While Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., embraced fiscal conservatism, his chief of staff was not as meticulous. Three months after a Washington Examiner investigation detailed his top staffer’s questionable spending habits, Schweikert now faces a new complaint with the House Office of Congressional Ethics.
The complaint, first reported by the Phoenix New Times, alleges that Oliver Schwab, the congressman’s longtime chief of staff, broke federal law by “receiving earned income in excess of the outside earned income limit for senior staffers.” It also alleges that Schwab made illegal and improper campaign contributions to his boss.
Schweikert defended his office during a phone interview with the Washington Examiner and attributed the paper trail of questionable spending to lazy bookkeeping.
“There were a couple things that were sloppy,” Schweikert told me. “There were some things that were absolutely innocent but would’ve been cleaner and more appropriate protocol if you just had used a campaign debit card instead of buying coffee and then getting a reimbursement.”
Sources within Schweikert World say Schwab spent money on more than just cups of coffee. They describe the senior congressional aide as the “Aaron Schock of staffers.” As the Washington Examiner first reported, public disclosures show that Schwab spent taxpayer money on lavish work trips and prestigious seminars at Ivy League universities.
Schwab also supplemented his income with a consulting firm he ran out of his Alexandria,Va., condo. According to FEC records, all three of the congressman’s campaign organs — the Friends of David Schweikert PAC, the Team Dave PAC, and the Schweikert Victory Committee— made payments to the chief of staff. “Anytime you see Chartwell,” the aide told me last November, “that’s Oliver Schwab.”
That could land him in trouble because, per federal law, senior staffers cannot exceed an annual cap of $26,955 on outside earned income. On top of his annual salary of $168,411, the maximum allowed under House rules, Schwab raked in $164,887 from Schweikert’s various campaign committees. Of that, $137,709 was billed as consulting fees.
Despite public records that show otherwise, Schweikert insists that Schwab “has never been paid as a consultant.” And he maintains that nothing mischievous took place, chalking up the complaint to “the nature of modern politics [which is] to live under a microscope.”
“This would’ve been avoided if we had just issued a campaign debit card and had used a travel card,” Schweikert says, “because it would’ve been a cleaner lineage or chain of custody of certain activities. We’re just going to be a little more disciplined in the future and document the past.”
A review of both official and campaign expenditures is ongoing. Schwab says that, after the Washington Examiner broke the story last year, “we immediately followed protocol and took it straight to Ethics. We sort of went straight to the higher authority.”
