U.S. District Judge Thomas J. Whelan ruled on Monday that Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) recently exposed affairs could be used as evidence in his campaign finance fraud case.
Why do they claim these represent affairs? Looks like he just hung out drinking with young ladies, then escorted them safely home like any gentleman would.
Or put up one lady in his hotel room so that she wouldn’t have to go home alone at night, same safety issue.
Hunter’s lawyers went on to claim that because the women were all involved in politics, the lawmaker was justified in spending campaign money on at least some of his meetings with them since the meetings “often served an overtly political purpose.”
Would that be the politics of dancing, or the politics of—oooooh—feeling good?
Judge, it would be extremely prejudicial for the Jury to hear what a dirtbag my client is in his personal and professional life.
And it would deprive us of the ability to blame his wife for the mismanagement of his campaign funds.
Hey, a good lawyer should be going down that route. Just because he went home with someone, what’s their proof of what happened behind closed doors? And how did they get any evidence, of course…
Is Hunter’s defense that he had to flirt and sleep with lobbyists as part of the negotiations? Is that really how lobbyists conduct their business? (Granted, in a way, they are all selling themselves to the highest biddgers, so this isn’t such a stretch.) Since these flings appear to be what the mis-allocated money was spent on, I don’t see how they could refuse to allow them to be mentioned in the trial. Had the defense won on this point, it certainly would have complicated things for the prosecutors.
I can certainly see the relevance of the affairs in this case. There are two people who could have been involved in the misuse of campaign contributions–Hunter and his wife. If Hunter used the money for his sexual encounters that might assist the wife in her claim that she didn’t know about the misuse. This really isn’t a shocking ruling.
Dunkin Hunter was having all of those extramarital affairs in Washington to express his love for his wife and family and to further the conservative policy goals and agenda of his donors. This was all very clever political strategy many people will not comprehend. Everything was in the pursuit of legitimate conservative christian political purpose.
If only he’d been wearing a vintage plaid flannel shirt purchased for $1 from the thrift and had a waxed handle bar mustache, this wouldn’t be happening to him. Although, to be fair, you never go full hipster.
It may be more like “Now honey, I know what this looks like, but it isn’t that at all, and I will explain exactly why as soon as I can think of something” defense.