Almost $44,000 in fraudulent charges made on Republican National Committee credit card

Almost $44,000 in fraudulent charges were made on a credit card belonging to the Republican National Committee, according to the committee’s treasurer.

RNC Treasurer Ronald Kaufman made the disclosure in an April 30 letter to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

The Commission in early April requested further information about a purchase to “EZ COFFEE AND TEA” that was disclosed on the October filing.

A total of $43,970.54 was spent on the card. Of that total, $35,520.54 in purchases were made to “EZ COFFEE AND TEA,” an e-commerce sites that sells coffee, tea and chocolate.

A separate $8,450 purchase were made to a vendor titled “MIDWEST BIOCHAR,” a Kansas-based agricultural services company.

Kauffman said that American Express refunded the fraudulent charges.

RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn told The Hill in a statement that “an employee experienced fraudulent charges on a corporate American Express card. Upon learning of the charges, we immediately notified AMEX and initiated a fraudulent charge dispute.” 

The Hill has reached out to EZ Coffee & Tea, and Midwest Biochar for comment.

The transactions were originally made on Sept. 10, according to the original October filing, and were both described as “office supplies.”

Explaining why the charges were described as “office supplies,” Vaughn said, “at the point in time of filing, these charges were still currently being researched and we categorized them as office supplies.” 

“Upon resolution of the dispute, AMEX credited the account and we applied the credit against the original account per standard accounting practices. All of this was properly reported to the FEC,” she continued. 

–Updated at 3:24 p.m.