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President-elect Barack Obama may not have seriously vetted New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) for his selection as Commerce secretary, Byron York proposes after reading a Washington Post report that Richardson downplayed the significance of the investigation that led him to withdraw his name. ... READ MORE

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Democrat Al Franken is playing it safe by staying in Minnesota after declaring victory over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), but that's not enough to keep RNC Chairman Robert "Mike" Duncan from accusing him of stealing Coleman's Senate seat through ... READ MORE

Townhall.com
Caroline Kennedy's Senate campaign has tanked, Amanda Carpenter proclaims after a new Public Policy Polling survey reported that 44 percent of New Yorkers have a "lesser" opinion of her than before she announced her desire to fill Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) ... READ MORE

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Though Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) may have protested the pick, former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta will serve the nation well as CIA director, Attaturk proposes, noting Panetta's rejection of torture. Lisa Derrick, meanwhile, calls Levi Johnston, ... READ MORE

RedState
It's not hard to understand why President-elect Barack Obama would pick former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, who has no direct intelligence experience, to head the CIA, given that Obama himself won the White House with no executive ... READ MORE

TalkingPointsMemo
President-elect Barack Obama and his team may have made a mistake by not calling Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the incoming head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to tell her that former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta would be ... READ MORE

Power Line
President-elect Barack Obama's decision to tap former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, who has no direct intelligence experience, as head of the CIA may have cemented the agency's role as a political entity rather than an intelligence-gathering one, Paul ... READ MORE

MyDD
Though President-elect Barack Obama is taking some criticism for naming former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta--who has no direct intelligence experience--to head the CIA, it should be noted that several of his predecessors at the agency similarly lacked ... READ MORE

The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post's banner headline this morning tells readers that President-elect Barack Obama, by picking former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and retired Admiral Dennis Blair to serve as head of the CIA and director of national intelligence, has made ... READ MORE

Drudge Report
The Drudge Report leads with a photo of storm clouds over the Capitol and a story telling readers that the Senate, on its first day of work in 2009, faces controversy over whether former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris and comedian Al ... READ MORE

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June 12, 2008

Investigators Into NRCC Finances Say That Treasurer Acted Alone In Taking $725,000

@ 1:55 pm by Walter Alarkon

Investigators looking into the National Republican Congressional Committee's (NRCC) finances said that the House GOP organ lost $725,000 to a former treasurer who acted alone in transferring the money to his own bank accounts.

According to the investigation's report, the former employee, Christopher Ward, never conducted audits of the committee from 2002 to 2006 despite assuring that he had done so. The NRCC had called for the investigation, conducted by two outside firms, after it learned in January that Ward appeared to have fabricated a 2006 audit.

Ward has yet to face criminal charges.

NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) presented the report to GOP congressional leaders Thursday.

Cole said in a statement: "For years, Chris Ward submitted bogus financial audits to banks and concocted a scheme to direct NRCC funds to his personal accounts for his own selfish purposes. Misappropriated funds and related accounting irregularities took nearly five months for financial experts to unravel, diverting precious financial resources and time that would otherwise have been devoted to our main job of electing Republicans to Congress. However, because of the time and effort devoted to the forensic audit, the NRCC is in a much stronger position to protect against such a fraudulent act from happening again."

The report of the investigation, conducted by Covington & Burling and PricewaterhouseCoopers, recommended that the NRCC create a new Chief Financial Officer position to help oversee its treasurer and adopt more formal accounting and oversight practices.

Download the investigation's report here.

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