Barletta campaign hasn’t made good on $65K bank loan

The lack of reported payments tends to support a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee charge Barletta’s campaign received a $65,000 bank loan that it never repaid. But the mayor, who is running again for Congress, said he’s been personally paying back money he borrowed for his 2002 campaign all along. “I borrowed the money from the bank and I’m paying the bank,” he said. “What they’re accusing me of is just not true …

The bank did not loan the campaign any money.” The listing of the loan as coming from Legacy Bank on more than 25 campaign financial reports since early 2003 without reporting payments and other elements of the loan’s status could have been a clerical error, he said. “If there was an error, I’ll be happy to correct it,” Barletta said.

Brian Wolff, the executive director of the Democratic committee, said Barletta should release documents proving he made payments and dismissed the clerical error explanation. “If you go and represent people in the House (in Washington), you better know what your own house looks like,” Wolff said.

“There’s something not right about this.” The Federal Election Commission warned the Barletta campaign to report the terms and status of loans in detail in a December 2003 letter that even threatened an audit and unspecified “enforcement action.” The commission never acted after Barletta’s campaign wrote letters a month later offering an explanation of what appears on financial reports as a $75,000 loan Barletta made personally to the campaign.