The San Diego Union-Tribune reported yesterday that Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) listed $1,302 worth of video games on a campaign finance disclosure form as a “personal expense — to be paid back,” but hasn’t yet done so. Federal election regulators are questioning a U.S. congressman over how the money was spent. The spokesman for Hunter said Hunter’s teenage son actually is the one responsible for the purchases, getting hold of his father’s credit card to buy one game. The spokesman added that Hunter was trying to get Steam to refund the money so that he can repay it back into campaign fund. The same spokesman also told The Daily Beast that he was unsure if the teen’s original purchase was authorized. The federal authorities said that though this not an investigation but Hunter could face some heat over the missing money. The FEC, however, has asked his campaign treasurer for an explanation of the expense and to amend the disclosure as necessary. He has until May 9 to respond. Hunter, who was elected to the San Diego-area district his father once represented in 2008, argued in a 2013 Politico editorial that video games shouldn’t be used as a scapegoat for real-world violence. “The narrative that children and young adults today stare at television and computer screens, developing lethal skills through first-person gaming experiences, disingenuously portrays video games as having a corrosive influence,” he wrote. “The problem with this rationale is that it conveys an image that America’s youth are incapable of discerning right from wrong, which simply is not true.”
