Indicted congressman blames DOJ for busting him on fraud charges

Taking a page out of the Trump playbook, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is blaming a supposedly politicized Department of Justice for his own indictment on multiple criminal charges.

Hunter told a local television station that he is “excited” about going to trial so that he can help expose the real “political agenda” of the FBI and DOJ — even though both agencies are led by Trump-picked Republicans.

“This is modern politics and modern media mixed in with law enforcement that has a political agenda,” Hunter said. “That’s the new Department of Justice.”

Hunter went on to paint both himself and Trump as victims of FBI overreach.

“This is the Democrats’ arm of law enforcement, that’s what’s happening right now,” Hunter said, again referring to Republican-led agencies. “It’s happening with Trump, it’s happening with me. … I think they’ve used every dirty trick in the book, so it’ll go to court when they want it to.”

Hunter might want to rethink his defense strategy, however, given that a growing number of Trump’s close advisers and associates have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of serious crimes.

And more to the point, the crimes Hunter allegedly committed are breathtaking in their brazenness and depravity.

Hunter and his wife, Margaret, are accused of bank fraud, falsifying records, and campaign finance violations, among other charges. They allegedly spent around $250,000 of campaign funds on personal expenses like family vacations, flights, dental bills, school tuition, and groceries.

The indictment from the Department of Justice says that Hunter labeled many illegal expenditures as “charitable contributions.”

One alleged illegal expenditure involved flying the family’s pet rabbit cross-country.

And some of the most shocking allegations involve Hunter and his wife treating military service like a joke.

Hunter and his wife allegedly used campaign money to buy Hawaiian shorts at a golf club so that they would have an excuse to list it as “balls for wounded warriors” in official campaign filings.

A family trip to Italy was listed as “mostly military/defense meet related,” yet Hunter never toured Navy facilities once he was overseas because Navy officials could not accommodate him. That led him to say to his then-chief of staff, “Tell the Navy to go fuck themselves.”

“The people of the district deserve better than a congressman who can’t follow the law, much less pass and enforce laws,” Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democrat facing Hunter in the fall election, said in response to the indictment.

Both Hunter and Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who announced he would not run for re-election after being indicted for insider trading, were the two earliest congressional Trump endorsers.

And it seems that Hunter has adopted Trump’s approach to controversy and scandal.

When faced with serious allegations of wrongdoing and egregious misconduct, both Trump’s and Hunter’s initial instinct is to go on the attack and whine about bias and hidden agendas, not to speak honestly or express humility.

But no matter how much Trump and his acolytes like Hunter whine, they can’t escape the consequences of their actions.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.