Cigar lounges and hotel bars continue to show up as venues for campaign spending by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-50th District). NBC 7’s Gene Cubbison reports.
Cigar lounges and hotel bars continue to show up as venues for campaign spending by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-50th District).
As NBC 7 reported in March, Hunter is under federal criminal investigation over what he says was mistaken use of a campaign credit card.
He has reimbursed more than $60,000 to cover campaign committee payments that went to personal and family expenses, including airline travel by a pet rabbit.
All that has been left to Department of Justice prosecutors by the House Ethics Commission.
Recent filings by Hunter's campaign show nearly $2,000 spent at a Las Vegas hotel and bar and $353 worth of food and beverages at the Alpine Tobacco Company, in his Congressional district.
Past expenditures of that nature have been explained as fundraiser events.
New campaign contributions came from donors linked to defense firms that got shipbuilding contracts from the Coast Guard, which is overseen by a House subcommittee that Hunter chairs.
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His office didn't respond to NBC 7, but gave the San Diego Union-Tribune a statement saying any suggestion of influence is "categorically false", and that the Coast Guard, not Congress, decides on contracts.
Hunter has spent nearly $70,000 on attorneys, according campaign filings for the first three months of this year.
He denies any criminal wrongdoing.
