NRCC Won’t Return Ney CashDuring his years of corrupt lawmaking and petty criminality, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) gave generously to his GOP groups and his fellow Republicans’ campaigns, as groups like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have noted.
Since Ney’s guilty admission last week, two lawmakers have announced they will give to charities the amount of money donated to their campaigns by Ney and his political action committee, American Liberty PAC. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) says she will give back the $6,000 she received from Ney, and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) said he will give “any campaign contributions he received” from Ney to local charities. (According to the DCCC, Renzi received $11,000 from Ney’s organizations.)
But the National Republican Congressional Committee, locked in a bitter fight to preserve GOP dominance in the House, says no way.
“We are not returning the money,” NRCC spokesman Ed Patru told me, referring to the $47,000 his group took from Ney. “I’ll remind you that the DCCC did not return the tens of thousands of dollars it took from convicted felon Frank Ballance, or from convicted felon Joe Cari.”
Who are those guys? “Rep. Frank Ballance, D-N.C.. . . misused state funds; and Joseph Cari [was] a Democratic fundraiser from Illinois who pleaded guilty to attempted extortion,” explained the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2005, after quoting an NRCC spokesman who used the same line to defend Republicans who didn’t return cash from convicted felon Duke Cunningham.
Many others took Ney’s money, however. The RNC alone took $75,000 from Ney; the NRCC took $47,000, and the Ohio Republican Party took $45,000.
Calls and emails to spokespeople at the RNC and the Ohio GOP went unreturned. Similarly, our calls and emails to these top recipients of Ney donations garnered no responses:
Patrick Tiberi (OH): $25,857
Spencer Bachus (AL): $23,357
Melissa Hart (PA): $21,121
Steven LaTourette (OH): $13,250
Charles Boustany (LA): $10,000
Katherine Harris (FL): $8,000
Chris Chocola (IN): $8,000
