- The American Hospital Association's PAC lost more than $12,000.
- It told federal regulators that someone used fake checks to steal from its account.
The American Hospital Association's powerhouse political committee recently needed emergency financial care.
In a letter to federal regulators, American Hospital Association PAC's treasurer acknowledged that the committee lost $12,650 in what its treasurer, Melinda Reid Hatton, described as a case of "fraudulent activity" involving fake checks.
"The checks were written using the Committee's bank account and routing number, but are in the name of a 'Wendy Naylor,' listing an address in Florida," Hatton wrote to Federal Election Commission officials on November 7. "These are not real Committee checks, nor were they written on actual Committee check stock."
It's unclear who "Wendy Naylor" is or whether she's a real person. And while Hatton indicated that her PAC isn't certain who stole the money, she told federal officials there is "no reason to believe or suspect that anyone from American Hospital Association or the Committee participated in the fraud," which took place in July.
American Hospital Association PAC "promptly notified law enforcement after learning of the fraud," Hatton noted. "The Committee has taken steps to prevent further instances of fraud, including initiating a 'positive pay' system on its account."
Hatton indicated that the American Hospital Association's PAC has yet to recover $7,650 worth of the money it initially lost.
American Hospital Association spokesman Colin Milligan declined further comment when reached Tuesday by Insider.
In recent years, theft from political committees has become endemic in the United States.
Dozens of other federal political committees — including President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee — have lost money at the hands of thieves and embezzlers, an Insider investigation last year revealed.
Thieves this year even jacked several thousand dollars from Kanye West's old 2020 presidential campaign committee.
Poor financial controls and lax security measures often contributed to political committees losing money.
Big political money player
Founded in the late 1970s, the American Hospital Association PAC is one of the nation's most prolific special interest political committees.
It's decidedly bipartisan, and during the past two decades, it's spread at least $2 million each two-year election cycle to hundreds of federal-level candidates and committees, according to nonpartisan money-in-politics research organization OpenSecrets.
For example, the American Hospital Association PAC has contributed $30,000 each to the National Republican Congressional Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2021-2022 election cycle, according to federal records.
It's also recently contributed four- or five-figure amounts to the leadership PACs of lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican of California, to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York.
The American Hospital Association counts "nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 43,000 individual members" among its membership.
In addition to making political contributions to politicians through its PAC, the American Hospital Association is one of the nation's most powerful lobbying forces, regularly spending $20 million or more annually to influence federal lawmakers and agencies, according to OpenSecrets.