Bachmann Bilked Taxpayer Funds for Tea Party Rally

In November of 2009, Michele Bachmann and other Congresspeople paid a total of $13,630 for a sound system at a Tea Party rally held at the Capitol. The money was filtered from their office accounts -- which, in turn, are funded by taxpayers, reports ROLL CALL

Bachmann billed the event as a "press conference," which can be funded from official accounts. But no questions were taken from the press and, unlike most press conferences, it opened with a prayer, the national anthem and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

A few days earlier, the Minnesota Republican had appeared on a Fox News talk show and made an appeal for activists to come to D.C. for the event, promising to help them lobby Congress against the [health-care reform] bill.

"I'm asking people to come to Washington, D.C., by the carload," Bachmann said. "I'd love to have every one of your viewers join me so that we can go up and down through the halls. Find Members of Congress, look at the whites of their eyes and say, 'Don't take away my health care.'"

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