INDIANAPOLIS — A family trip to California that Indiana congressman Marlin Stutzman paid for with campaign money included visits to Universal Studios and Capitol Records. It also included lunch with a TV producer his wife admires.
Those details were found in an Office of Congressional Ethics report, which concluded the trip appears to have been “for personal purposes.” The report says federal law prohibits using campaign funds for personal matters, according to the Associated Press.
The panel began investigating the Stutzman family’s six-day 2015 visit during the congressman’s losing Senate bid, which ended following May’s primary.
The Republican insists the trip was a legitimate campaign expense. But his campaign manager questioned using donor funds for what Stutzman’s wife called “a family vacation” on Facebook.
Indiana’s 3rd District contains all of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Jay, Lagrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells, and Whitley counties, as well as parts of Blackford and Kosciusko counties.
Stutzman’s office did not return messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
