Feds close campaign spending case against ex-Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen without charges

After months of investigating campaign spending by former Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on trips to Disney World and other destinations, the Justice Department has decided not to file any charges against the Miami Republican, her defense attorney said Friday.

Miami attorney Jeff Weiner said the Justice Department’s probe of Ros-Lehtinen’s spending of thousands of dollars from her political action committee on trips with family members before her retirement in 2018 showed “she did nothing wrong.”

Weiner said he learned from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section on Thursday that it was closing the case after concluding there was actual “political activity going on” during these trips involving other politicians and their families. As a result, Ros-Lehtinen did not violate federal election laws that prohibit personal spending of campaign funds, he said.

“They kept an open mind and listened to everything I said and everything I gave them,” Weiner told the Miami Herald, citing credit card receipts and other financial records. “I was able to show them that each event was proper and legitimate.”

Before her retirement in early 2018, Ros-Lehtinen was a prominent political figure who served in Congress for 30 years. Her congressional seat was held by Democrat Donna Shalala for two years before she was upset in November by Republican Maria Elvira Salazar.

Ros-Lehtinen and her husband, former U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen, declined to comment Friday when reached by a Miami Herald reporter.

In a statement issued through her attorney, Ros-Lehtinen said she was “very pleased ... there was no basis found for charges against me.” She thanked her attorney and expressed gratitude to family, friends and supporters “who never lost their faith in me.”

Asked about the status of the Ros-Lehtinen probe, the Justice Department declined to comment.

The Federal Election Commission also opened a case, but Weiner said he is confident it will be resolved, possibly with no fine. He said that all of the spending in question was reported properly to the FEC.

News of the Justice Department’s closing of the Ros-Lehtinen probe was first reported by CBS4 investigative reporter Jim DeFede in a series of Twitter posts Friday.

After announcing on April 30, 2017, that she would not seek reelection in 2018, Ros-Lehtinen transferred more than $177,000 from her reelection campaign account to IRL PAC, a political action committee that she controlled, according to CBS4. That is a common practice when politicians announce their retirement. Under federal law, none of the campaign funds can be spent on “personal use.”

The IRL PAC expense reports showed a series of suspicious expenditures, including about $4,000 on the family trip to Disney World in December 2017; more than $10,000 on rooms at the Lotte New York Palace in New York; about $6,000 on rooms and meals at the Ritz-Carlton resort on Amelia Island in northern Florida; and another $28,000 at the W Hotel on South Beach.

Before leaving office, she spent $3,100 at MesaMar, a high-end seafood restaurant in Coral Gables, on New Year’s Eve in 2018, according to the PAC’s expense reports.

Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign spending was first reported by Noah Pransky on the Florida Politics website in June 2019. In turn, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed a complaint in October 2019 against Ros-Lehtinen with the Federal Election Commission.