It
is now pretty obvious that former Speaker of the House Chris Donovan was the
intended subject of a political sting operation conducted by the FBI in
Connecticut in order to expose a pay-to-play scheme involving roll your own
smoke shop owners who wished to kill a bill that would have imposed on them the
same crippling taxes levied on cigarette manufacturers.
Several
associates of Mr. Donovan, most notably his finance chairman, were caught in
the net, but the big fish got away. If the prosecution of possibly corrupt lead
political actors is the test of a successful sting operation, this one failed.
To
be sure, Mr. Donovan’s political prospects did not survive the sting; the
scandal -- driven forward, as usual, by supposition and surmise – forced Mr.
Donovan to withdraw as a Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Congress in
Connecticut’s 5th District, and his political reputation, such as it
was, suffered irreparable damage, even though no charges have as yet been
brought against him.
The
usual standard against which political rectitude is measured, the so called “appearance
of corruption,” was much in evidence as one after another of Mr. Donovan’s
political associates either made plea arrangements with prosecutors or – bravely
in former finance chairman Robert Braddock’s case – sought to recover their
tattered reputations at trial. Mr. Braddock’s effort likely will not be
successful.
Unlike
other Connecticut sting operations – the ordeal of former Republican Party Senate
leader Lou DeLuca comes to mind – no public confession of wrongdoing has yet
been wrung from Mr. Donovan.
Every
sting operation involves some sort of byzantine entrapment, usually facilitated
by a singing canary who has been brought under the hobnailed boot of
prosecutors. The threat of prosecution, like the promise of execution in the
morning, clears the mind wonderfully; it also distorts the truth.
The
chief canary in the Dovovan sting, former union operative Ray Soucy, is a rare
bird, a character who might have appeared as a low level sub-criminal in any
Elmore Leonard novel. Under the baleful eye of prosecutors, Mr. Soucy
continually, almost comically, pushed the envelope. He cornered Mr. Donovan
during a Democratic Party convention and dutifully attempted to draw a criminal
noose around Mr. Donovan’s neck.
In a video shown at the Braddock trial Mr. Soucy is shown
thanking Mr. Donovan for killing a bill injurious to the interests of roll your
own smoke shops to which Mr. Donovan replies, “I didn’t kill the bill I worked
on the legislative side. I did what’s right,” almost as if Mr. Donovan had been
forewarned that a sting was in process.
Mr.
Soucy also paid a visit to Republican leader Larry Cafero’s lair and attempted
to stuff his refrigerator with campaign cash. He was successfully rebuffed by
Mr. Cafero, after which the persistent Mr. Soucy converted the cash into five
$1,000 checks. According to one report, Mr. Cafero returned the questionable
checks from conduit contributors and called a press conference in the course of
which he explained what had happened, lifting the veil of secrecy shrouding the
sting operation a full year before Mr. Braddock appeared at trial to defend
himself.
When
the veil was raised on the sting, the operation ground to a halt and
prosecutors hauled in their catch. The prosecution’s fishing expedition may not
yet be over. CTNewsJunkie has reported that “regardless of what Donovan or his
surrogates have said about his motivation to end the conversation with Soucy
that evening, or what, if anything, Donovan knew about the donations before the
convention, Soucy has now provided evidence that Donovan was made aware that
the smoke shop owners had been trying to bribe him to kill the RYO [Roll Your
Own] legislation. Failure to report a bribe is a Class A Misdemeanor.”
The
failure to report a bribe statute was passed into law following media pressure
to create such a statute after the DeLuca sting operation. In November of 2007,
this commentator noted in Connecticut Commentary as well as in a clolumn, “It
has come time now for DeLuca’s comrades in the legislature to do the right thing.
And the right thing would be to devise a rule that would rid the legislature of
anyone who declined to report a bribe they had been offered.
Tight-lipped prosecutors cannot be expected to
telegraph their legal gyrations, but so far the Donovan investigation is still
open and boiling on the front burner. In the Donovan case, federal snoopers dug
deep into the union-Democratic Party-complex, exposing a mutually beneficial
but unsavory relationship that bordered on a criminal enterprise. And once the
bugs have settled snug in the rug, they do not leave on invitation.
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