Indicted GOP congressman used campaign funds to pay for extramarital affairs

The criminal case against Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) just got even more damaging for him.

Hunter was first indicted back in August 2018 for illegally using campaign cash for personal expenses such as vacations, clothes, and even a cross-country flight for the family pet rabbit. But new allegations from prosecutors say Hunter also used his campaign war chest for even more personal expenses — illegally using the cash to carry out multiple affairs with women who were not his wife.

The salacious details were laid out in a filing on Monday, titled “motion to admit evidence of defendant’s use of campaign funds to pursue personal relationships.”

The motion was spurred by a ridiculous attempt by Hunter to get the charges against him dismissed by claiming that he’s the target of political bias because he was one of the first Republicans in Congress to back Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Prosecutors allege that Hunter began carrying out these affairs “shortly after he arrived in Washington.”

The filing suggests the first affair began in April 2009 — just a few months after he was sworn in — with a lobbyist whom he eventually “began living with” and “used campaign funds to bring food or beverages back to her home.”

Prosecutors allege that Hunter used campaign funds to go on a ski trip with the lobbyist in Lake Tahoe, in which he illegally spent more than $1,500 in campaign funds on a rental car, hotel and airfare.

Prosecutors also say Hunter spent more than $1,000 on a weekend “double date” with the lobbyist and another member of Congress — whom prosecutors do not name. Hunter and the lobbyist went on another double date with the unnamed member of Congress and their partner in March 2010, when Hunter spent $121 in campaign funds on “beer, nachos, and wings.”

Prosecutors go on to say that Hunter started another affair at the Republican National Convention in August 2012 with a woman they list as “Individual 15” who “worked in the office of a member of the House of Representatives leadership.”

“They often spent time together at [Individual 15’s] D.C.-area home, and as the relationship developed, Hunter began staying there nearly every night,” prosecutors allege. “Hunter often took an Uber to [Individual 15’s] home after work or evening events, which he typically paid for using campaign funds.”

The relationship seemed to go on for years, with prosecutors alleging that Hunter spent $93 in July 2015 “to take [Individual 15] out for cocktails at a quiet speakeasy-style bar near her home. After drinks, they went to [Individual 15’s] home and spent the night together; Hunter used $21 in campaign funds on an Uber back to the office at 1:49 am that night.”

Prosecutors also identify Individual 16 as a woman who began working in Hunter’s congressional office in January 2015 with whom Hunter “began a romantic relationship not long afterward.”

“The two occasionally spent nights together at his office, and Hunter took [Individual 16] out to socialize with his friends, using campaign funds to pay for their dates,” including $202 on a “triple date” to a bar not far from Capitol Hill, and $352 on dinner at a local pizza restaurant with Individual 16, one of Hunter’s “high-school age[d] relatives” and, “a small group of friends.”

Prosecutors go on to detail affairs with two other women, both described as lobbyists.

The news of Hunter’s multiple affairs comes after Hunter’s wife changed her plea from not guilty to guilty earlier this month — a move that could imperil Hunter as he seeks to fight the charges, given she admitted to conspiring with Hunter to illegally spend his campaign cash.

One has to wonder if Hunter’s deceitful affairs had anything to do with his wife changing her mind.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.