WASHINGTON -- The FBI is investigating the fundraising activities of an outspoken anti-gay conservative county supervisor from Northern Virginia, according to a former aide who told The Washington Post that she turned over documents and emails related to the alleged improper use of government time to federal investigators.
While the Post reports that the FBI would not confirm nor deny its involvement in the matter, three other former aides to Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) have said agents have questioned them.
Delgaudio said, according to the Post, that fundraising lists at the center of the controversy were not for his conservative public interest group, Public Advocate of the United States, but were used to benefit a local boys football league:
Delgaudio acknowledged that some members of his staff were instructed to spend as much as 50 to 60 percent of their time making calls and scheduling meetings for him. But he said the goal was to raise money for one of his favorite community organizations -- the Lower Loudoun Boys Football League -- and not his campaign.
"I'm simply going to open up a conversation [with the potential donors] and then later, over a period of years, ask them for a large gift for the [football league]," Delgaudio said.
The literature he handed out at the meetings was for his political campaign, however. "I don't have other documents that describe myself, sadly," he said.
Delgaudio, first elected to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in 1999, sat on the board of directors for Young Americans for Freedom for 10 years.
The Republican known for his anti-gay outspokenness, who made a video showing support for Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy's controversial views against gay marriage, recently came under fire when Public Advocate used a gay couple's engagement photo in attack mailers against two Republican candidates in primary races for the Colorado legislature.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a long-established civil rights organization that monitors and litigates against hate groups and extremists in the United States, has filed a federal lawsuit in Colorado against Public Advocate. The lawsuit charges that Public Advocate misappropriated the likeness and personalities of the couple.
Delgaudio told the Post he was "looking into" the lawsuit.
And he's not the only one. The Loudoun County Democratic Committee is, not for the first time, calling on Delgaudio to resign from the Board of Supervisors in light of the suit.
In March, the group called for Delgaudio's resignation when Public Advocate was designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.