Duncan Lee Hunter has a bum knee. So Tuesday the 72-year-old former congressman went to the San Diego Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center for a cortisone shot.
It was there that he learned that his 44-year-old son, former Rep. Duncan Duane Hunter, had been pardoned by President Trump.
“When I got the news, … I didn’t even feel the needle,” Hunter said in a phone interview.
His next remarks: “We’re very grateful to God that we got a president who knows a political hit job when he sees one.”
Hunter said he and others had written the White House, seeking clemency for the six-term Republican who pleaded guilty to campaign fund misspending and faced an 11-month prison stay in Texas. The earliest note, by Eddie and Andrea Gallagher, was dated May 5.
Hunter’s father also sought a pardon for his son’s wife — which came a day later.
“I call this legal extortion,” Hunter said of the prosecution. “They posited to Duncan the prospect of a husband-wife trial in front of their kids. So they said: ‘We’ll dismiss these other 59 counts. You just plead to one.’”
In a Wednesday morning interview with KUSI-TV, Duncan D. Hunter didn’t acknowledge efforts on his behalf to gain a pardon, saying the news “came out of the blue.”
He also didn’t respond to “Good Morning San Diego” host Paul Rudy’s question alluding to Hunter having blamed his wife for financial mismanagement. “I wish the best for her,” he said.
But Hunter, who says he’s now working with a construction management firm, was happy to praise the president: “God is good. … [Trump] totally cuts through the political baloney.”
The elder Hunter noted how Trump’s critics “brush this off as a political pardon.” Instead, Hunter still insists: “This was a political prosecution.”
The elder Hunter provided a letter, cited by the White House, that he considered persuasive.
The four-page, 2,700-word appeal came from former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith of Granville, Ohio.
“As you consider a possible pardon, Congressman Hunter’s father, former Congressman Duncan L. Hunter, has asked me to address the propriety of Duncan D. Hunter being charged criminally for these offenses, as opposed to the civil fines and penalties more commonly used to resolve FECA violations, and I am happy to do so,” Smith wrote Nov. 7 — four days after the election.
Smith argued that allegations of violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act belong in the hands of the FEC, “an agency uniquely structured to guarantee that any decision to prosecute would have to have bipartisan support on the Commission.”
The FEC, created to have equal number Republicans and Democrats, was meant to be insulated from presidential control and “operating within a framework of civil mediation rather than criminal prosecution,” he wrote, later billing Hunter’s father $2,795 for the letter project.
Smith argued that after the FEC found probable cause of even a knowing and willful violation, the panel was required by statute to attempt to “correct or prevent such violation by informal methods of conference, conciliation and persuasion,” before launching a civil prosecution.
- Read: Nov. 22, 2020, letter from Duncan Lee Hunter to White House (PDF)
- Read: Undated Charles and Pilar Martland letter to White House (PDF)
- Read: May 5, 2020, letter from Eddie and Andrea Gallagher to White House (PDF)
- Read: May 2, 2020, letter from Pastor Jim Baize to White House (PDF)
(Smith has his own critics, however. His 2001 book “Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform,” was cited in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.)
The elder Hunter cited acts in the original 2018 indictment that Smith said “would clearly be permissible under FEC regulations and past rulings.”
His favorite example was a $3,754 family trip in October 2011 to the Washington area, where Hunter and his wife, Margaret, ran the 10-kilometer event at the Marine Corps Marathon.
Smith wrote: “Had this matter been brought before the FEC, this trip would clearly have been seen as a valid campaign expenditure — his status as a former Marine, fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, was an important part of his biography and his campaign image, and other Marine alumni would be a likely source of financial support for future campaigns.”
He said it is usually allowable for a campaign to pay travel expenses for spouses and minor children to attend a campaign event.
In fact, the government alleged that Hunter’s campaign credit card was used to pay for four nights at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, which included eight trips to the hotel gift shop ($213), six orders of room service ($728), two meals ($139) and two movies ($26).
According to a statement from the White House, the pardon was issued “at the request of many members of Congress” and was supported by Smith.
The elder Hunter also faulted prosecution of the Hunters for using campaign cash to fund a wedding trip to Idaho.
“Why do you say going to the wedding of a contributor is a crime?” he wanted prosecutors to explain. “It’s never been prosecuted in history.”
(The indictment said the Hunters spent $3,724.07 in campaign funds in summer 2015 to attend their nephew’s Boise wedding with a stopover in Las Vegas.)
Hunter scoffed that his son would be charged 40 times for taking campaign contributors out to breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
“These prosecutors, who absolutely hated Duncan, built this thing out of thin air,” he said. “They had to get to a $25,000 floor to be able to charge it as a felony. So they scraped together all these things.”
They even charged his son with Zip-lining at a National Republican Campaign Committee family trip, he said.
Hunter said San Diego prosecutors were told: “You scratch up every possible expenditure you can and you call this a crime.”
One of those prosecutors, retired Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, responded to the Smith letter and the elder Hunter’s arguments.
“It’s easy to cherry pick one or two expenditures and argue that the case should have been handled administratively,” Halpern said via email Tuesday night.
“However, Hunter stole over $200,000 in campaign funds. That’s fraud. Pure and simple. Normal people don’t feel that elected officials should be able to live a lavish lifestyle they otherwise couldn’t afford by stealing funds. This case was prosecuted by a Republican Department of Justice. To say it’s political is just silly.”
Duncan Lee Hunter, who briefly ran for president in 2008, also revived his allegations that prosecutors Alana Robinson and Emily Allen violated the Hatch Act by attending a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in La Jolla.
“I hate to say it,” he said. “But the San Diego media let these guys [the prosecutors] get away with murder.”
The Secret Service has said the pair were there as part of a security detail.
But Hunter points to email discovered via a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch after the sentencing.
The conservative activist group Judicial Watch on March 13 — four days before Hunter’s sentencing — asked the Department of Homeland Security for emails regarding the Robinson and Allen visits to the August 7, 2015, Clinton fundraiser.
But redactions obscured who sent and received the notes.
One letter, sent the afternoon of the fundraiser, said: “Thank you so much for the invitation to this morning’s event! I was blown away by your incredible hospitality and can’t thank you enough for allowing us to crash that fabulous party. It was a really memorable morning.”
Minutes later, an email responses said: “I’m so glad you had fun. See you in a week.”
In late August 2018, the Union-Tribune reported that the Secret Service explained the pair were present for “prosecutorial guidance … in the event of a protective security related incident.”
In the same story, Hunter lawyer Greg Vega said this was evidence that the prosecution was “politically motivated.” But 11 months later it was revealed Vega himself was at the Clinton fundraiser. (Records show Vega wrote a $2,700 check to Hillary for America on April 13, 2015.)
Halpern, who teamed with Emily Allen and Mark Conover on the Hunters’ case, said via email: “It’s regrettable that Duncan L Hunter is still operating under the delusion that his son’s charge was political. Hunter admitted corruptly stealing over $200,000 in campaign contributions — the overwhelming majority of which was spent on supporting a lavish lifestyle that he otherwise could not afford.”
He added: “Perhaps the senior Hunter’s many years in Congress accustomed him to this type of venal criminality. Or perhaps, it’s a simple case of a parent’s love for his child that blinds the senior Hunter to this obvious fact. Fortunately, the American people (regardless of their political party) recognize the complete and total inappropriate nature of Duncan Hunter’s behavior and expect far more from their elected officials.”
The elder Hunter said another letter to Trump came from Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, who owes his continued Army career to former Marine combat veteran Hunter.
Except for Hunter’s intercession, he said, Martland would have gotten the boot for beating up an Afghanistan police commander who admitted repeatedly raping a boy.
(Martland later would name one of his twin sons for Duncan Hunter.)
“Duncan became the last resort for a whole bunch of military guys who had been beaten up by the bureaucracy,” Hunter said, also noting how his son found the bloody body armor that proved the late Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta deserved the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Second Battle of Fallujah.
And of course the case of Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher, who retired with full honors and benefits after Trump’s intervention after a court-martial in a POW slaying case.
“Everybody abandoned Eddie Gallagher,” Hunter’s father said. “Duncan was the last guy standing. And Mrs. Gallagher had a pretty good statement: She said virtually everybody else in Congress took a knee, but Duncan Hunter stood up.”
Duncan Lee Hunter, who served in Congress from 1981 to 2009, thought his son never got the credit he deserved for his work in the House. He says his son saved Qualcomm, and 13,000 jobs, from a takeover by Broadcom.
“According to one analyst, it would have affected 100,000 jobs in San Diego,” Hunter said. “That would have been the biggest industrial takeaway in the history of San Diego. Trump stopped that from happening.”
He said the only guy Trump asked to meet with was his son.
In a border visit, Trump told Rep. Hunter: “I got your letter. I agree with your position that we can’t let the Chinese get this technology,” his dad said.
“That would have been like the Navy leaving San Diego,” he said. “You saw nothing come out of the Union-Tribune that even had a glimmer of thanks.”
Hunter says he talked with his son “just for a second” about the pardon until his phone died amid poor reception.
“He likes this president and he really appreciates what he did,” the father said of a son who was among the first members of Congress to endorse Trump (along with fellow pardonee Chris Collins of New York).
The elder Hunter conveys no concerns about his son’s future.
“He’s a tough guy,” he said. “He’s the guy who walked out of his office the day we were attacked on 9-11 and called us up: ‘I’m quitting my job and I’m joining the Marines. I’m going to go get the bad guys.’”
What’s Duncan Duane Hunter up to now?
His dad says they’ve combined their own money and donors’ cash to deliver food donations in El Cajon — under a sign that says “Free cantaloupe and free corn.”
“He and I distributed about 14,000 pounds of food that we bring out of the harvest in Imperial Valley to the Transitional Living Center and to a distribution site in San Diego,” he said. “We’re going to try to get more of that done before the end of the year. That’s kind of our mission.”
He said they’re affiliated with no group or foundation.
“We’re just doing it,” he said. “I don’t want to brag about that either. God didn’t want us to brag about it.”
Updated at 7:11 p.m. Dec. 23, 2020
