Anderson Cooper: O'Donnell used campaign money...POST-CAMPAIGN...to pay rent, dine out, go bowling

Amerigo Vespucci

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Sat Sep-18-10 05:21 AM
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Anderson Cooper: O'Donnell used campaign money...POST-CAMPAIGN...to pay rent, dine out, go bowling

ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES

O'Donnell and the Truth; Paladino on the Record; Home Invasion Horror

Aired September 16, 2010 - 23:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: But then she needs to also be able to answer these questions about her personal background, explain how she got behind on her taxes and her mortgage. Why she didn't take care of that college bill, and do so in a way that's frank and honest.

Look, everybody in their life sometimes has difficulties. And -- and honesty and candor is going to be the best remedy here. She can't get away with simply saying, my answer is on my Web site, or it's puzzling to me why the IRS would file a lien for me when I didn't pay my taxes in 2005.

I mean, it's -- she's got to be more honest than that. And if she does, she has got a shot to win. But it's got to be passionate and factual and hard-hitting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, Gary Tuchman has been doing some digging for us on another facet of the money theme, crunching numbers on how the candidate spent some of the dollars from her last campaign.

Gary, what have you learned?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine O'Donnell, Anderson, speaking at a candidates forum here in Wilmington, Delaware tonight says America cannot spend its way to recovery, but, tonight, major questions about her spending. At the very least, the questions are troubling. At the very most, she might have violated election laws.

We have documents right here that show Christine O'Donnell spent a lot of money on what appears to be personal effects, and it was not during a campaign, and it was campaign money. The spending of this money occurred three months after she lost to Joe Biden in 2008, a year before she announced she was going to run as a candidate in 2010.

Now, the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, allows you to spend money after a campaign to retire debt, but not to add to the debt. And she has lots of debt from 2008, which troubles a lot of people. They think it's hypocritical, because -- because she wants America to spend what it has. But let us show you some of these checks. You can decide for yourself if she should have written these checks from her campaign money. For example, a check for 475 bucks, she labeled it as mileage reimbursement. Remember, this is three months after the campaign is over. This means she drove hundreds of miles and she submitted this with campaign funding.

Also, $157 on a phone bill from Verizon Wireless; by all indications, this is her personal phone. Also, $28 at a gas station -- the gas station in the town where she's originally from -- Moorestown, New Jersey. She still has family there. This is campaign money. There's no campaign going on.

Six hundred dollars for her utility bill paid to Delmarva Power. Also, there are little piddly expenses, but increasing her debt. And these are very telltale. You wouldn't need to spend this for any campaign, let alone a campaign that is not going on anymore.

$19 at a place called the Pike Lanes. The Pike Lanes is a bowling alley. That would pay for about eight games of bowling.

Also $26 for a meal at Ruby Tuesday's restaurant -- campaign money once again.

And then she even used campaign money for a $2.84 charge at Staples. In addition, she paid rent money with her campaign funding.

Now, the home that she lives in right now, the townhome, doubles as her campaign headquarters; she lives there some time. So do her campaign workers. But this money for her rent was paid during a time when she was no longer in a campaign.

Now, we can tell you that her detractors say she does this because she hasn't had a real job for years. She has no source of income. She needs to live on campaign money.

Of course we wanted to talk to her about it. I talked to one of her top aides face to face last night.

I said we have a lot to ask her about.

He said she's too tired to talk to you. Try to talk to her tomorrow. Send us a request.

We sent a request. We heard nothing. I saw her today at the campaign forum, asked if we could talk to her. Her aide said she again did not want to talk.

We have talked to some employees of hers who quit. They say they were not paid money they were owed, and they are very angry that she has spent so much money on charges like we just read to you -- Anderson.

COOPER: You know, her supporters would say, look, this is just Democrats trying to dig up dirt on her and that these amounts are kind of small amounts, a couple of hundred dollars here, a couple of hundred there.

What does the state Republican Party -- what does the state Republican Party have to say?

TUCHMAN: Right. The state Republican Party here in Wilmington, Delaware, the chairman of the party before the election was strongly in favor of Mike Castle.

What's being said now is that -- they came up with a statement -- they will support all Republican candidates, but conspicuous by its absence was no mention of this particular candidate, Christine O'Donnell. I called and asked, does that mean you are supporting her, you're not supporting her? They wouldn't comment.

We were talking about former employees, Anderson. This is important. Today, we talked to a former financial adviser who worked for the campaign for two months, and he said he had to quit as a financial adviser because he was aghast at what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She would withdraw money for mileage. She doesn't own a car, didn't own a car at the time. And you can only do one or the other, take the mileage expense or gas. She was doing both.

TUCHMAN: So, this is after -- she's not even running for anything anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. She should have been paying anything left over. And anything that came back in should have been paying off debt. None of that --

(CROSSTALK)

TUCHMAN: But she was using it to go bowling?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: As a campaign expense?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and paying --

TUCHMAN: But there was no campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And paying rent.

TUCHMAN: And paying her rent with it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1009/16/acd.02.html