As we produced this video, it’s expected that five-term Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter will resign his seat within weeks if not days. This event stems from him pleading guilty to one count of campaign finance fraud. The story goes back three years when he faced 60 counts. At the time Rep. Hunter blamed his wife to some degree about handling the finances for his campaign, but put more onus on what he called the “Deep State” of Washington bureaucracy that, from is perspective, wanted to oust him from the start.
Rep. Hunter played that card well up until the point he admitted some wrongdoing. Herein lies a great crisis PR lesson for business owners and executives. If you and your organization get accused of something and you want to go out by vehemently and amiably denying any and all of the allegations, fine. Do so, though, with some degree of caution. If something comes about later on that provides any element of truth about the accusations that require you to backpedal even a little bit, your credibility becomes completely shot.
You took such a strong stand that the other side just needs to come up with some modicum of truth about some minor detail in the whole storyline to knock you off your position. Understand as Duncan Hunter does now. When you take such a strong stance, there is truly no going back.
