Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is struggling to hold onto her Senate seat — and questions regarding her travel activities and taxpayer dollars aren’t making things any easier.
Landrieu has confessed to using tax dollars to fund at least two campaign trips: A $3,200 trip on September 2013 from New Orleans to Lake Charles, La., and a $5,700 trip in November 2013 from Shreveport, La., to Dallas.
After news of these taxpayer-funded travel activities made headlines, Landrieu’s spokesman Matthew Lehner assured voters that the Louisiana senator would report on all of her trips by the time Congress had returned from its five-week August recess.
The Louisiana senator “has ordered that counsel review all payments made with official funds for her flights during her 18 years of service in the Senate,” Lehner said in August. “The counsel will also review internal office procedures and make recommendations to ensure accurate payments are made in the future.”
The senator still hasn’t done this, and her office, which maintains that all necessary repayments have been made, did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
But the RNC has conducted its own audit going back to 2000, and the results appear at least somewhat persuasive. Their record includes documentation of Landrieu’s stops, the price of her chartered flights, and the amounts of cash she raised, apparently while traveling:
Landrieu Flight Audit by Becket Adams
The state’s Republican Party has since called on authorities to investigate any possible wrongdoing on Landrieu’s part.
“As a taxpayer who resides in the state of Louisiana, I am disappointed that my senator would feel entitled to act above the law by using my tax dollars to fund her re-election campaign,” Jason Doré, executive director of the Republican Party of Louisiana, said in a formal complaint.
Landrieu trails her nearest Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, by approximately two points, according to the latest data available from Real Clear Politics.
