Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar responded immediately to the FEC’s letter seeking more information about his holiday bonuses for his Congressional staff. However, that response may raise further concerns about House Ethics rules violations and/or campaign finance reporting.
The campaign committee filed an amended report yesterday. It now says that most of his Congressional staff were actually paid out of the campaign committee’s checkbook for doing “administrative services.” (amended report published below)
This may raise further questions from authorities. The amended report now contradicts the committee’s second amended post-general report, as to the purpose of the holiday disbursements. Both reports now do indicate that the monies were first owed to the Congressional staff during the post-general election period – which actually includes a few weeks before election day (October 18- November 26); could the Congressional staff members actually have performed $44,000 worth of “administrative services” during that period in a not-very-intense general election campaign. (Gosar won with more than 68% of the CD4 vote.)
