Tag: Dom Pérignon

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., used funds from New PAC, his leadership political action committee, to purchase steak dinners, limo rides, and nearly $15,000 in Boston Celtics basketball games tickets, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show. The expenditures were first reported by the Fresno Bee and do not appear to break any federal laws. 2018 quarterly filings for New PAC show a number of more recent luxury expenditures. Other top donors include defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Co, and California-based dairy, almond and wine industry lobbyists. Calling the publication's staff “the Bee’s band of creeping correspondents,” Dunes criticized recent reporting on a winery in which he's an investor, describing the articles as a “textbook example of fake news.” The Fresno Bee published an editorial in response to the ad, and Joe Kieta, editor of the Fresno Bee, defended the paper's reporting in a statement to ABC News. By law, officeholders cannot use campaign funds for "personal use." However, today, less than half of Leadership PAC money is used to fund political allies; instead, the scathing report concludes, "leadership PACs look more like slush funds to subsidize officeholder luxury lifestyles." The report’s authors noted that lavish trips to Disneyland and beach resorts were written off as ‘fundraising’ and "perpetuate a never-ending fundraising cycle." Over the past five years, leadership PAC bills at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican social club in Washington, have totaled at least $437,000, the report found. Nunes’ July quarterly filing shows that between April and June of this year, he spent just shy of $20,000 at the club, including a $13,773 tab on June 4th.