Duncan Hunter's Family Values: One Man, One Woman, And One Plea Deal
Do they allow vape pens in federal prison? Asking for a congressman.
Congressman Duncan Hunter (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
We’re beginning to question Congressman Duncan Hunter’s judgment. No, it’s not because of the 29 trips to Costco that he and his wife Margaret put on the campaign credit card. It’s not the $6,150 of campaign funds that he used to pay his kids’ Catholic school tuition or the $14,000 for the family trip to Italy, also on the campaign’s dime. It’s not the $2,537 for dental work. It’s not the 1,100 overdrafts resulting in $37,761 in fees on their personal cards over a period of seven years. It’s not even the $250 in campaign funds they spent on airline tickets for the family rabbit Eggburt.
It’s the sheer stupidity of using your campaign account to run around on your wife, while engaged in a conspiracy to defraud your campaign account with your wife.
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Would Margaret Hunter have walked into a San Diego courtroom and taken a plea yesterday if her husband hadn’t “concealed from Defendant his use of Campaign funds to facilitate certain personal relationships with others”? We may never know. But it can’t have helped. Particularly since Mrs. Hunter was theoretically her husband’s campaign manager — the better to justify putting her on the payroll — and she was likely unimpressed with his office romance.
Their original indictment filed last August alleged:
“Individual 14,” “Individual 15,” “Individual 16,” “Individual 17,” and “Individual 18” lived in the Washington, D.C. area and had personal relationships with DUNCAN HUNTER. In addition, Individual 16 worked with DUNCAN HUNTER.
That’s nice.
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On or about October 27 to 28, 2015, in Washington, D.C., DUNCAN HUNTER spent $42.36 in Campaign funds for an Uber ride to and from the home of Individual 17.
So, like one Uber ride get to Miss Individual 17’s house on the 27th, and one to leave on the 28th? SUBTLE.
On or about September 15, 2016, at 7:40 a.m., in Washington, D.C., DUNCAN HUNTER spent $32.27 in Campaign funds for an Uber ride from Individual 18’s home to DUNCAN HUNTER’s office.
7:40 a.m? And he used the campaign credit card? Surely there’s an innocent explanation for this. Probably the Congressman was doing early morning hot yoga with a constituent.
Indeed, Hunter spelled it out for Fox’s Martha McCallum last month:
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When I went away to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney. She handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when I got into Congress, because I’m gone five days a week and home for two. She was also the campaign manager so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at too, I’m sure, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t spend any money illegally, and I did not use campaign money.
“She” would be Margaret Hunter, the mother of Duncan Hunter’s three children. And “he” would be sleeping on the couch for all eternity. Or perhaps not, since “she” agreed to testify against him as a condition of her plea deal.
Between them, the Hunters appear to have racked up over $250,000 of personal charges on the campaign credit card, and the fact that they paid some of it back eventually is largely irrelevant. Margaret Hunter admits to one count of conspiring with her husband to convert campaign funds to personal use, and she agreed to give him up to prosecutors on a silver platter. Which is not a bad deal for someone who, in addition to everything else, claimed that $1,302 worth of charges on the campaign credit card to the Steam video gaming platform were fraudulent and actually got reimbursed by the bank. Allowing your 12-year-old child to become a witness in a fraud investigation by allowing him to use the campaign credit card is … well, it’s some kind of parenting.
She’s real sorry about that, though!
Duncan Hunter, whose district re-elected him this fall, less than three months after the 60 count indictment dropped, is making no apologies.
“It was politically motivated at the beginning, it remains politically motivated now,” he said in a statement emailed to the press yesterday.
They make a lovely couple, don’t they?
Indictment [USA v. Hunter et al, No. 3:18-cr-03677-1 (S.D. Cal. Aug 21, 2018)]
Margaret Hunter, Plea Agreement [USA v. Hunter et al, No. 3:18-cr-03677-1 (S.D. Cal. June 13, 2019)]
Rep. Duncan Hunter Calls Indictment ‘Pure Politics,’ Denies Using Campaign Funds for Personal Expenses [Fox]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
