Republican Treasurer under FBI Scrutiny

Christopher J. Ward kept the books for a huge number of Republican political fundraising committees; he was treasurer to 83 of them in the last 8 years according to the Federal Election Commission. The Washington Post says that he oversaw the book-keeping for committees that raised over $400 million, including the National Republican Congressional Committee’s $368 million. In January, he was sacked by the NRCC, and the FBI is now investigating possible fraud.

The NRCC’s reason for firing Mr. Ward was accounting “irregularities” that “may include fraud.” This stemmed from a request by the new chairman of the NRCC’s auditing subcommittee, K. Michael Conaway (R-TX, himself a CPA), for an outside audit of the books. That seemingly normal request resulted in delay upon delay. Finally, when a meeting with auditors had been scheduled, Mr. Ward canceled it half an hour before it was due to begin. The NRCC then called the auditors anyway, discovered that there had been no external audit since 2003, and there is now suspicion that the documents shown since then were fabrications.

The Post also says that New York Congressman Peter King may have been defrauded by Mr. Ward. “King said in an interview that he has discovered that Ward paid himself $6,000 in consulting fees from King's political action committee in 2007 -- though King believed that he had shuttered the committee early last year. Upon learning of the NRCC investigation, King said he found that his PAC remained open all of last year. Ward paid himself the fees from King's PAC, which received just three contributions and dispensed one check in 2007, FEC records show.”

This is not a very promising year to be a Republican candidate for Congress. The economy is wobbly at best, and the war in Iraq-Nam is still wasting lives and money. The last thing the GOP needs is a scandal involving money (or anything else for that matter). However, this goes beyond the possible bad press.

If Mr. Ward did actually defraud various political committees (and this is an unproved charge at this stage – Mr. Ward is quite innocent in the eyes of the law now), then he took money away from these committees that would otherwise have used it for something else, such as mailings, radio and TV commercials, phone banks, etc. Moreover, contributors to those PACs thought they were backing a certain political agenda, but instead, they were just helping Mr. Ward (if he is found guilty) feather his own nest. This case goes much deeper than some bad press as it hurts the Republican Party’s ability to campaign – a blow against democracy.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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