Congressional wing nut Michele Bachmanns hometown paper is reporting that she pleaded with federal pardon officials on behalf of a campaign contributor just eight days after the FBI had executed a search warrent of the contributor's home in connection with a major charitable fraud investigation.
According to the St. Cloud Times (With an assist from TPM), Bachmann wrote last December to a federal pardon attorney that her supporter, convicted more than 20 years ago on money laundering, drug and weapons charges, had reformed and his past conviction was hampering his ability to raise money through charitable means.
“This hinders his ability to expand his business which places limits on his support to the neediest in society,” she wrote. “A pardon would release the weights of the past that serve no purpose, as Mr. Vennes has stated his desire to help so many more.”
According to the St. Cloud Times, Frank Vennes Jr.and his wife have donated a total of $27,600 to Bachmann’s 2006 and 2008 election campaigns and related committees, Federal Election Commission filings revealed.
An FBI search warrant contends that Vennes made $28 million in commissions for recruiting five investors — including Minnesota Teen Challenge — to contribute $1.2 billion to companies Petters’ controlled through the Fidelis Foundation, a Plymouth faith-based nonprofit.
Yet Bachmann continues to insist that Vennes has done nothing wrong. She cited his charitable endeavors as proof of that.
Fidelis serves as an investment agent for other nonprofits, including Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based nonprofit on whose board Vennes served until recently.
Fidelis now holds $27.6 million in Petters Co. investments that may be worthless, including $5.7 million owed to Teen Challenge — a Minneapolis-based drug- and alcohol-treatment program.
The allegations of fraud will have profound effect on Minnesota charities. In addition to the vast sums of money, 22 employees of Teen Challenge will lose their jobs and Fidelis will have difficulty raising money in the future as donors leary of fraud will seek to contribute elsewhere, noted reporter Lawrence Schumaker.
A class-action lawsuit filed Oct. 10 in U.S. District Court against Petters and others by investment groups representing more than 100 pastors, ministers and nonprofit organizations does not list Vennes as a defendant.
But it alleges that Petters used Vennes to access the plaintiffs because of his connections and stature in the Twin Cities’ Christian community.
Investors entered into promissory notes with Metro Gem, which created a pool of money from which Petters Co. could withdraw funds to make a specific purchase, the plaintiffs allege.
The lawsuit alleges no purchases were ever made with that money, and it was instead used to fund Petters’ other businesses and enrich the defendants.
Just one week before the official filing of the lawsuit, Bachmann seemed to back away from her original claim in the letter to Adams, but she still wrote:
“Many less privileged people benefited from his outward demonstrations of community support,” she wrote. “And, such visible signs of hope, along with his affirmations of shame at his previous actions, led me and so many others to believe that public redemption should be brought to bear in his case.”
In one of life's rich ironies, Bachmann, who said earlier in the month on Hardball that past associations of Barack Obama and other Democrats were fair game, is being held to the same standard with Vennes.
A Bachmann spokeswoman said that the although the congresswoman doesn't personally know Vennes, she still believes that he is innocent until proven guilty. Right, members of Congress routinely write letters to federal pardon officials for campaign contributors that they don't know.
UPDATE: Reader Baron Dave noted that writing a pardon attorney is not obstruction. However, reader Dawn G. echoed my tone when she commented that:
The funny thing is she's not askinghat he be presumed innocent until proven guilty, she's asking that he be declared innocent without even the option to be proven guilty. That's not how our system works.
UPDATE 2 : Reader Terrible Tom notedTerrible Tom that the same methodology used to declare the innocence of Vennes was also employed by Republicans to declare that Terry Schiavo was healthy.
UPDATE 3: I was wondering about the curious timing of Bachmann's letter to pardon attorney Rogers just one week before the FBI executed its search warrant. My hunch is that Bachmann received a leak from the US Attorney's Office in Minneapolis. This is the same office that Rachel Palouse was given during the Rovian purge of nine US Attorney's who refused prosecute bogus cases of voter fraud. The previous US Attorney, Tom Heffelfinger, had resigned.