Chris Ward

$500K Embezzlement Settlement Gives NRCC Fundraising Edge For June

Rachel Slajda | July 22, 2010, 12:08PM

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), former chair of the NRCC

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which raises money to help put GOP butts in House seats, sent an email this week bragging in big red letters that it outraised its Democratic counterpart for the month of June.

The NRCC raised about $9.15 million and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee came in a close second with around $9.02 million. The difference: $138,000.

The thing that put the NRCC over the top? A $500,000 settlement from the NRCC's insurance company, stemming from the years-long bilking of the NRCC by its former treasurer, Chris Ward.

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Vito Fossella

Does Embezzlement Scandal Explain Fossella's Missing FEC Reports?

Zachary Roth | May 12, 2010, 3:32PM

Former Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY)

Two-family man Vito Fossella is said to be mulling a bid to recapture his old House seat -- but he hasn't filed FEC reports, as required by law, in over a year. Could a Republican embezzlement scandal help explain why?

The commission recently wrote to Fossella -- a New York Republican who left Congress under a cloud in 2009 -- to inform him that his campaign committee had failed to file a quarterly report for the January-March 2010 period, as required by law. This was the fourth "failure to file" notice Fossella has received from the committee over the last year, according to online records examined by TPMmuckraker. The former lawmaker didn't file reports for any of the second, third, or fourth quarters of 2009.

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