The FBI was a major player in the drama. And everything that
has happened on the public stage should convince Connecticut’s General Assembly
that the state needs an Inspector General to uproot corruption before the FBI enters
the theater. When federal prosecutors
turn up on the scene, Grand Guigno unfolds.
John McKinney, a Republican running for governor this year
who has not yet been drawn by federal prosecutors into the mire, has proposed
just that. His proposal has been received in silence by Democratic leaders in
the General Assembly who control political business in the chamber.
The
FBI intervention began when the struggle for the 5th District
U.S. Congressional seat left vacant after Chris Murphy’s elevation to the U.S.
Senate seemed to be a contest between then Speaker of the State House Chris
Donovan and an assortment of Republican hopefuls that included longtime State
Senate leader Andrew Roraback, a late entry into the Republican primary, and
three Republicans who had not held office before: Justin Bernier, Lisa-Wilson
Foley and Mark Greenberg. The Republican nominating convention settled upon Mr.
Roraback, a senator for more than a dozen years in the redistricted Torrington,
Litchfield County area, and for several years Deputy Minority
Leader Pro Tempore and Minority Caucus Chairman of the State Senate. On
the Democratic side, Mr. Donovan, an early favorite, ran into an FBI sting
operation in the course of which he was forced to withdraw from the race after
federal prosecutors had indicted several of his campaign staff.
The FBI stinger in the poorly concealed operation was former
Corrections Department union steward Ray Soucy – quite a character. In the
Tammany Hall of the early 1900’s, Mr. Soucy would have made a superb ward
heeler. FBI agents recruited Mr. Soucy to help them infiltrate and incriminate
those running the Donovan campaign operation. He was their wired canary. The
apple in the Democratic Party Garden of Eden was the promise of bundled campaign
contributions given mostly to Democrats and some Republicans on the
understanding that they would do all in their power to snuff a bill that would
have put out of business roll-your-own cigarette operations. Several of Mr.
Donovan’s campaign operatives fell for Mr. Soucy’s pitch and eagerly grasped
the tainted FBI supplied campaign contributions.
Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, some staff
members working on Mr. Donovan’s U.S. House campaign rolled over and gave
additional testimony to prosecutors inclined to reduce their charges in return
for their co-operation.
At one point, Mr. Soucy stuffed an envelope full of cash
into a refrigerator used by Republican House leader Larry Cafero. Mr. Cafaro
rejected the cash, and his aide gave instruction to Mr. Soucy how he might
legally contribute to Republican campaign coffers. Mr. Cafero was told by the
FBI he was not a target of their sting operation. The big fish, Mr. Donovan,
was not legally compromised. Perhaps the stench of political pollution had
reached his nostrils, or perhaps he had been tipped off on the FBI sting before
he could be legally implicated; in any case, his campaign had been doomed.
Democrats then turned to Elizabeth Esty, who defeated the Republican Party
nominee, Mr. Roraback, in the general election.
So then, let’s tote up the winners and losers.
Ms. Esty won the seat, clearly a win on the Democratic side.
Mr. Roraback, a liberal on social issues and a fiscal conservative, lost the
race. Oddly, his candidacy was not endorsed by the Hartford Courant,
Connecticut’s only state-wide newspaper. Since former Governor Lowell Weicker
had left Connecticut’s political stage, the Courant had been searching for just
such a golden Republican candidate as Mr. Roraback to endorse. Mr. Roraback,
helpful to Democrats in the General Assembly as a passionate opponent of the
state’s death penalty, later was appointed a Justice
to the State Supreme Court by Governor Dannel Malloy, a win for Democrats. Mr. Donovan was not
prosecuted, a win for him and Democrats.
And then there is the continuing collateral damage arising from the Donovan
sting – all of it harmful to Republicans and beneficial to Democrats.
The collateral damage involves Former Republican Governor
John Rowland and Lisa Wilson Foley, one of the Republican contenders for the 5th
District seat.
If we brush away most of the political froth, it is not at
all certain that Mr. Rowland will be packed off to prison a second time. Grand
juries produce tons of damning press, because they are, essentially, prosecutorial
star chambers. What we have heard so far in the media is the voice of the prosecution.
The charges against Mr. Rowland, some lawyers believe, are weak – if he
did not falsify his tax records. The public case against Mr. Rowland – what for
lack of a better word we should call the ethical case -- is damning, but judges,
unlike political commentators, are not much interested in romping through the
souls of politicians. Mr. Rowland, not an active politician, allegedly made a pitch to
Ms. Foley to help her in her campaign on the sly; he entered into agreement
with a second Republican contender for the 5th District seat to do
the same. That second agreement never bore fruit, because the second politician,
Mr. Greenberg, presently an announced Republican candidate for the 5th
District, was more ethically fine-tuned than either Faust or Satan. As a
grown-up, Ms. Foley was perfectly capable of resisting the tempter, as Mr.
Greenberg had done. The case against Mr.
Rowland is far from a slam dunk. It is a difficult case to prosecute, and its outcome
is by no means certain.
A “but" follows.
It’s difficult for Democrats to exploit this one
politically. The two principal actors involved are a candidate for office who
has never held a political position and a political commentator. The very
possibility of political corruption among Republicans is slight because they
are not in a power broker’s position. The political heights are commanded by
Democrats. They own the political trading floor – all of it: the governor’s
office, all the constitutional offices and both houses of the General Assembly.
If Republicans wanted to trade political favors for money or power, it’s
difficult to see how the matter could be arranged. It is possible that the FBI
has not yet given serious attention to the real distribution of political power
in Connecticut. The political game, all of it, has been moved into the Democrat’s
court. You cannot rob a bank in which there is no money. Republicans in
Connecticut are power-broke, and it is only a matter of time before federal
prosecutors and political commentators in Connecticut embrace the shattering revelation
– at which point all the big guns may pivot towards Democrats, proprietors of
Connecticut’s one party state.
Comments
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We've long disliked the position of inspectors general, on grounds that they are creatures of Congress designed to torment the executive. Yet this case appears to be one in which an IG was fired because he criticized a favorite Congressional and executive project (AmeriCorps), and refused to bend to political pressure to let the Sacramento mayor have his stimulus dollars.
There's also the question of how Mr. Walpin was terminated. He says the phone call came from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, who said the President felt it was time for Mr. Walpin to "move on," and that it was "pure coincidence" he was asked to leave during the St. HOPE controversy. Yet the Administration has already had to walk back that claim.
That's because last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the President to give Congress 30 days notice, plus a reason, before firing an inspector general. A co-sponsor of that bill was none other than Senator Obama.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124511811033017539