San Diego Union-Tribune: Beyond the deep state witch hunt, Hunter defense could focus on campaign rule ‘gray areas’

In the week since federal prosecutors dropped a sweeping indictment on Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife Margaret accusing them of using $250,000 in campaign money for personal expenses, Hunter and his lawyer publicly launched two lines of defense — attacking prosecutors and blaming Margaret Hunter. …

But a larger legal defense was outlined in letters to Justice Department officials sent in the weeks before the indictment by Duncan Hunter’s lawyer, Gregory Vega.

In the July 30 and Aug. 6 letters, Vega argued federal prosecutors had misinterpreted the law, were turning civil law violations into crimes and had rushed to indict his client. …

“I don’t really see a lot of gray area here,” said Paul Seamus Ryan, a campaign law expert and vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause in Washington, D.C. “There appears to me to be an awful lot of expenses that the Hunters were indicted for that aren’t allowed by the FEC, and aren’t close calls at all.”