Word: audits
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Ruffs clearing statement said that the FBI had examined records of the Michigan committees and the two unions, both of which are heavy political contributors (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). Officials of those groups had been interviewed. At Ruffs request, Ford had supplied financial records and authorized Ruff to examine an audit of his finances for the years 1967-72 made by the Internal Revenue Service and the Congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. Concluded Ruff: "The evidence developed during this investigation was not corroborative of the allegation on which it was predicated. Nor did evidence ... give reason to believe that...
Considering the accusing tone of some reporters, Ford handled other questions involving his personal finances with surprising good humor. Asked how he had managed to get along on something like $5 in pocket money per week in 1972, as his recently disclosed IRS audit indicated, Ford replied: "I write checks." He explained away his withdrawal of $1,167 from his Fifth District bank account, which contained political contributions and fees from speaking engagements, for a 1972 family vacation trip to Vail, Colo. The President reiterated that he had promptly reimbursed the account by writing a check, even though...
Shortly before the confirmation hearings in November 1973, the audit was made available to the Senate Rules Committee, and his finances were also intensively investigated by the FBI. Ford was given a completely clean bill of fiscal health in the hearings. Speaking of last week's publication of the audit and the debate over Ford's finances, Michigan Republican Senator Robert Griffin, a member of the Rules Committee, said: "If that's all there is, I'll be pleased." But the audit does show that Ford on at least two occasions dipped into campaign funds for personal...
...astonishing aspect of Ford's audit was what he did not spend. The IRS inspectors concluded that in 1972 he used only $225 of his private money for personal expenses?or $4.33 per week. The audit states that when informed of that figure, Ford expressed surprise. As an explanation, his aides maintain that he did not have to spend much. For example, as an important Congressman, he was usually the guest at luncheons; when he was not, he lunched in his office on cottage cheese and grapefruit juice...
...audit accepted Ford's story about his spending habits. According to the Washington Post, the audit, however, did note that in 1972 Ford paid most of his day-to-day living expenses from checks drawn on a bank account funded by honorariums from speeches, reimbursements for travel and some political contributions. The bank account was the Fifth District one, and the IRS assertion only buttressed the impression that Ford did not fully live up to the House ethics requirement of maintaining a strict separation between private and political funds. The overall impression that emerges from the audit...