I’d love to know what an independent investigation found. Because if Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu’s internal investigation found this…

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu on Friday released the findings of an internal investigation into her travel that found more than $33,700 in campaign flights were charged to her Senate account.

The report found 136 campaign functions were conducted during 43 trips paid for by the Senate office dating back to 2002.

…imagine what total somebody who wasn’t hired by the Senator might have come up with.  Note, by the way: I am explicitly not giving Mary Landrieu the benefit of the doubt over whether she has come up with a full list of all the times her campaign embezzled money for travel… excuse me: ‘engaged in sloppy book-keeping.’  In fact, I will explicitly say this: I expect that she has not, not least because her investigation was truncated:

[Republican candidate Bill] Cassidy’s campaign questioned what might be found in the travel records between 1997 and 2002.

“Sen. Landrieu cites a rule change in 2002, but prior to that, it was also illegal to bill taxpayers for private flights. Given Sen. Landrieu’s own admission of faulty oversight, how do taxpayers know that problems did not exist prior to 2002?” said Cassidy spokesman John Cummins.

Obvious answer: we don’t. And Mary Landrieu refuses to tell us.

Via

Landrieu confessed to illegally bilking taxpayers for cost of 43 fights to 136 campaign events. Done it for years. http://t.co/Gh47l5qV6k

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 12, 2014

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Points to the Times-Picayune for naming Senator Landrieu’s party in the photo caption and first paragraph.  I play “Name! That! PARTY!!!!!” often enough that I should note it when somebody doesn’t hide a Democrat’s political affiliation.

PPS: It is precisely the cynical shrug and/or casual dismissal of anything less than a million dollars getting stolen that allows Democrats (and Republicans we haven’t caught yet) to get away with treating the Treasury as their private piggy bank, with emphasis on ‘piggy.’ And anybody whoever tells you otherwise is, frankly, a shill for the existing system. And if they’re not even getting paid for it, they’re stupid shills, too.