Documents, e-mails and the like that usually provide a
backdrop to political campaigns generally are not made public, unless they are
subpoenaed by an aggrieved party. Following a complaint made by Republican
Party Chairman Jerry Labriola, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement
Commission (SEEC) has subpoenaed documents and communications involving Gov.
Dannel P. Malloy and several of his top aides, according to story broken by George Coli of NBC Connecticut News Live.
Mr. Labriola charged in his March 2014 complaint that
Democrats illegally circumvented the state's ban on contractor contributions during
the last gubernatorial campaign by laundering money through a federal account used
to pay for mass mailings benefiting Mr. Malloy.
While state law prohibits state contractors from
contributing to campaigns for state office, a measure adopted shortly after
former Governor John Rowland had been convicted of corruption on a charge of honest services fraud,
federal law allows such contributions up to $10,000. Executive director of the Democratic State
Central Committee Michael Mandell has acknowledged “an inherent conflict
between the requirements of federal and state campaign finance laws as to how get-out-the-vote
activity must be funded” but claims that
“state law is clearly pre-empted by federal law in this case." The
state Democratic Party, he said, followed the law when it used federal
contributions to pay for Mr. Malloy’s mailings.
Even assuming Mr. Mandell is right as a matter of law, not
everything legal is politically advisable. The Democratic Party need not have
taken advantage of a federal loophole that violates a law most politicians in
the state, including Mr. Malloy, who once operated as a prosecutor and is no
stranger to the ethical components of laws, heartily approve. But Mr. Malloy and
party apologists did so for reasons spelled out by Tammany Hall ward boss
George Washington Plunkitt, a proponent of “honest graft.” Mr. Plunkitt, who
knew better than most Democrats of his day how to squeeze campaign
contributions from deep pockets, used to say, “I seen my opportunities and took’em."
Legislatures and governor’s offices are full of politicians
practiced in finding convenient detours around laws they approve for others. Current Speaker of the Connecticut
House of Representatives Brendan Sharkey is an attorney and owner of AmeriZone,
LLC, a small consulting business specializing in zoning and permit expediting
for national companies. President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, the Grand Poobah
of Connecticut’s General Assembly, is a partner in the law firm of Keyes &
Looney, a practitioner in residence with the Criminal Justice Program in the
Department of Public Safety at the University of New Haven in West Haven and an
adjunct faculty member in the Political Science Department at Quinnipiac
University in Hamden. Lawyers all, the three top political shakers and movers
in Connecticut are also nominal leaders of the state’s Democratic Party, all of
them determined to reduce the Republican Party to a nullity; in a one-party
state controlled by Democrats, there can be no room for uppity Republican
legislation. Threats to one-party rule must be nipped in the bud.
Mr. Labriola’s suit may be less threatening than the e-mails
and quasi private documents the suit is likely to uproot. The ghost of John Rowland -- recently sentenced to prison a second time, first as a
corrupt governor and the second time as a radio talk show host – hangs over
every attempt to snuff out corruption in Corrupticut. If the federales can prosecute a talk show host for
facilitating political corruption, why could they not similarly prosecute lobbyist,
former flack catcher for Mr. Malloy and Vice President of the politically well-connected
Global Strategies Roy Occhiogrosso, who dodges in and out of politics like a bolt of heat lightening. Everyone should remember that Mr. Occhiogrosso is innocent until proven guilty.
But are the e-mails that had passed between Mr. Malloy and Mr. Occhiogrosso in
the blast-furnace of a political campaign also innocent?
Even one untoward e-mail, politicians sometimes forget, may
be the mud that sticks. And not all politicians are clever enough to sequester on
private servers e-mails that seem to be indestructible. Likely Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is now struggling mightily to shove
under her Persian Carpet numerous potentially mud splattered e-mails from her faithful
servant Sidney Blumenthal that point to her complicity in the murder of Libyan
Ambassador John Christopher Stevens and other American heroes slain by al-Qaida
connected terrorists.
“Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long… at the
length truth will out,” says Luancelot in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of
Venice. But politicians in Connecticut need not despair; in Corrupticut,
the laggard truth arrives on the scene long after elections have concluded. Dominant
Democrats have arranged the farce that way.
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