After embarrassing contributions to Republicans returned to haunt him, Dick Harpootlian accused his opponent, Phil Noble, with the same charge - that he had given money to a Republican, Phil Crane (R-Il).
But, the tables turned swiftly against Harpootlian, when former Federal Elections Commissioner Scott Thomas issued a succinct statement that exonerated Noble and refuted Harpootlian.
Commissioner Thomas stated that Harpootlian's attempt to frame Noble was predicated on a fraudulent document forged by a self-confessed felon, Christopher Ward, who defrauded the National Republican Campaign Committee of more than $844,000.
To set the record straight, Noble issued the following statement:
Yesterday, I called on Dick Harpootlian to withdraw from the race for South Carolina Democratic Party chair after it was revealed that he has contributed more than $15,000 to Republican candidates for office in South Carolina.
To my surprise, Dick responded to this news by actually trying to justify these donations to right-wing Republicans like Jake Knotts and Henry McMaster, and by accusing me of having given a $900 donation to an Illinois Republican named Phil Crane in 2002. As I immediately made clear in a statement last night, I have never given money to Phil Crane or any other Republican and I never will. "Any records" I said, "that would appear to contradict this are obviously in error or fraudulent."
Today, former Federal Election Commissioner Scott Thomas has come forward to tell us it was the latter.
“Christopher Ward was treasurer of the Phil Crane campaign when this fraudulent donation was allegedly made by Phil Noble,” Thomas said in a statement issued today. “Ward was a crook and he pled guilty in 2010 to massive embezzlement from several political committees. Ward committed multiple scams, frauds and forgeries affecting many party and candidate committees where he served as treasurer. One of his tricks apparently, was to move money from a party committee account to a candidate committee under false names so he could then embezzle the funds more easily. This would explain why Noble’s name was fraudulently used by Ward and the Crane campaign.”
Commissioner Thomas was a Federal Election Commissioner from 1986 – 2006 during the time that the fraud was perpetrated.