For the exception of one paper, that THANKFULLY followed the story from it's origins, in the aftermath of the FEC's decision on Lieberman's 387,000 slush fund, the press' silence on the darkest chapter in Lieberman's 2006 primary campaign speaks volumes about the state of hard-news journalism in Connecticut.
Today's article in The New Haven Register outlines the scandal that the rest of the media is ignoring:
The campaign of U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., has agreed to pay a $50,000 civil penalty for numerous violations in its disbursement of a large amount of petty cash in the senator's 2006 primary fight with Ned Lamont.
The recent agreement comes three years after a complaint was filed by Lamont's campaign committee.
[...]
The Federal Election Commission opened an investigation in late 2006 after the Lamont campaign charged the senator had not accounted for a "slush fund" of $387,000 in expenditures labeled only as "petty cash."
The expenditures, mainly for get-out-the-vote canvassers, were made in the two weeks leading up to the hard fought primary vote in August 2006 - a campaign that ultimately cost $40 million.
The FEC found that the committee took out large amounts of cash on 14 separate occasions and gave it to "campaign consultants and volunteers who put cash in envelopes that were disbursed by canvassers, frequently in amounts well in excess of $100."
Campaigns may make expenditures of not more than $100 to any person or for a single transaction out of the petty cash fund, but are required to keep a written journal documenting the payments. Any payment over $100 needs to be made by check.
Also, the names and addresses of persons paid an aggregate in excess of $200 in a year are also expected to be reported and receipts maintained.
The FEC said the campaign failed to properly disclose the recipients of disbursements over $200 and to keep full records; misreported payments to two consultants and misreported a $75,000 disbursement. It also disbursed cash to recipients in excess of $100 and failed to keep accurate records.
Lamont's former spokesman Liz Dupont-Diel connects the dots in the following quote...
...at the time they filed the challenge, said an explanation of the expenditures was in line as "massive quantities of Lieberman 'volunteers' were showing up to disrupt our events and engage in dirty tactics."
For those not keeping score, in order to show the seriousness of this scandal, we'll need to go back in time...
During the time in which Lieberman was dishing out money on the streets, paid-off goons so-called volunteers started disrupting various Lamont events...and at times getting physical.
Ned walks into Ted's Steamed Cheeseburgers for the event, and the 3 or 4 booths inside are already packed, as are some of the counter seats, with about 15-20 teenagers and one older gentleman, many of whom had asked for and received Ned Lamont stickers from the Lamont staffers organizing the event. Ned says hi to the owner. As Ned starts talking, the teenagers reveal Lieberman T-shirts. The older gentleman starts yelling "Are You an Al Sharpton Democrat or a Bill Clinton Democrat?" and something along the lines of "because Bill Clinton has the support of everyone and Al Sharpton only has the support of..." trailing off. Ned decides to leave, with his staff fearing for his physical safety.
The entire scene moves outside, where about 6 reporters are there, witnessing the entire spectacle. A near melee ensues as at least 5 of the Lieberman kids continue to yell and scream at Ned and get physically abusive with Lamont staffers, even bloodying a photographer's nose.
A Lamont supporter at the scene noted the Lieberman staffers looked "red in the face" with anger.
Ned attempts to talk with a 90-year-old WWII veteran pilot from Virginia who wanted to discuss his opposition to the Iraq war. The Lieberman kids scream accusations about Ned's patriotism, spewing right-wing bile accusing him of not caring about our troops, and questioning whether he would (not verbatim) "let our citizens die again," assumedly a reference to 9/11.
One reporter goes up and tries to ask some of these kids whether they are volunteers or paid staffers for the Lieberman campaign. The kid screams in response, "Let me see your credentials!" The reporter produces said credentials. The kid replies "those are fake." None of the 15-20 Lieberman kids there would admit to being paid staffers. Nor would they tell the reporters their names, or any other personal information.
Ned eventually escapes. In the meantime, the teenage Lieberman staffers continue to yell and scream at the Lamont supporters who had shown up just to have a cheeseburger with Ned. Ned returns about 10 minutes later, when things have calmed down.
The reporters were, to a person, understandably horrified at the spectacle.
...or what about our introduction to hitman Liebergoon Richard Goodstein's leading role in the drama (a.k.a the "big bald guy").
The next stop is just a few miles away at Ted's, a famous cheeseburger shack in town. Ned greets some supporters on the patio outside, and then we file inside to get our steamed burgers. It's small and crowded in here, and though the drill is to stay as far out of the candidate's way as possible, I get pinned right up against Ned in the crowd. Then, all of a sudden, everyone in the restaurant, in the booths and at the counter, everywhere, simultaneously pulls on a white Lieberman T-shirt. It takes a second to process what's happening. "Oh, my God," Ned says. "It's the Lieber people." They start heckling Ned aggressively, using campaign attack lines about taxes and how for sixteen years, until right before this campaign, Ned belonged to a country club in Greenwich that has almost no black members. Most of Joe's supporters in Ted's are kids, but there's one big bald guy, the only adult among them, who starts a loud, frenzied inquisition right in Ned's face. "Are you a Bill Clinton Democrat or an Al Sharpton Democrat?"
"They're not mutually exclusive," Ned says.
"No, I'm asking. Answer me! Clinton or Sharpton?" Ned tries to answer, but the guy interrupts: "I worked for Abe Ribicoff. He couldn't play golf at your country club in Greenwich!" When Ned starts to turn away, the guy says, "Don't turn your back on me, Ned!
"Let's keep this civil for the last five days of the campaign," Ned says, and he starts making his way among the Lieber kids, shaking their hands again.
The big bald guy is right in my face now. I ask him where he's from, what his role is here, and he shouts and wags his finger and demands my credentials, yelling to the crowd that I'm not a legitimate reporter and I must be with Ned. Suddenly, I realize the goal here is to provoke Ned into overreacting on-camera. And if not him, then someone on his staff. And it's working; I want badly to take a swing at this lunatic, and I'm not even on the campaign. I flash back to yesterday and the Banana Man and the thug yelling at Tom Swan, "Hit me! Do it!"
Oh, it's gets better. Here's video of Goodstein and Lieberman's hired help in Greenwich days after the incident at Teds:
With Goodstein having a long well-documented connection with dirty tricks, the DC lobbyist (who's now a MSNBC democratic talking head) was the perfect person to lead the Lieberthugs for team Joementum in the days leading up to the primary.
Notwithstanding the episode at Ted's as well as the nonsense from Goodstein and Lieberman's goonsquad in Greenwich, there was clear evidence that Lieberman was throwing a massive amount of money of the street....which was clearly evident with the sudden large amount of "volunteers" who walked the streets of New Haven, Bridgeport, and other large cities in the days before the primary.
...and we're just talking about how Lieberman used a PORTION of the 387,000 in COLD HARD CASH.
Till this day, we still have no accountability when it comes to how Lieberman used all of his slush fund...387,000 used up in just 12 DAYS. That breaks down to 32,000 per day WITH NO ACCOUNTABILITY and almost three years later we still have no answers...and the so-called media in our state is still silent.
MLN is powered by