The NRCC is way, way behind the DCCC in cash on hand… $6.73 million to the DCCC’s $45.27 million as of the end of April. A lot of that probably has to do with big money donors sitting on their wallets, seeing that an investment in the NRCC is about as likely to pay dividends as an investment in that nice man from Nigeria needing your help with his bank account problems. Some of that gap, however, went toward paying for the renovations on Christopher J. Ward’s house.
Politico is reporting today that Ward, the NRCC’s former treasurer, diverted up to $725,000 from the NRCC to his own purposes over the course of six years. (This goes all the way back to Tom Davis’s turn at the NRCC’s helm, so it can’t all be pinned on Tom Cole being asleep at the watch.) Money that was supposed to be used to pay for galas where the President fund-raised for Congressional GOPers instead… well…
Court documents filed by DOJ charge that Ward diverted more than $500,000 from the President’s Dinner accounts to his own use, using the funds to pay his mortgage and to finance nearly $200,000 worth of home renovations.
Original NRCC estimates of how much Ward may have appropriated were along the line of $500-600K, but the NRCC’s outside auditors confirmed today that the actual damage was $725,000. In addition, Ward managed to grab $28,000 from the NRSC via joint fundraising activities and $47,000 from other GOP leadership PACs, for a total of almost $800,000. (Not to mention the $530,000 the NRCC has spent on lawyers and accountants tracking down the fraud!)
“It was important to get to the bottom of what happened,” House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said. “Clearly, it’s not nearly as bad as many of us said it might be.”
Well, it probably is a relief… to the extent that no one higher-up than Ward was found to have been engaged in any embezzling. As for the number of close races coming in November that could have been turned around with that $800,000, the damage can’t be calculated yet.