The secret weapon that Greg Walden never tried.

Kari Chisholm

In a front page Oregonian story today, Congressman Greg Walden tries to tapdance away from blame in the NRCC auditing scandal.

First, a recap for those new to the story: The FBI is investigating the loss of at least a million dollars from the campaign operation for US House Republicans. It's alleged that a contract committee treasurer faked audit reports for the members of Congress overseeing the operation. Among those involved? Our very own GOP Congressman Greg Walden, who chaired the audit committee while the fraud was perpetrated, right under his nose.

In today's O, Walden tries to explain:

The audits appeared authentic and trustworthy, Rep. Greg Walden said. So did the National Republican Campaign Committee's well-known treasurer.

Senior Republicans had vouched for Chris Ward, who served as the committee's treasurer from 2003 until he was fired Jan. 28. Eighty-three of the Republicans had hired Ward to manage their own campaign finances.

Ward "was the gold standard," Walden said in an interview Friday. "They all said there's no one better; he's the expert." ...

Walden and other Republicans involved in the committee and its finances insist they are victims of a sophisticated operation that produced fake audits so good "even the banks were fooled."

Now, that's fine, if it helps Walden sleep at night. But it's completely bogus.

After all, if you're the chair of the audit committee for an organization, it's clearly a bit odd if you never get a chance to meet the auditors that you've hired. Especially if that pattern goes on for years. Walden, after all, was the audits chair from 2003 to 2006.

Sure, he tries to explain it away:

Walden said he asked Ward repeatedly to set up a meeting with outside auditors to discuss the reports. "There was always a reason they couldn't meet -- timing, scheduling. It was one thing after another," Walden said.

But given Ward's reputation, Walden said he believed the problem was with the auditors, not his trusted treasurer. He continued to believe that when he left the audit committee at the end of 2006. He relayed his concerns about the delays, however, to Rep. Tom Conway of Arkansas [sic]

[Note: There is no Congressman Tom Conway of Arkansas. The guy we're talking about is Congressman Mike Conaway of Texas, a former CPA. The Oregonian completely flubbed that detail.]

So, how did Congressman Conaway finally break this gigantic scandal? How did he uncover this massive fraud? How did he discover that the NRCC's treasurer had faked audits for years?

Conaway, a caped crusader to be sure, tried something radical, something astonishing, something SOOOO creative that Greg Walden couldn't possibly be expected to have tried it.

Conaway picked up the phone. And called the number on the fake audit's letterhead.

From the AP, via the Houston Chronicle:

He and his fellow audit committee members, Reps. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. and Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., immediately called the accounting firm they thought had been hired to audit the committee's finances. "They never heard of us," Conaway said.

And from the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Conaway's hometown paper:

"[Ward] had picked this CPA firm out of the phone book and they had never had any contact with him. That started the ruckus."

Seriously.

Not only did Greg Walden fail to meet with the auditing firm before they hired them, he failed to meet with them for three straight years, and when he tried - oh, how he tried - to get a meeting... he never bothered to pick up the phone and call direct.

It's a telephone, Greg. Just pick it up and dial.

You could have saved your party a million dollars. You could have been a hero. You could have been a contender.

By Kari Chisholm March 17, 2008