House Republican leaders have attempted to shoot down speculation that an ongoing forensic audit of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will not be completed until late in the 2008 cycle, but experts in the field contend the accounting process will take months, and could spill into next year.

Greg Kutz, managing director of the Government Accountability Office’s forensics audits and special investigations, said, “It depends on how broad [the audit] is and how many transactions they are reviewing.

Kutz, who has been involved in forensic audits of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s financial relief response to Hurricane Katrina, explained that so-called “drilling down” into unexplained transactions takes a lot of time.

He added that in some forensic audits, investigators could go as far as to track a physical check back to where it was cashed. In this situation, a picture of the alleged “fraudster” would also be taken to where the check was cashed. Such an audit could take years to complete, Kutz said.

“The dumb ones use their own names,” Kutz said, adding that many people engaging in fraud use the identity of others to perform illegal activities.

Frank Edelblut, president of the independent global auditing firm Control Solutions, said if there is deliberate fraud, the books may take longer to straighten out and the audit could take more time. Since the NRCC presumably has records of all the transactions, it would be easier for auditors to fix the problem, he said.

He added that if the irregularities are simply errors due to incompetence, the problems could be corrected in a matter of weeks.

Should investigators find evidence of fraud, it would come as bad news to House GOP leaders who have downplayed the impact of the audit on the fundraising committee since the financial irregularities were discovered in late January.

Early last month, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters that the investigation should conclude quickly and that the committee would move on.

“I am disappointed that this problem emerged because it is a distraction,” he said. “But I think in terms of the management of the committee it is just a very short-term, limited distraction.”

The NRCC wants to get to the bottom of the accounting irregularities quickly so they will not linger for months and scare off donors. The NRCC already lags way behind the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in cash on hand.

A source close to the NRCC said the forensic audit will take several months.

NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) has sought to reassure his GOP colleagues that the controversy would not have an adverse impact on fundraising. However, early indications for the annual House Republican fundraising dinner tell a different story.

House Republicans members were told last week to pony up for the dinner because many of them have not met their fundraising benchmarks. President Bush is scheduled to headline the March 12 event, which has a $7.5 million fundraising goal.

“We have made great progress in regards to our dinner goal,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the NRCC. “Our fundraising trajectory has not been altered.”

Rep. Mike Conaway (Texas), the chairman of the NRCC audit committee and a certified public accountant, alerted the committee to the irregularities after he asked that the committee conduct an internal audit. Shortly thereafter the committee notified the FBI.

The focus of the probe is Christopher J. Ward, who was serving as an outside vendor to the committee. He previously served as the NRCC treasurer.