NRCC Treasurer Under Scrutiny Was Thought of as 'Gold Standard'

In an election year that holds dismal prospects for congressional Republicans, possible financial problems at the cash-strapped NRCC are the last thing the GOP needs.

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf," said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

The recently indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (Ariz.) and now imprisoned former congressman Robert W. Ney (Ohio), as well as less controversial lawmakers with minor accounting problems, are among the many members of the GOP delegation who turned to Ward to keep them out of trouble with FEC regulators.

With a wife and three children, a Volvo sport-utility vehicle and a house in Bethesda, Ward was the classic anonymous party bureaucrat.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in political science from what was then Towson State University in 1990, Ward began working in lower-level Republican politics. In the early 1990s, he moved to the compliance side of fundraising dinner committees, the small orbit of staffers who ensure that the aides raising and spending donations do so within federal election laws, according to several former NRCC officials.

By the mid-1990s, he started working full time in the compliance shop of the NRCC, gaining an increasing amount of trust from senior staff members, former co-workers said. Lawmakers facing troubles with the FEC, as Renzi did shortly after he won election in 2002, were steered to Ward for help.

"He was known as a fix-it guy, and he was known for being good at it," said one former NRCC aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Ward was assistant treasurer for the NRCC for half a dozen years, then was promoted to treasurer in 2003, the former officials said, putting him on equal footing with the directors of finance, communications, political operations and legal counsel.

In a system that was designed to prevent fraudulent spending, former aides said that Ward's signature was the last of the four or five required on most major expenditures.

Of the four campaign committees run by House and Senate members, the NRCC raised the largest amount of money by far during the House Republicans' 12-year reign on Capitol Hill. Contributions to the committee totaled more than $368 million during the years Ward was treasurer.

Former co-workers and lawmakers said they saw no signs that Ward would ever be the subject of an investigation like this one. Several suggested that he was a workaholic who was in the office 14 hours on some days.

In 2005, 2006 and most of 2007, the NRCC paid Ward $80,000 to $90,000 a year, but he was one of only two full-time aides there who were allowed to work as outside consultants to lawmakers. That doubled his salary, according to a review of records compiled by CQ MoneyLine, a Web site that tracks campaign finances.