Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s campaign manager has been accused of stealing at least $600,000 and possibly much more from GOP political accounts over the last several years, the Dallas Morning News reported late Thursday.
From the Morning News:
Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield, a longtime GOP consultant who most recently managed Dewhurst’s failed run for the U.S. Senate, has been accused of falsifying documents to the Texas Ethics Commission that overstated the cash in Dewhurst’s state campaign committee by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Barfield, who also directed Dewhurst’s re-election campaign for lieutenant governor in 2010, did not return calls to his cellphone Thursday.
The original reports, examined by The Dallas Morning News, allegedly allowed Barfield to conceal huge sums of money taken from the David Dewhurst Committee since 2008 until Dewhurst associates discovered the improprieties this month.
After Dewhurst and his top aides confronted him, Barfield offered to repay the money — but was unable to do so, one campaign official said. Officials then alerted the Travis County district attorney’s office on Dec. 20, asked for an investigation and submitted revised reports to the ethics commission.
The revelations, startling not only in the amount of missing money but also in the apparent brazenness of a campaign insider, have stunned Dewhurst’s close circle of advisers.
