Audit of campaign finds small glitches

WASHINGTON — An audit of Utah Rep. Chris Cannon's 2004 campaign committee found the Republican congressman failed to file a form and left information off another report. But otherwise, the audit said the campaign was clean.

The Federal Election Commission launched the audit this spring after asking several times for more information about Cannon's fund raising and reporting.

The audit, approved by the commission Sept. 19 and made public this week, found Cannon's campaign failed to file a form with its July 15, 2003, quarterly report and did not disclose the amount of money raised or the total amount contributed by the candidate.

The report should have disclosed Cannon raised $72,213 for the primary election and $15,240 for the general election, the auditors found.

The audit also found Cannon had incorrectly filled out a 2003 year-end report, failing to disclose raising $148,528 for the primary and $18,240 for the general election.

Cannon's staff told the FEC they didn't know about the requirement. But auditors said in the report that after learning about the error, Cannon for Congress took it "very seriously."

Cannon's chief of staff, Joe Hunter, said the problem was small, but it has been corrected.

"The key point is that they went through literally everything, and they found no violations other than that one very, very minor form," he said.