California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter on Wednesday denied the charges he and his wife, Margaret, face relating to their alleged misuse of his congressional campaign funds, a day after a 47-page indictment on the matter was unsealed.
The Hunters allegedly used campaign funds to pay personal bills big and small, from luxury vacations to kids’ school lunches and delinquent family dentistry bills, according to the indictment.
“We’re excited about going to trial with this, frankly,” Hunter told CNN affiliate ABC 10News in San Diego, adding later that he’s not worried. “This is modern politics and modern media mixed in with law enforcement that has a political agenda. That’s the new Department of Justice.”
Asked if he was innocent, Hunter said, “Of course.”
Hunter, one of President Donald Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress, claimed the indictment was entirely political.
“This is the Democrats’ arm of law enforcement. That’s what’s happening right now. It’s happening with Trump. It’s happening with me. We’re going to fight through it and win and the people get to vote in November. … I think they’ve used every dirty trick in the book, so it’ll go to court when they want it to.”
He later added, “They can try to have a political agenda as our law enforcement, as a US government … as we’ve seen with (former FBI agent Peter) Strzok, and with the FBI and DOJ have been doing. Let them expose themselves for what they are, and that’s a politically motivated group of folks.”
Hunter on Wednesday pointed to no evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated.
On Tuesday, when asked about the allegations that Hunter’s team raised about two prosecutors on the case attending a Clinton campaign event, multiple sources familiar with the matter confirmed that the charging decision was made by US Attorney Adam Braverman, who was appointed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Republican.
CNN’s Laura Jarrett and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.
