Murtha aide used campaign cash for rifle

My thanks to LegiStorm for tipping me off to this story.

Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) top aide spent more than $2,000 of campaign money to buy a rifle and other items for himself at a National Rifle Association (NRA) charity auction, raising questions about whether the transaction violated House ethics rules and campaign finance law.
John Hugya, Murtha’s chief of staff, reimbursed the campaign for the expenses after The Hill inquired about the use of campaign money for personal items.

The Murtha for Congress campaign paid for Hugya, a decorated retired colonel in the Marine Corps, to buy a rifle, knife, NRA blanket and other items at a Friends of the NRA auction in September 2006. Hugya disclosed the $2,151 purchase as a gift from the Murtha campaign in a financial disclosure report that recently became available online through Legistorm, a company that advocates for greater transparency for congressional documents and post many of them online.

Federal election law allows campaigns to contribute to charities, but ethics experts and campaign finance lawyers say the law does not address auctions specifically or whether members or staff can keep the purchased items. This gray area of the law also does not say whether in such cases the charitable-contribution allowance trumps House gift rules or campaign finance laws preventing the use of campaign money for personal items.

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