Mitchell Wade must pay $1M in FEC fines for straw contributions to Reps. Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris. Notably, the FEC says that they have seen no evidence that Goode knew the contributions were illegal, though due to the FEC’s famously limited investigative powers that can be said to be true only within their scope.
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Wink wink, nudge nudge. :)
The key to funneling illegal money to political candidates via straw donors is to use Chinamen and shout “Racist!” at anybody who questions the legitimacy of the contributions. The Clintons have shown us the way.
My favorite part of the story from the New York Post the other day:
A search of Chinatown donors yesterday by The Post found several bogus addresses and some contributions that raised eyebrows.
Shin K. Cheng is listed twice in federal records for giving $1,000 donations to Clinton’s campaign on April 17.
But the address recorded on campaign reports is a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases, hemorrhoids and skin disease.
No one at the address knew of a Shin K. Cheng.
Ka-Ching! Get it? Someone had fun making up those names.
So, the FEC confirmed what we alrady knew — that Goode had no reason to believe the contributions were anything other than legit. Has anyone, anywhere, ever produced any evidence to the contrary?
I. Publius,
When the MZM story first broke, I recall news stories relating the account of a former MZM employee who said that a Congressman other than Katherine Harris or Duke Cunningham showed up at MZM’s offices one day for a meeting with Mitchell Wade. While this then-unnamed Congressman was there, Wade instructed all of his employees to write checks for $1,000 each to the campaign of this Congressman. The Representative witnessed Wade ordering his employees to write the checks and then accepted them, despite the obviously sketchy circumstances.
Since then, we have found out that there was only one other Congressman who was getting significant contributions funneled through MZM. That being Virgil Goode. By process of elimination, it would appear that Goode was the man standing there and taking checks that he witnessed employees being ordered to write.
Has anyone ever asked Goode point-blank whether that was him? I dunno. I’d sure like to know for certain.
1) I’ve followed this case since it started breaking in the summer of ’05, and know that several of Walter Pincus’ early stories turned out to be poorly vetted, and he had to back away from many of his initial allegations.
2) If what you remember reading was in fact true, then Goode’s conviction for election fraud would be a slam dunk case.
I Publius,
This could certainly have been one of the Pincus articles that was poorly vetted. Waldo followed this more closely than I did and would probably be the best person to weigh in on it.
Personally, I’m not absolutely convinced of Virgil’s guilt. It wouldn’t even really matter either way in terms of him holding his seat. He’s nowhere near vulnerable enough for this to hurt him. This whole thing has been interesting to watch but I figure that no matter what, he has this seat in his pocket until he gets redistricted out in a few years.
I can’t say. IP’s mention of Pincus backing off on some of his points is the first I’ve ever seen of that. Publius, can you point to any articles where he’s done that?
As I’ve said, this sort of thing is out of character for Goode, and I’m not sure it would affect his reelection odds, anyhow. Right now there’s nothing but circumstantial evidence, but it’s pretty significant, so long as the investigation goes on, I’m inclined to assume that he may be a “person of interest,” as the feds say.
Not without essentially republishing false and libelous stories about innocent people — stories that Pincus never had the decency to retract once he found out the truth.
Given the choice of pointing them out, and risk having these people unfairly in the spotlight again versus letting them lie dormant, and have someone attack me for not citing sources, I’ll choose the latter.