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Ashcroft Campaign Finance Investigation

The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice will conduct an investigation of Attorney General John Ashcroft's alleged campaign finance irregularities:

The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is reviewing allegations that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft may have violated federal campaign finance and disclosure laws based on information developed by the Federal Election Commission. The Public Integrity Section is responsible for determining whether allegations merit investigation as potential criminal violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws and for making recommendations as to whether a special counsel would be needed when a potential conflict of interest with senior Justice officials exists.

At issue is the valuable campaign fundraising list of then-Sen. Ashcroft. He had claimed ownership of the fundraising list during an FEC inquiry, but had not reported it as an asset on his Senate or Justice Department financial disclosure statements.

NVRI triggered the original FEC investigation almost three years ago, which resulted in a determination in December that Ashcroft's 1998 leadership political action committee, Spirit of America, and his Senate reelection campaign committee, Ashcroft 2000, had committed at least four violations of federal campaign laws. The two committees agreed to pay a $37,000 fine to settle the issue.

The violations arose when the Spirit of America PAC in 1999 and 2000 earned $165,000 from renting its mailing list to outside groups and transferred $112,000 of that money to the Ashcroft 2000 campaign committee. Election laws, the FEC ruled, permitted the PAC to donate $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election to his Senate campaign committee.

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