope of the controversy, it’s now front-page news. What started as an embarrassing criminal controversy involving one staffer has become something of an election-year crisis for the GOP’s House campaign committee.
The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars — and possibly as much as $1 million — of the organization’s funds into his personal accounts, GOP officials said yesterday, describing an alleged scheme that could become one of the largest political frauds in recent history.
For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, allegedly used wire transfers to funnel money out of NRCC coffers and into other political committee accounts he controlled as treasurer, NRCC leaders and lawyers said in their first public statement since they turned the matter over to the FBI six weeks ago. [...]
The committee also announced that it has submitted to banks five years’ worth of audits and financial documents allegedly faked by Ward, some of which were used to secure multimillion-dollar loans. It is a violation of federal laws to obtain loans through false statements; the crime is punishable by up to $1 million in fines and 30 years in prison.
The reason this is especially significant right now, is that before yesterday, the NRCC had only acknowledged “irregularities” and announced that Ward was the subject of an FBI probe. Now, however, we know that the NRCC may have lost as much as $1 million.
And it may yet get worse for the party: “The magnitude of the alleged fraud staggered Republicans, who are bracing for the final accounting from the forensic audit in six to eight weeks. Many said they expect a total far greater than the minimum cited yesterday.”
Ironically, all week, the NRCC has argued that Democratic House candidates shouldn’t have anything to do with contributions from Eliot Spitzer, because he was involved with a sex scandal. By this logic, should Republican House candidates reject NRCC funds in light of the committee’s massive fraud scandal?
And how to destroy the United States economy is seven easy years also.
What's really a trip and indicative of just how stupid these people are: the idiot thought he could actually get away with it. Jeepers, what a dope. Oh - am I first? I hope...
Serves them right!
Jeepers got my economic stimulus payment notice in the mail today.
Whoopie Dooooooo
"The magnitude of the alleged fraud staggered Republicans"? Really? I dread to think how they will react when they catch a whiff of what else has been going on financially under Republican governance, if they're this light-headed over a mere million.
All Republicans are greedy. Its the nature of being a neo-con. A requisite actually. Privatize or let one be in charge of watching the money is strongly akin to letting the fox guard the hen house. GOP after all stands for the greedy ole party. Let them manage anything with big bucks involved and I will guarentee you a embezzeler will arise.
L.A. Confidential @ 4:
Yeah, I got one of those too. I wonder how much it cost to send those out to millions of taxpayers.
Blue Taliban Osama Buddha @ 7:
$42 Million
We hear constantly about these huge sums of money. A Million here, thousands there and here are we poor schmucks trying to keep our heads above water as the cost of heating our homes,filling our cars and putting food on the table just keep on going up! Our elected Representatives, both in State and Federal Office have absolutely no idea how the other half lives.
A million dollar fine? Should've stolen enough money to cover that, Ward. Typical of Republicans and their lack of long-term planning.
so it took years and close to a million dollars for the fbi to come after him, but it only took a few thousand dollars and a hooker for the fbi to go after spitzer
hmmmmmm
and of course he thought he could get away with it
everyone knows that in a criminal organization, everyone is gonna steal
he was getting his
Can't blame this on the Dems...or can they?
Maybe the entire U.S. Government is just a confidence scam.
As long as we are discussing Spitzer and losing money, read this:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/#more-1979
How do they keep getting away with it? Another Bush, another massive banking "failure".
Speaking of stupid republicans, check out this fox news article.
Mccain was asked at a rally if he was worried the terrorists would try to influence the election against him by staging terrorist attacks near the election. he said he was and that "we have intercepted communications that said they would do that" (nice plug for domestic surveilance).
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/14/campaign-wire-obama-camp-says-cl...
The question had to be staged and his answer almost doesn't even follow. If the terrorist staged an attack near the election, wouldn't it mean that we would be more likely vote for the guy whose been getting our fears whipped up?
Also, wouldn't that mean Bush's prevention policies had failed and should be re-examined.
This is sick propaganda.
We are blowing through 12 Billion a month in Iraq now..
We WASTE 40 Billion a year on the cannibalistic drug war.. and arrest over 1 million people for cannabis possession...
They give Billion dollar contracts out to raving psychopathic murderers who shoot at people indiscriminately in the streets of IRAQ.. then SEIZE the legally owned guns of the people in the Gulf Coast..
The DAY BEFORE 9/11/01 on 9/10/01 Donald Rumsfeld gave a press conference where he said they have "LOST" 2.3 TRILLION Dollars!!!!!!!!
(YOU COULD NOT LOSE SIGHT OF 2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS IF YOU WENT INTO ORBIT!)
We are supposed to care about 1 million lost?
AND wasn't this one of the guys in the Veterans for TRUTH who founded the Swift Boat guys. The ones who said John Kerry, who had documented evidence to the contrary, was not telling the truth about his Viet Nam service. Gee imagine that.
In the words of Nelson, "Ha-ha"
rduke @ 16:
Everything you say is correct.
But the NRCC, well, it couldn't happen to nicer folks.
Let them keep losing that money.
' The magatude staggered RePugs' Sure it did. 'If only He's come to Me' many RePugs whimisaclly breathed. 'I'd have shown Him how to hide it and make a tidy profit meself.'
rduke @ 16:
That's what Ward was thinking.
Remember the rule: No matter how bad they tell you it is, it's always worse than that.
Yes, this news put a smile on my face. Hopefully this fall will bring even more happy news about republican losses. Understand now, I'll be first in line to pile on the dems if I see the same effort I have from Nancy Pelosi & Co. thus far into their tenure, but I truly hate republicans.
Repack Rider @ 22:
Nahhhh. 'They' said pot would make me a fiend. It only made Me stupid.
I'm sorry I haven't read the entire article yet, but just going by the headline I can say this much, Republicans don't need to "show" how they lose 1 million. With them, it sort of just happens. A million here a million there....then they whine about "libruls taxing us to death" when Democrats try to clean up after their debacles and unnecessary wars.
Have you smacked the piss out of a neo-con today? If not than why not. Just go up to one and sucker punch them in the face.
Steve: Yes, But by their logical fallacy:
Fraud by the NRCC is not necessary to self-righteously demand that all money from the NRCC be given back
By their logic, just the fact that Christopher Ward both committed a crime and handled (controlled) the funds demands, in the most forceful terms, that all National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) money donated to officials and their campaigns be returned immediately.
AND
By their fallacy, it is shameful and a huge scandal deserving of scorn, ridicule and the righteous indignation of every American that they (Republican politicians) did not immediately return the funds as soon as the embezzlement was detected.
Only the successfully pre-indoctrinated gullible, ignorant and intellectually lazy would believe this or any other rhetoric by the Republicans or Right-wing media. That is why we should be very afraid, because these lazy narcissists are numerous enough to keep everyone else from reinstating the Constitution and protecting themselves from the tyranny and the fleecing by these criminals.
Peace,
JK
Everybody sing!!
"I rob you, you rob me, we're retarded Cons you see, with a great big stash, and some bills from me to you, tell the taxpayer's hey F*CK U!"
This will be nothing compared to the money the dem's will loose when they hike up your taxes.........
chris @ 29:
First, it's LOSE, not loose. Second, there is no way in hell any party could piss away the trillions this so called conservative government has. I hope you are young, so that you have an extra long time paying the debt and passing it onto your kids and grandkids for your undying support of borrow and spend.
Well, what do you know. There is no honor among thieves. What a shame. I really do think all the republicans should refuse to take money, (of course, I mean whatever is left) from this criminally incompetent organization. You know, because they are all so honorable.
Except that we have long known them for slime, most voters could say the same about the National Rethuglican Congressional Committee.
Anyone ever seen the Steve Martin / John Candy movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
There's a scene with the two of them standing on the freeway in the middle of the night after having driven between two trucks driving head on against them. (They had entered the freeway on an exit ramp, and was heading in the wrong direction.) The pair realize too late that Candy had left a lit cigarette in the back seat of what was left of their car, which then burst into flames.
Candy had been annoying Martin -- to put it mildly -- for the duration of their trip, acting irresponsibly, costing Martin money, and being generally irritable. However, because Candy had rented the now-ablaze vehicle, Martin began to laugh. He turned to Candy and said,
"You finally did it to yourself!"
I feel like shouting the same to the Republican Party.
But then, I remember that in the next moment, Candy reveals that he had actually rented the car with Martin's credit card, and the movie proceeds as it had before. I wonder how our tax dollars, or perhaps money we've donated to Democratic candidates, will be used to refill the Republican coffers.
**Sigh** At least Candy's character was trying to be a nice guy. :(
If Eliot Spitzer was in charge the guy would have been so busted.
hey nrcc, i gotcha million!
The only way this story could possibly make me feel any better is if it turns out Ward was blowing the GOP's money on gay hookers and crystal meth. A thief stealing from thieves - I love it!!!
Proof that "THERE CAN BE NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES"!!!!!!!
geneHUSSEIN214 @ 36:
There is the curious angle in that the NRCC were paying out identical monies to named donors.
In one case a woman who paid in $500 got the money back four days later.
The FEC records show a minus 500 donation etc, after the positive 500 one.
That was the first name I checked at random in the NRCC expenditure section at opensecrets.org database.
early last week somebody was interfering with access to the database SQL when you tired to check entries, timeout errors etc, prob a TLA.
There must hundreds of payouts to different individuals at the NRCC under the expenditure section, seems to have been some form of money laundering or theft.
Ward was paying himself under two names, full real name and plain 'Ward' plus big bonuses nov dec time in the election cycles.
and bumped up his salary more than double just before he became an outside contractor for the NRCC.
missmarple @ 9:
Too funny ,
A friend once asked me how I was doing , OK , great trying to keep my head above water , he asked " hows that going " hey no prob , I'm not thristy .
So, the Republicans put their trust in an authority figure and didn't think any oversight was necessary - and it cost them a bunch of their savings. I'd call it "poetic justice", but the damage wasn't massive enough. Now, if all the RNC board members found out he'd also taken out massive loans against their houses and signed their kids up to fight in Iraq - now THAT would be closer to what the Publicans did to this country...
L.A. Confidential @ 4:
Burn Masta's stimulus package. We're not economic slaves.
Who says Republicans are bad at running things?
Yet another example from the "Do as We say not as We do" department of the RNC......
List of sections of Republican quotes, quite the most mind numbing sickening collection of filth and ignorance on this planet.
go visit 'Republican_Quotes' if you dare
ferrofluid @ 44:
you mean like Ron Paul on 03-12-08 in the US House ? , " our empire is coming down " youtube it .
David N @ 45:
watching now, Ron Paul is a man with a brain and a voice and Congress needs people like him to speak out truths.
'tarian rather than a dem, but opinions and inputs are needed from all sides.
and just another repug , same old bag of crap , less goverment , lower taxes , dont police the world , no empire building , sound money , personal freedom , no war unless directed by congress , bring all our troops home , defend our country ( our country ) and not the rest of the world . Let little countries stand on their own legs and not have us rush off and die for their ideas while we give them our money ( gwb israeal 30billion for 2008 why ????? ) wake the fuck up amercians .
You?/we want our country back and all you have stole from us , as war crimes you must give up your money , for the betterment of our country .
1 million? sounds like chump change. someome remind me, how much money was it that has turned up missing in Iraq?
I dont know they ( the us gov ) was giving 100 bills away by the pound , ask KBR they saved tons not being amercian emplyoies and all .
His crimes just show that he is a typical good Republican.
sure hope I get a gov stim pk soon , I need it to pay my taxes .
Shoeless @ 48:
how much was missing from 9/11 ( 180 billion ) chump ( chimp ) change
The next time they come asking for money, tell them to get it from Chris Ward.
http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/next-time-they-come-asking-for-mo...
It goes so much deeper than just bad money management. It is moral corruption. These peple are corrupt to the core. But what really pisses me off is that they hide behind a wall of religion. It remind me of the Christian values that many in the Republican Party upholds so strongly when they go on the attack against others. I wonder how they are doing on keeping those Commandments. I had a look at those Commandments that focus on person-to-person relationships and are meant to guide interaction between people. Unfortunately, they tend to break them willfully day in and day out. Yes, theft, lies, adultery, want and murder. More on my blog at http://angryafrican.net/2008/03/09/breaking-the-commandments-republican-...
Too bad it's the FBI and not the FBET.
We know how the Federal Bureau of Extra-Terrestials conduct their probes.
How does it feel to be swiftboated, Republicans?? HAHAHAHA
Why would a republicans worry about their criminal crimes and corruption , they always have Bush to pardon them.. we call Bush an idiot but he has done as he d... well pleases.
Are we sure that this administration isn't the Mafia full blown into our government.
To shows Bush and the republicans arrogance they invade other countries overthrow their government and then call other countries terrorist.
The is as high as s... gets.
We're currently spending $4000 per second on the war in Iraq.
A little multiplication will tell you we lose $1 million there in just over four minutes.
Oh, sure, some of that goes into the pockets of our troops, who will be free to spend that and "boost our economy."
But given that the money we're spending on the war isn't money that the government actually HAS, but is instead borrowing mostly from China, I don't get how the gov't. giving us MORE money that they don't have is supposed to help the economy. Maybe I'm just stupid.
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