August 22, 1972: GAO Finds Huge Financial Irregularities in Nixon Campaign

The General Accounting Office (GAO) completes its preliminary report on financial irregularities inside the Nixon re-election campaign (see August 1-2, 1972). According to the report, the campaign has mishandled over $500,000 in campaign contributions, including an apparently illegal “slush fund” of over $100,000—perhaps more than $350,000. The report lists 11 “apparent and possible violations” of the new campaign finance law (see Before April 7, 1972), and refers the matter to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. The GAO agrees to delay its public issuance of its report after the committee’s finance chairman, Maurice Stans, asks GAO chief investigator Philip Hughes to come to Miami, where the Republican National Convention is in full swing, to receive more information. Another GAO investigator tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that the Nixon campaign does not want the report to be made public on the same day that Richard Nixon accepts the Republican nomination for president. [Bernstein and Woodward, 1974, pp. 48-56]