The Devil And Stan Twardy

The Devil, it is sometimes said, lies in the details.

The Devil did not show his hand in the Twardy investigation of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan’s tawdry campaign for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s 5^th District.

Mr. Donovan’s former finance director was arrested by the FBI in a sting operation in which straw contributors, the FBI showed in an arrest affidavit, violated campaign finance regulations. FBI investigators almost certainly are squeezing some of the principals involved in Speakergate to obtain from them information their lawyers have denied to Mr. Twardy.

Virtually all Mr. Donovan’s Republican campaign opponents have said Mr. Donovan either did or did not know that his finance director, Robert Braddock, was, to put it kindly, delinquent in avoiding the near occasion of arrest. If Mr. Donovan knew about the financing irregularities that led to Mr. Braddock’s arrest, he was participating in corrupt activity; and if he did not know, he is not competent, most of his rivals say, to become a U.S. Representative. Mr. Donovan’s Democratic primary opponent, Dan Roberti, has similarly spanked Mr. Donovan.

There is no painless way to escape the perilous jaws of this Either-Or. Former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy's report on Mr. Donovan’s connection with his office is depressingly uninformative.

Mr. Twardy – sidestepping Will Rogers’ apothegm: “It’s not what you know that can hurt you; it’s what you do know that ain’t so” – has presented Connecticut with a partial investigation. Many of the principals caught up in the FBI investigation refused on advice of council to be interviewed by Mr. Twardy, according to a Hartford Courant story. Any exculpatory conclusion drawn from unexamined facts is bound to be provisional.

The FBI’s investigation of Mr. Donovan’s political operations is certain to be more thorough. Even now, agents of the FBI or the State’s Attorney charged with prosecuting the case are squeezing principals whose lawyers have declined to speak to Mr. Twardy.

Mr. Donovan’s Republican opponent Mark Greenberg , who earlier called upon Mr. Donovan to drop his campaign and resign his Speaker position, issued a statement following Mr. Twardy’s media release that seems pertinent:

“By Mr. Twardy’s own admission, his report is incomplete and it leaves many questions unanswered. Much of the important relevant information was not forthcoming, and the investigation was hampered by the inability of Mr. Twardy to interview or receive documents from the principles in this scandal. People who commit crimes are not often reckless enough to leave a paper or email trail – the absence of such documentation is not surprising and accordingly, the “independent” investigation is certainly not conclusive. Unfortunately, the cloud of this campaign finance scandal will continue to hang over Donovan’s campaign until the federal investigation is concluded.

“Once again, I call on Chris Donovan to suspend his campaign for Congress. Nothing in the internal investigation diminishes the fact that the Speaker either knew or should have known of the illegal activity in his campaign. Whether it is a gross violation of the public trust or gross mismanagement, Chris Donovan is not an individual who should represent Connecticut in the United States Congress.”

The Donovan crisis is still unfolding.

Casey Chadwick’s Uneasy Life after Death

Casey and her mother Wendy "I just started grief counseling. I'm always sad. I'm sad and in pain and I miss her." Wendy Hartling Hartling is the mother of Casey Chadwick, murdered in 2015 by Jean Jacques , an illegal Haitian immigrant. Jacques was convicted of the murder of Chadwick in a New London Superior Court jury trial and sentenced by Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed to a 60 year term in prison. Since Jacques is 44 years of age, the sentence was, in effect, a life sentence. Connecticut Commentary coverage of the Chadwick murder may be found here , and here and here . Jacques could not have been sentenced to death because Connecticut’s Democrat dominated General Assembly, under pressure from the state Supreme Court, had abolished Connecticut’s death penalty law in 2012 . The slaughter of Chadwick was particularly brutal. Her body had been found by a friend who, opening a door to a closet, discovered Chadwick stuffed in a dark corner drenched in blo...

Understanding North Korea Through Dramaturgy

The U.S. military is sending the Vinson Strike Group, including the carrier and two guided-missile destroyers, to operate in the Western Pacific Ocean in response to Pyongyang’s recent missile tests. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, asked about the strike force, issued a terse statement: “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.” Is this a post-Syrian bombing mission? Will the US take out North Korea’s missile launching sites, possibly with the unspoken concurrence of China? Never let a bombing go to waste. There are some in the United States who think any such incident should be used to rid North Korea of that runty little totalitarian cock-of-the-walk who keeps his countrymen starved, in fear and at his knees. Since we only have one chance, they say, go for the clean sweep -- no more Kims. Connecticut Commentary is reprinting an earlier piece about the Kims here. Best read with a glass of port.

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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