Posted on 03/15/2011 12:16:56 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
Missouri Republicans have filed a complaint against Sen. Claire McCaskill with the Senate Ethics Committee, calling for an investigation into whether the Missouri Democrat improperly used taxpayer funding to cover the cost of at least one airplane trip to a political event.
McCaskill, who is up for reelection in 2012, paid more than $88,000 to the Treasury Department last week following a POLITICO report that she had used taxpayer funds from her Senate office account to repay nearly 90 flights on a private plane that she co-owned with her husband and other investors.
While McCaskill and her aides adamantly denied any ethical violations despite the payment to Treasury, POLITICO later reported that at least one of the flights was purely political in nature.
On Saturday, March 3, 2007, McCaskill flew from St. Louis to Hannibal, Mo., and back, for the local Democratic Party’s annual Hannibal Days. McCaskill billed taxpayers $1,220.44 for the trip, according to public records. McCaskill aides have acknowledged that the event was only political in nature, not an official function for a senator. Congressional ethics rules and federal law bar the use of taxpayer funds to cover the cost of political events.
Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said he had filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee urging the panel to look into the trips.
“The rule is pretty clear. There is a way you can use a private aircraft,” Smith told reporters during a Tuesday conference call. “It’s obvious there’s been thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars going to a private entity. How much does she benefit from that vis-a-vis making money on the aircraft is not something that we know.”
Smith added: “[McCaskill] only sent the money back to the government once the curtain was pulled aside and you can see she used taxpayer dollars for political purposes.”
The aircraft in question, a twin-engine Piper, is actually owned by Sunset Cove Associates LLC, a company incorporated in 2002 by McCaskill’s husband, St. Louis businessman Joe Shepard. That company is in turn linked to another Delaware-based corporation, Timesaver LLC, which was created in July 2006, during McCaskill’s successful run for the Senate against Republican Jim Talent.
Missouri Republicans have repeatedly pressed McCaskill and Shepard to release more details - including tax returns - for his business interests. Shepard owns dozens of small companies as part of his extensive real-estate holdings. The couples’ worth is estimated at $15.5 million, at a minimum, according to an analysis of McCaskill’s annual financial disclosure records.
I do appreciate you helping to kill the rat convention in St. Louis, but you're going down to defeat next year, just like the filthy carnahan did last year.
I hear it was a pretty sad affair at rat days in Hannibal. Not much love for rats in Missouri these days.
Ma is a fighter, and she has more teeth than Ike Skelton. But hopefully, she will go down in defeat as he did last fall.
I want to see this woman pay the piper. Enough of these unethical Democrats screwing over taxpayers. I’m still pissed at how she tried to blow off the townhall meeting where a majority were booing her and her policies. SHe was so out of touch with HER OWN CONSTITUENTS and had the nerve to try to heckle them back. This B has some nerve and I want to see her go down!
Gosh! When a Dem does this it’s usually considered an “embarrassment” for a few days, then is quickly forgotten. Unusual that Republicans are actually doing something about it this time around.
PS-She only won before due to Michael J Fox's tearjerker ads re: Republicans and stem cells. If Leftists want be the guinea pigs to use embryonic stem cells I say ‘go for it’. As far as I know, embryonic stem cells have only created malignant tumors wherever they have been tried.
Mama Caskill voted for obamacare; Missouri voted to block it.
I would like to know why she was never investigated for all those limited partnerships she had that were flipping houses just before the fit hit the shan.
McCaskill should also be investigated for SR 511 making McCain eligible but ignoring Obama’s lack of a birth certificate and info and not vetting him.
“On Saturday, March 3, 2007, McCaskill flew from St. Louis to Hannibal, Mo., and back, for the local Democratic Party’s annual Hannibal Days. McCaskill billed taxpayers $1,220.44 for the trip, according to public records. “
$1220 to go from St. Louis to Hannibal Missouri ??????
116 miles.
I could fly from Missouri to Japan for that much.
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