萩生田氏「役職停止１年」調整　自民、午後に党紀委

　自民党は４日午後、派閥裏金事件の関係議員を処分するため、党紀委員会（逢沢一郎委員長）を開く。党執行部は安倍派の有力議員「５人衆」のうち、萩生田光一前政調会長を８段階ある処分で６番目に重い「党の役職停止」１年とする方向で調整。松野博一前官房長官も役職停止１年、高木毅前国対委員長は３番目の重さの「党員資格の停止」６カ月とする案を軸に検討している。
　ただ、二階派幹部だった武田良太元総務相への党員資格停止案に対し、同派や執行部内には安倍派元幹部と同等の処分を科すのは公正ではないとの異論が出ていた。このため、役職停止１年に引き下げる方向で検討に入った。（2024/04/04-13:16）

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party at an internal ethics panel meeting Thursday is expected to consider suspending former LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda from party posts for a year over a high-profile slush funds scandal involving intraparty factions, informed sources said.
   Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno may also face a one-year suspension from party posts while former LDP parliamentary affairs chief Tsuyoshi Takagi may be suspended from party membership for six months. Suspension from party posts and party membership suspension are the sixth- and third-heaviest measures, respectively, under the party's eight-tier penalty system.
   Hagiuda, Matsuno and Takagi were all key members of the LDP faction formerly led by the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which is at the center of the scandal.
   The LDP leadership team, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, also LDP president, believes that the former senior Abe faction members had significant political responsibility for maintaining its scheme of kicking back some of the revenues from fundraising events to faction members although a decision to abolish the practice was made in April 2022 by Abe, then chief of the faction.
   Such kickbacks were not recorded in political funds reports and were thus turned into slush funds.