More than one in four members of Congress who hold top positions on committees and subcommittees or are in the House Leadership have used their position to enrich family members, according to a watchdog's investigation.
Lawmakers employed family members on campaign committees and used campaign funds to pay family businesses or contribute to relatives
41 Democrats and 55 Republicans -- who used their positions to financially benefit family members.
CREW notes much of the financial arrangements it uncovers are legal.
A candidate can employ his wife or brother as a campaign aide as long as the relative is paid fair market value for the real work they contribute to the campaign.
Among the top spending lawmakers, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., used more than $350,000 of campaign funds for accounting and fundraising services from firms controlled by her husband. Lofgren told USA Today that her husband's firm did superior work, but he has since dissolved the firm.
CREW's report notes that members of Congress can't hire spouses or other family members to work in their congressional offices.
The group's executive director, Melanie Sloan, said the report "shines a spotlight on the troubling practice of lawmakers using their congressional positions as profit centers for family members."
Several presidential candidates made it to CREW's list, including Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; and Ron Paul, R-Texas. Hunter and Paul each spent more than $100,000 in salaries and reimbursements to family members, while Kucinich paid his cousin more than $35,000 for campaign consulting and fundraising between 2002 and 2004.
