So there’s this guy, John Gregory, who used to run a company on the Tennessee/Virginia border, named King Pharmaceuticals (he retired in 2002 after starting the business in 1993). From 1999 until 2000, while Gregory was still chairman & CEO, the company defrauded Medicaid, and became the subject of an ongoing federal probe. The company admits that they underpaid by $65M, but has tellingly set aside $130M that they figure they’ll need to settle the probe.
While defrauding both U.S. and Virginia Medicaid of at least $65M, Gregory contributed $100,000 to Mark Earley, $75,000 to Jerry Kilgore’s campaign for attorney general, and $50,000 to Kilgore’s inauguration. And that was just in 2001. In 2002, he gave $100,000 to Kilgore’s campaign for governor. Another $50,000 in 2003. And another $100,000 in 2004.
Those are the facts of the affair, none of which are in dispute.
Jerry Kilgore had a telephone-based press conference yesterday, in which he responded to the Kaine campaign’s airing of these facts. Kilgore did not express regret that one of his biggest supporters had defrauded our overburdened government. He did not explain why he feels it’s OK to keep that money. He did not disagree with any of the facts. He did not provide an alternate interpretation of the facts. Here’s what he said of Kaine:
It’s only July, but already he is running out of credibility. I came onto this campaign ready to run on my record and to talk about records and vision. But he either won’t admit to or choose to remember his record. And his vision increasingly consists of just attacking me and my supporters personally, while shifting positions depending on the day of the week and the people in the room.
Um. What? “Running out of credibility”? He actually called it part of a “troubling pattern” from Tim Kaine.
When a candidate is forced to call the undisputed facts “troubling,” things aren’t looking good for him. As President Ronald Reagan once said, “facts are stupid things.” Jerry Kilgore no doubt agrees.
(More from the Roanoke Times and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.)
And also,
I came onto this campaign ready to run on my record and to talk about records and vision.
We’re waiting, Jerry.
“You won’t see Tim Kaine trashing the supporters of my opponent because I’m not running against them.” Tim Kaine, DNC Press Conference, 1/11/2005
Be that as it may, Kilgore has taken a great deal of money from a guy who appears to have stolen it from us, the taxpayers.
For that matter, it’s not even clear to me that it’s the Kaine campaign that brought this up. I’d assumed that it was, but now that I check again, I’m really not sure.