John Bresnahan and Patrick O'Connor in the Politico have new details today on the accounting scandal that threatens to engulf the National Republican Congressional Committee:
The accounting scandal now haunting the National Republican Congressional Committee was preceded by a series of decisions over the past decade to relax internal financial controls at the committee, according to numerous Republican sources familiar with the NRCC’s operations during those years.
Under Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who chaired the committee from 1999 until the end of 2006, the NRCC waived rules requiring the executive committee--made up of elected leaders and rank-and-file Republican lawmakers--to sign off on expenditures exceeding $10,000, merged the various department budgets into a single account and rolled back a prohibition on committee staff earning an income from outside companies.
House Republicans can be accused of many things, but at least inconsistency isn't one of them: They adhere to the same low standards of ethics and competence in their own affairs that they expect of the federal government as a whole.
--Josh Patashnik