TagDon Wasson(24)

A 2003 Seattle Times investigation revealed a campaign-finance scandal in Des Moines, WA, where Mayor Don Wasson, businessman Hank Hopkins, and political consultant Tom Hujar allegedly concealed $49,000 in unreported spending to influence the November 2001 City Council elections. The goal was to elect council members who would reduce the city's opposition to a proposed third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. State Public Disclosure Commission investigators charged Wasson and Hopkins with violating campaign-finance disclosure laws, with all three men blaming each other for the scheme.

Des Moines Mayor Don Wasson was charged by Washington State's Public Disclosure Commission with concealing $49,000 in illegal campaign contributions from local businessman Hank Hopkins, who stood to profit from a third-runway construction contract at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The funds allegedly helped elect three pro-runway City Council members in 2001, after which Wasson was named mayor and the council voted to cut the city's $150,000 funding to the anti-runway Airport Communities Coalition. Wasson denied the charges, but investigators confronted him with an endorsed check he had initially claimed not to have received.