Rick Pluta Discusses $100k Missing from State House GOP Campaign Committee
$100 thousand missing, a raid on Sen. Bert Johnson’s house, and the Trump Admin tweeting about Michigan’s Justin Amash.
More than $100,000 is missing from the state House Republican Campaign Committee’s fund from last election. That is the biggest error in campaign finance reports in memory, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections. Michigan House Republican leaders now face fines and questions over how it lost track of that money.
Michigan Public Radio Network State Capitol Bureau Chief Rick Pluta broke the story last week with the help of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. Pluta joins Stephen Henderson on Detroit Today to talk about that situation.
“Internally when someone looked at the bank account,” Pluta says, “they found that there was $100,000 that was in the campaign finance reports that wasn’t reflected in the bank account, meaning we don’t know how it was spent.”
Pluta says it is unknown at this point how this happened, especially with it being an unusually large amount of money. He says there is someone employed to monitor the finances, making sure everything is accurate and legal.
The missing money was not reflected in any official reports, Pluta says. He had to file a FOIA request to uncover the story.
The consequences that result from this, Pluta says, will depend on what gets uncovered.
Pluta also talks about a dust up this weekend involving a Trump administration official tweeting that Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) should be primaried by the Republicans in 2018, as well as an update on state Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park). Johnson’s house and Lansing office were raided last week by the FBI. Pluta says at least one former staff member, maybe more, are getting served with subpoenas.
Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
