Committee to Re-elect the President

The Committee to Re-elect the President, known as CREEP, enters the narrative through a cash delivery tied to Jimmy Hoffa’s efforts to keep political channels open to the Nixon administration. The account presents the committee less as an institution with a described internal structure than as the destination for campaign money moving through Hoffa’s network—and as the point where a reported $23,000 gap emerged.

Political Identity and Campaign

In a conversation about John Mitchell leaving his post as attorney general to run President Nixon’s reelection campaign, Hoffa remarked on what he saw as the money-making opportunities available to the campaign. The episode places CREEP within the political landscape Hoffa was watching while under parole restrictions: he continued to communicate with people connected to the administration even as he sought to preserve his own influence.

The Washington Fundraiser

Hoffa attended a prison-reform fundraiser in Washington after receiving permission from his parole officer to travel there. The fundraiser served a second purpose in the account: Hoffa invited people he wanted to do business with, alongside people who could speak about prison life. Frank Sheeran and Charlie Allen were there, as were Allen’s partner Frank Del Piano and Philadelphia political figure Alan Cohen. The gathering provided the setting for a payment intended for the reelection effort.

The Cash Delivery

According to Sheeran’s account, Hoffa and Cohen gave Allen $40,000 in cash to deliver to Mitchell for CREEP. Allen’s role linked Hoffa’s political activity to the committee through a personal handoff rather than a described formal donation process. The episode also sits within a broader effort, as the narrative describes it, to keep communication with the Nixon circle open while Hoffa waited for his parole period to end and considered his return to union power.

Reported Accounting and Significance

Sheeran says that Mitchell passed only $17,000 of the $40,000 to CREEP and kept the remaining $23,000. The account therefore distinguishes the intended contribution from the amount said to have reached the committee. It also reports that, three or four years later, Allen told the FBI the truth about the delivery in an early conversation, before he agreed to wear a wire against Sheeran. In this episode, CREEP is the endpoint of a political payment whose reported handling exposes the distance between money sent for a campaign and money credited to it.