In other news today, Michael Steele’s fascination with moving money around may be catching up with him.
From this morning’s Washington Post:
Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.
Sounds rather pedestrian, right?
It get’s better after the fold…
In a truly classic case of, “You just can’t make this stuff up,” we have this little gem:
In one of his allegations, Fabian points to a February 2007 payment by Steele’s Senate campaign of more than $37,000 to Brown Sugar Unlimited, the company run by Steele’s sister, Monica Turner. Campaign finance records list the expense as having been for “catering/web services.” Turner filed papers to dissolve the company 11 months before the payment was received.
That little snippet is so jam packed with goodies, that there’s no way it could get any better, right?
Not for the wild and crazy writers at the WaPo!
Turner, a doctor and the former wife of Mike Tyson, declined yesterday to describe any services she provided to the campaign. “Ah, it’s the ‘sabotage Michael Steele’ story,” she told a reporter before closing the door of her home in Potomac. “No, I’m not with that program. . . . I’m not going to do this.”
Now, that’s really not all that remarkable, since Tyson has been hitched so many times that I think he accidentally got married to Dolph Lundgren once, (this may, or may not be true…I’ll check Wikipedia later).
Back to the subject at hand, this isn’t Steele’s only brush with funding funny business:
Over the years, money trouble has been a persistent problem for Steele. His first race for public office, a 1998 bid for the Republican nomination for state comptroller, ended nearly $35,000 in debt, much of it to his sister. He was fined twice by state officials for missing deadlines to file campaign finance reports and was in debt and had faced foreclosure in 2001, the year before he was selected as Ehrlich’s running mate. The state party threw Steele a financial lifeline, awarding him an unusual $30,000 consulting contract.
Yes sir! That’s how they roll in the big leagues!
Now, I doubt that this will do long term damage to Mike, but the optics aren’t good for the new RNC Chairman. Money & taxes are a common bane to many politcos, so this may be lost in the noise…however…this does make Steele look like more of the same.
And there are still members of the Republican caucus that would probably like to see him fail.
Follow the bouncing ball!
-Stipes!
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