California Republican Pleads Guilty to Misusing Campaign Funds

Duncan Hunter spent a year claiming that he was the victim of a “witch hunt.”

Gregory Bull/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

After claiming for a year that he was the victim of a political “witch hunt” by federal prosecutors as part of a “deep state” conspiracy, disgraced Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of misusing campaign funds for extramarital affairs with lobbyists and congressional aides, family vacations, his children’s private school tuition, and other expenses. 

Hunter, who changed his plea from not guilty, faces up to five years in prison and is expected to leave Congress, marking an end to a family dynasty that has held a San Diego congressional seat for nearly four decades. 

In an interview with a local TV station on Monday, Hunter, a fervent defender of President Donald Trump, said he had “made mistakes and failed to properly monitor and account” for his campaign expenses and would serve prison time. Despite being indicted on 60 criminal charges in August 2018, Hunter won reelection last November. “Whatever my time in custody is, I will take that hit,” he told San Diego TV station KUSI. “My only hope is that the judge does not sentence my wife to jail. I think my kids need a mom in the home.” 

Federal prosecutors alleged that the Hunters “illegally converted and stole more than $250,000 in campaign funds” for a host of goods and services for mistresses, themselves, and their children. In court on Tuesday, Hunter confessed to knowingly using campaign funds for personal use from “no later than 2010,” less than a year after he took office, and through at least 2016, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. He and his wife and campaign manager, Margaret Hunter, agreed to misuse campaign funds, according to the plea agreement seen by the Union-Tribune. In June, Hunter’s wife pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and struck a plea deal with prosecutors, raising the likelihood that she would testify against him when the campaign finance case was set to go to trial in January. 

Hunter will be sentenced on March 17. His expected departure from Congress opens the race for his seat to a crowded field in a Republican-heavy district in San Diego, including former Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and Democratic contender Ammar Campa-Najjar, who lost to Hunter in 2018.   

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate