It would be nice if the newest candidate for Congress in the Ohio GOP was worlds apart from the scandal of corruption that is unfolding in her state.
But it's not to be.
Brett Buerck is Schmidt's campaign manager.
The Washington Post last year wrote about investigations into alleged "improper fundraising and self-dealing" by Buerck when he was consulting for House Speaker Larry Householder.
Local papers have described heavy-handed plays for contributions and revealed that the operatives enjoyed lavish consulting contracts that came with severance payments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars ....
. . . . Householder said he is confident no illegality took place on his political team; Buerck and Sisk, through their attorneys, denied doing anything illegal.
from the same WaPo article
The Cleveland Plain Dealer described how Buerck, a former chief of staff for Householder, and another consultant tried to win support among the House GOP caucus, one of their clients, for the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers, another of their clients . . . They prepared
a chart dividing House Republicans -- most of whom, like Republicans elsewhere, support curbs on lawsuits -- into groups such as "Senate wannabes," "party boys" and, to describe
female members, "the broad squad."
The Plain Dealer also reported a memo in which Buerck told one client running for local office that he needed to embrace the "dark side of the race" and proposed "guerrilla warfare" in order to funnel corporate money surreptitiously into the election.
Also, Buerck's wife, Jessica "Scottie" May had to testify to a grand jury about the Noegate scandal where Tom Noe may have paid associates money for donations (to put in their own names, not his name) to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Jessica May is Vice President of Hicks Partners consulting, run by Brian Hicks (former chief of staff to Governor Taft).
"The Bush/Cheney team hired Hicks Partners to coordinate the now-notorious 2003 luncheon with President Bush addressed the party faithful the Hyatt Recency in Columbus, Ohio." [ from the majikthise blog ]
The Toledo Blade described the grand jury in the federal probe of Noe's fundraising for Bush-Cheney as "reviewing evidence regarding allegations that Mr. Noe skirted campaign finance spending limits by contributing to the President's re-election campaign through other people."
Hicks Partners handled the arrangements for an Oct. 30, 2003, luncheon with President Bush in Columbus that is part of the focus of the federal investigation.
An estimated $1.4 million was raised that day.
The Bush-Cheney campaign paid Hicks Partners $54,253 between September, 2003, and April, 2004 . . .
Federal authorities have been looking into whether Mr. Noe gave a number of people, including several prominent Toledo-area politicians, money in order for them to contribute to the campaign.
Many of them attended the October fund-raiser.
May said she had no knowledge herself whether Noe had paid others to forward funds to the Bush campaign.