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SALT LAKE CITY — A Republican challenger to Utah 3rd District Congressman Jason Chaffetz raised concerns Wednesday over hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal reimbursements from the incumbent’s campaign and leadership committee.
Chia-Chi Teng said his campaign’s analysis of Chaffetz’ Federal Election Commission reports found $77,251 of the $513,634 reimbursement total dating back to 2007 had not been itemized.
“I just want him to answer to our call and come clean,” Teng said.
Teng, who previously worked in software development at Microsoft and is now an associate professor at Brigham Young University, acknowledged he faced an “uphill battle” against the prominent Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee.
Still, Teng said he believed the reimbursements raised questions that need to be answered.
“We found a lot of red flags, and I mean a lot,” Teng said. “On top of that, we see over $5,000 of babysitting expenses and $15,000 of Washington, D.C. hotel expenses.”
Chaffetz disputed the opposing campaign’s concerns outright during a phone interview Wednesday evening.
“There’s no personal gain to me, Jason Chaffetz,” he said. “These are reimbursements for legitimate campaign expenses.”
When asked about the $77,251 in unaccounted reimbursements the Teng campaign claimed, Chaffetz said he “disagreed.”
“I don’t know where he comes up with that,” Chaffetz said. “If I have a campaign expense, I take the receipt and I submit it to the accountant, and then I get reimbursed for that and everyone of those transactions is accounted for.”
A year-by-year breakout circulated by the Teng campaign to reporters showed just $11 unaccounted in 2007 out of a $1,480 total.
Other years’ numbers reflected in the chart, however, showed far larger disparities, taking into account reimbursements from the Friends of Jason Chaffetz campaign committee and Budgethawks.com leadership political action committee.
The Teng campaign’s analysis claimed a $14,623 difference in 2010 and $22,419 in unaccounted reimbursement money in 2014.
Chaffetz was resolute that his expenses have been properly itemized and said no issues had been raised previously about them.
“All of my expenditures, all of my receipts are available online,” Chaffetz said. “They’re highly scrutinized by the media, outside groups. I’ve done it just as you’re supposed to do it and put them all online.”
Teng has qualified to appear on the primary ballot in June, after collecting the required number of signatures.
He called on Chaffetz to shed further light on his financial reports.
“It does raise a lot of questions, and I hope he has good answers to all those questions,” Teng said.
