John Edwards’ mistress received $100,000 from his political action committee in an 18-week span in 2006, payments that raise this question: Can politicians use PACs as their own personal piggy banks?
From staging fundraisers in Las Vegas to financing ski trips, current and former lawmakers have spent money from congressional leadership PACs on a broad range of seemingly personal activities over the years, all the while maintaining they are doing so for strictly political purposes.
Recommended Stories
In the wake of the disclosure of Edwards’ affair with videographer Rielle Hunter, Edwards has acknowledged a federal criminal investigation is under way into his presidential campaign fund.
But it was the former senator’s PAC — which is separate from the campaign — that paid $114,000 in 2006 and early 2007 to Hunter’s Midline Groove Productions for campaign videos.
It is illegal under federal election law to convert campaign funds to personal use. But that prohibition doesn’t extend to PACs in most cases, according to the Federal Election Commission, which in March asked Congress to tighten the law. Leadership PACs are “a form of giant slush fund; they should be banned,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a campaign money watchdog group.
Longtime watchdog groups question whether politicians will engage in any self-policing.
“Congress has always been slow to curb its own excesses,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
Their political purpose enables PACs to receive tax-exempt status.
“If a politician uses a PAC as a piggy bank for personal expenses, he better make sure to accurately disclose the payments on FEC forms and pay taxes on the income,” said Jan Baran, a top campaign finance lawyer in Washington and a partner at Wiley Rein LLP.
Edwards could face a number of issues in the criminal investigation, whose existence he confirmed on May 3.
One legal issue surrounds the final $14,000 PAC payment to Hunter on April 1, 2007, from One America, which didn’t have enough money on hand at the start of the day to make the payment, according to records filed with the FEC.
The Edwards presidential campaign injected $14,034.61 into the PAC that day for a “furniture purchase,” the records state. That put enough money in the political action committee account to pay Hunter $14,086.50 the same day.
This week, Elizabeth Edwards seconded her husband’s assertion, saying that “it’s just not possible” that campaign funds were paid to Hunter.
Among high-profile politicians who have gotten into legal trouble over personal use of campaign funds are former House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., and former Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio. Rostenkowski ultimately pleaded guilty to mail fraud; Traficant was convicted of taking bribes and kickbacks from businessmen and his own staff.
More recently, a former congressional candidate in Kansas pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds to cover a check for the down payment on a home.
