GOP provides update on McCaskill travel scandal, tax bill up to $320,000

The Missouri Republican Party has been kind enough to provide a rundown of the latest developments in the travel scandal surrounding Sen. Claire McCaskill:

MOGOP files supplemental ethics complaint: The Missouri Republican Party today filed a supplemental ethics complaint with the United States Senate Ethics Committee. The new complaint, available here, requests that the committee use its subpoena power to “force Senator McCaskill to reveal the full extent of her actions.” To date, McCaskill has refused to come clean or release tax documents that would prove once-and-for-all if any of her companies made a profit from her taxpayer-funded use of her own plane. Regarding the complaint, Lloyd Smith, Executive Director of the Missouri Republican Party said, “Elected officials shouldn’t be let off the hook when they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Claire McCaskill thinks that she can write a big check and make the problem disappear—but we hope that the Senate Ethics Committee will hold her accountable for her actions and determine if punishment is merited in this case.”


McCaskill’s tax bill higher than expected: Claire McCaskill’s substantial bank account feels a little lighter this afternoon amid revelations that her actual tax liability is much higher than originally announced. The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Claire McCaskill owes St Louis County nearly $320,000 in unpaid taxes on her private plane—not the $287,000 that had previously been reported. This information was first broken by the MOGOP yesterday, well before McCaskill herself became aware of the final total—which itself is embarrassing for McCaskill, who has falsely claimed to be on top of this issue. As Politico’s Dave Catanese asked via twitter: “How did @missouriGOP know about @clairecmc's final plane tab before the senator?”

NRSC puts McCaskill scandal into perspective: Following revelations that McCaskill’s total tax bill is close to $320,000—combined with McCaskill’s original $88,000 repayment for the flights—the NRSC released the following damaging statistics: “that amount is roughly 3x more than what former Senator Tom Daschle owed in back taxes before being forced to withdraw his name for HHS Secretary in 2009 and roughly 10x the amount U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was said to have owed in back taxes before he was censored by the U.S. House last year. “

National media turns on McCaskill: Scripps Howard News Service’s Bonnie Erbe declared that McCaskill “has likely cost herself re-election.” An Investor’s Business Daily editorial takes McCaskill to task for her hypocrisy and proclaims that elected officials who can’t run their “own affairs cleanly and openly, they shouldn't run ours.” And even NPR has gotten into the act, noting that McCaskill has a history of “lecturing…about fiscal responsibility” and stating that this “should not happen.”