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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Wed Aug 22, 2018, 01:09 PM Aug 2018

Rep. Duncan Hunter, do the honorable thing. Resign. - By The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board

In 2008, Duncan D. Hunter was given a golden opportunity to be a successful, influential national politician for the rest of his life. The decision of his father — Duncan L. Hunter — to relinquish the East County congressional seat he had held for more than a quarter-century created an opening that the younger Hunter, then 31, was ready to roar through.

It wasn’t just name recognition that propelled Hunter’s candidacy. His personal history of enlisting — and serving so honorably — in the Marines shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, resonated far and wide in a region with numerous active-duty and retired military personnel and many otherwise deeply patriotic residents. After easily winning election in November 2008, Hunter became the first member of Congress to have served in a direct combat role in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well-versed and outspoken on issues involving the military, Hunter had every reason to expect a House career as distinguished as that of his father, another veteran who rose to be the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and one of the leading voices in Washington on the Pentagon, the defense budget and U.S. foreign policy.

Instead, Hunter badly lost his way, seemingly becoming corrupt to the point of caricature. His once-promising political career is now in ruins as a result. A 47-page indictment released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego laid out how Hunter and wife Margaret had spent more than $250,000 in campaign donations for the personal benefit of the couple and their children from 2010 to 2017. The indictment makes the case for a staggering 60 criminal counts ranging from illegal use of campaign funds to conspiracy to wire fraud to falsifying records. Their purchases ranged from the banal — inexpensive Uber trips — to the preposterous — a $14,261 family vacation in Italy in late 2015.

After serious questions first arose about his use of campaign funds for video games, private school tuition, dental surgery and a garage door in early 2016, Hunter initially depicted this spending as a result of mistaken purchases by his young son or sloppy campaign paperwork. But the indictment demolishes that craven lie. It shows that in the first few months of 2010, his campaign treasurer had already warned him about his wife’s improper use of a campaign credit card and suggested it be taken away — something Hunter declined.

The indictment shows both Hunters repeatedly tried to create cover stories that they could use to justify their expenses as somehow related to campaigning. Hunter tried to set up a visit to a U.S. Navy base in Italy in 2015 so he could just claim an official dimension to his family vacation. When Navy officials couldn’t accommodate his preferred date for a tour, Hunter told an aide, “Tell the Navy to go f*** themselves.” That same year, Hunter’s wife told him to buy shorts for a trip to Hawaii at a golf shop so they could claim the expense was actually “[golf] balls for Wounded Warriors.” This is despicable.

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https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/editorials/sd-duncan-hunter-indictment-20180821-story.html#

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Rep. Duncan Hunter, do the honorable thing. Resign. - By The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board (Original Post) DonViejo Aug 2018 OP
Wow awesomerwb1 Aug 2018 #1
What a scumbag he is! MineralMan Aug 2018 #2
How is a dishonorable man... atreides1 Aug 2018 #3
"Tell the Navy to go f*** themselves." hibbing Aug 2018 #4
And Then. . . ProfessorGAC Aug 2018 #5
Republican sense of honor-- so different than ours! librechik Aug 2018 #6

awesomerwb1

(4,268 posts)
1. Wow
Wed Aug 22, 2018, 01:13 PM
Aug 2018

This guy is another horribly corrupted piece of work.

"Golf balls for Wounded Warriors". This charge should go well in his heavily military district.

atreides1

(16,079 posts)
3. How is a dishonorable man...
Wed Aug 22, 2018, 01:34 PM
Aug 2018

....capable of doing anything honorable?

Zinke, Hunter, Bannon...all military veterans, and yet all without the smallest vestiges of honor or integrity!!!

librechik

(30,674 posts)
6. Republican sense of honor-- so different than ours!
Wed Aug 22, 2018, 02:03 PM
Aug 2018

Al Franken: oh, is it possible I may have been out of line? Why of course, I will save you the embarrassment of congressional due process and simply skulk quietly away

ALL REPUBLICANS: I don't care how much evidence you have, you'll still have to drag me out kicking and biting no matter the costs!

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