Report: Sen. Landrieu Took Nine More ‘Suspicious’ Flights

[flowers]

http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/12/report-sen-landrieu-took-nine-more-suspicious-flights/

Louisiana U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu took nine charter flights —  costing taxpayers nearly $15,000 — that coincided with campaign events where she raised over $130,000, in possible violation of federal law.

The nine flights are in addition to several others that were discovered last month.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee released records of the flights, which Landrieu expensed to her Senate office — and ultimately to taxpayers — between 2000 and 2008.

All of the flights coincided with fundraisers she held in Louisiana.

On May 31, 2000, for example, Landrieu expensed $1,531 for a flight from New Orleans to Alexandria, La. On the same day, according to records published by the RNC, she raised $28,150 from Alexandria-area businessmen.

The rest of the records are similar, with flights ranging in cost from $950 to $2,379.

If Landrieu did indeed use her Senate office account to pay for the chartered flights, that would be in violation of federal law and Senate rules, which prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars from paying for campaign activities.

The nine flights flagged by the RNC are in addition to several others Landrieu took that have already been identified.

Last month, Politico found that Landrieu had taken two flights to campaign events — one in August 2012, another in October 2012 — costing taxpayers over $10,000 combined.

[collins]

It's easier to pull teeth than get any disclosure from Mary Landrieu. Her whole family is a blight on the state of Lousiana and I hope she loses her Senate seat this year. It won't be easy to oust her, though, never easy with a Landrieu.

[rangerrebew]

- The Daily Caller - http://dailycaller.com -



Sen. Landrieu Releases Charter Flight Records, Apologizes

Posted By Chuck Ross On 7:22 PM 09/12/2014 In | No Comments




Louisiana U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu issued an apology Friday when she released the results of an internal investigation which showed that she improperly used $33,700 in taxpayers’ money to pay for 43 charter flights since 2002.

The release comes four days after Landrieu promised to release the results of the investigation, which was sparked last month after Politico and CNN found that the Democrat had used taxpayer money to pay for campaign activity.

Federal law and senate rules prohibits the use of official expense accounts for campaign purposes. Such activities must be paid for by the members’ campaign.

Landrieu, who took office in 1997 and is facing Republican Bill Cassidy in a November re-election bid, published a table showing all of the flights she has taken since 2002, when federal election rules changed to require members to prorate their expenses between official and campaign business if campaigning constitutes more than 15 percent of time spent on a given trip.

According to the table, Landrieu’s campaign underpaid $33,727.02 — or 11 percent of the total cost — for the charter flights.

That activity ramped up in the middle of 2012, records indicate. Nearly all of the charter flights from Aug. 21, 2012 forward show that Landrieu invoiced the flights to her senate office rather than her campaign.

For example, the entry for a March 19 trip shows that Landrieu attended a total of 18 events — 13 of which involved campaigning. Out of a total of 34 working hours for the trip, Landrieu spent nearly 28 hours on the campaign trail.

She invoiced $3,390 for the cost of that flight, though her campaign should have covered it.

 
“The review I ordered last month found these mistakes stemming from sloppy book keeping,” Landrieu said in a statement. “I take full responsibility. They should have never happened, and I apologize for this.”

“A new system has been established that has been successfully used by a number of senate offices to provide a safeguard from this happening in the future,” she continued.

Earlier Friday, the Republican National Committee released its own audit which found that Landrieu had invoiced nine charter flights between 2000 and 2008 to her senate expense account, though the trips coincided with campaign events in which Landrieu raised over $130,000. (RELATED: Report: Sen. Landrieu Took Nine More ‘Suspicious’ Flights)

The RNC issued a statement after Landrieu’s release, which it called a “Friday news dump.”

“Forty-three inappropriately billed flights and misuse of tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars is a slap in the face to Louisianans,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “The sheer number of flights on the taxpayer dime warrants a more detailed investigation, Senator Landrieu needs to open her books to a purely independent investigation.”

In a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee, Marc Elias, Landrieu’s attorney, said that the campaign was cutting a check for the underpaid amount to the Department of Treasury.

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Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com

URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/12/sen-landrieu-releases-charter-flight-records-apologizes/

[Fishrrman]

collins wrote above:
[[ Her whole family is a blight on the state of Lousiana and I hope she loses her Senate seat this year. It won't be easy to oust her, though, never easy with a Landrieu. ]]

Huh?

I thought it was going to be easy to rout Landrieu this time.

It's a "Republican wave", right?
Right?