New details emerge in NRCC scandal

Politico

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a certified public accountant, had pushed for months for an internal audit of the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to GOP members, but the committee’s treasurer at the time was reluctant.

Finally, at a recent meeting, the now former NRCC treasurer, Christopher J. Ward, relented, giving Conaway what was supposed to be an official internal audit from 2006. That document was a fake, the GOP members said. Even the letterhead on which it was sent was a forgery.

Revelations about the falsified document touched off an unfolding scandal that has rocked the NRCC and spurred a criminal investigation by the FBI into the committee’s accounting procedures.

Fearing the fallout from the discovery, the NRCC informed its principle lender, Wachovia, of potential accounting problems. Wachovia, which declined comment Thursday, had lent the committee $9 million in 2006, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Knowing the bank was required by law to notify federal investigators of any “suspicious activity,” the NRCC also alerted the FBI, Republican insiders confirmed.

At the same time, NRCC officials notified the FEC that the committee may have filed inaccurate disclosure statements.

Since the accounting irregularities were first uncovered in late January, NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has retained an outside law firm, Covington & Burling, to advise the committee and hired the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to review the committee’s finances, the chairman told members during a closed-door briefing in the Cannon Caucus Room on Thursday.

But it may take four to six weeks for a forensic audit of the NRCC to be completed, one senior Republican lawmaker said, and until then, it is unclear what, if any, wrongdoing occurred or the scope of potential losses to the committee.

Thursday’s session was Cole’s first chance to address a large number of Republican colleagues since the investigation began, and he sought to reassure them that the irregularities would not hamstring the party in this fall’s elections, despite concerns they could add to the GOP’s pre-existing money woes...............