Mr. Pataki also used money from the PACs to treat seven former governors and their spouses to dinner and a Broadway show in November, according to a spokesman.
In addition, the records show that after Mr. Pataki decided not to proceed with a presidential bid, his PACs paid nearly $165,000 for travel and meeting expenses. Despite the legal requirement that such expenses be itemized on campaign finance reports, his campaign did not disclose where the money was spent. And in the final nine months of 2007, more than $350,000 from the PACs was paid to former Pataki administration staff members, longtime political advisers and two people who joined Mr. Pataki's consulting firm last year.
Mr. Pataki used PAC money to maintain two offices during 2007 - one in Peekskill, near his home, and another in Manhattan that he rented for a time from a company owned by Cathy Blaney, a longtime adviser and fund-raiser, who also received $60,500 in consulting fees in the final nine months of 2007.
Bill Mahoney, an analyst at the New York Public Interest Research Group, questioned whether there was a legitimate campaign purpose for Mr. Pataki's spending.
"The former governor is spending more than many active candidates for office, although it's been clear for quite some time he doesn't have any political plans for the immediate future," Mr. Mahoney said. "It looks like these committees primarily reward loyalists who have stood by him for years."
That's right. These PACs in question were all created in Virginia, meaning Pataki might receive a slap on the wrist for this. I wouldn't be surprised if he received no punishment for this though.
Thanks to Virginia's laws, you could justify any expense as a campaign expense. If you take some friends to Broadway, you could say that it was a campaign meet-and-greet or something of that nature. In Virginia, these laws are very vague.
