By Adam C. Smith, Times Political Editor,
Saturday, April 10, 2010
She was a 25-year-old junior staffer when the Florida Republican Party gave her an American Express card. During the next 2½ years, nearly $1.3 million in charges wound up on Melanie Phister's AmEx: $40,000 at a London hotel, and nearly $20,000 in plane tickets for indicted former House Speaker Ray Sansom, and his wife and kids, for starters.
Statements show thousands spent on jewelry, sporting goods and in one case $15,000 for what's listed as a month-long stay at a posh Miami Beach hotel, but which the party says was a forfeited deposit.
The credit card records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald offer the latest behind-the-scenes look at extravagant spending by a party touting fiscal restraint. Phister's records show Republican leaders have liberally used an underling's card — without her knowledge, she says.
"I did not have the sole discretion to initiate credit card spending," said Phister said in an email.
"Over that period of time, there were multiple instances when the card was used to make purchases that I had no knowledge of, and I did not regularly review the monthly credit card statements which I understand were sent directly to the Party's accounting office."
There has been a series of embarrassing revelations over profligate credit card spending by the likes of Republican U.S. Senate frontrunner Marco Rubio, Sansom and incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon. Pending state and federal investigations of party finances that reveal huge charges on Phister's card had veteran GOP fundraisers apoplectic.
"Oh my God. I can't believe it,'' said Al Hoffman, a top fundraiser from Fort Myers, when told of the $1.258 million on Phister's card. "See, that's it. They have an underling do it all. There's no reason a young assistant should be ringing up charges like that."
Phister served as finance director for state House campaigns for 2½ years starting in mid 2006. She was a Republican Party employee who mainly answered to Sansom, R-Destin, speaker-designate at the time and overseeing House campaign operations.
Her job involved planning fund raising events. She often accompanying Sansom and other legislative leaders on fund raising and other political trips.
Sansom was indicted by a grand jury last year for inserting $6 million into the state budget for an airport building that a friend and GOP contributor, Jay Odom, wanted to use as an airplane hangar. That criminal investigation revealed that Sansom charged more than $170,000 on his party-issued credit card — everything from plane tickets for his family to clothes to electronics.
Her credit card statements include at least four sets of plane tickets for Sansom, his wife and four kids. He also ordered Phister to accompany him on a trade trip to London in the summer of 2008. Phister brought her mother along at Sansom's encouragement, and Phister's GOP AmEx saw plenty of action:
nearly $40,000 at a London hotel, and more than $3,600 in sightseeing expenses.
"I can't believe it. Someone should be hanged for that," Mark Guzzetta, a Boca Raton developer who has raised millions of dollars for Republicans, said of the party allowing so much spending on a low-level staffer's card.
Neither Phister nor the party would discuss the credit card statements in detail because of pending state and criminal federal investigations into its financial activities as well as an exhaustive "forensic audit" of party spending about to get under way.
source:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/junior-florida-republican-party-staffer-had-13-million-charged-to-party/1086335
source:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35484.html
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