FEC: Guinta Used Parents' Money For Campaign, Not His Own

MANCHESTER, N .H. —The Federal Election voted 6-0 that Rep. Frank Guinta violated federal campaign finance law by taking loans from his parents’ bank account far in access of the legal contribution limits – an account the FEC legal counsel found had no connection to the congressman, according to documents released Tuesday.

Guinta has maintained that the money he loaned to his 2010 his campaign came from a “family account,” and that the funds he used were his own. But that assertion is at odds with what his mother and his sister told the FEC’s legal counsel.

Guinta entered into a conciliation agreement with the FEC in early May. The six-member commission, comprising three Democrats and three members of Guinta’s own Republican Party, voted unanimously in December to enter into that agreement.

In documents released by the FEC, the commission’s Associate General Counsel for Enforcement, Daniel Petalas, and two staff attorneys, report that their probe uncovered no evidence supporting Guinta’s “theory” that he held legal title or equitable interest in the funds he used to finance his 2010 congressional campaign.

“To the contrary,” the FEC lawyers found, “it remains undisputed that the funds in question were drawn from a bank account held in the names of Rep. Guinta's parents, (and) there is no documentary support for the proposition that Rep. Guinta had a contractual or equitable right of access to those funds, and the accounts of witnesses with personal knowledge suggest that no such arrangement existed.”

Among those witnesses was Guinta’s mother, Virginia, who wrote him nine of the 10 checks totaling $381,000 he tapped for his campaign. Guinta loaned his campaign $355,000, insisting the money he used from the account was his own. He made that claim in several interviews with WMUR.

The report says that on the nine checks Virginia Guinta issued to her son, she wrote “loan” above the memo line, “suggesting her understanding that Rep. Guinta was borrowing funds from her.”

“Virginia Guinta confirmed her understanding that the loans would be repaid,” the attorneys wrote, adding, “Such an understanding is inconsistent with the proposition that Rep. Guinta and his parents understood that Rep. Guinta had a legal or equitable right to dispose of the funds as he wished.”

The report continued, “Virginia Guinta described the basis for providing those funds in terms that are at odds with the ‘family pot’ concept described by (Frank Guinta).”

The report said she stated that she and her husband “decided $1 million of wealth would be available to each of their three children.”

“Virginia Guinta did not characterize the funds as owned by Rep. Guinta,” the report stated, “or as having been obtained and maintained in her bank accounts because of any agreement with Rep. Guinta. Thus, when Rep. Guinta sought funds for his federal campaign, Virginia Guinta (told the FEC she) ‘deducted this amount from his $ I million allotment.’

“She further stated that the ownership of the money was "fungible, not certain,” the FEC attorneys reported.

The FEC counsel also reported that Christine Guinta Raymond, Guinta's sister, “represented that she was unaware such a family pot existed, let alone that she or either of her brothers enjoyed a legal or equitable right to access those funds.”

The attorneys also found that Guinta “did not pay any taxes on the dividends or interest earned from the relevant accounts.”

They also found that records of the account showed that Guinta had received “loans” from account dating back many years.

Guinta’s claim that his own contributions to the “family pot” grew in value over time to $708,000 “also lacks merit,” the attorneys wrote.

“Following our investigation into the source and. nature of the funds at issue,” the attornys said, “we conclude that the substantial weight of the available credible evidence supports the Commission's finding at the reason-to-believe stage that the $355,000 contribution of Rep. Guinta to the Committee was not made with the ‘personal funds of the candidate’ under” federal election law and commission rules.

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