Surely she has a reasonable explanation for all this
It's been a few weeks since we tuned in to
As the Batshit Crazy Bachmann Turns, so it's a good time to check in on the latest scandal to emerge from Michele Bachmann's failed run for president in 2012. Because yes, while the election may be over, and Bachmann's dreams of making Barack Obama a ONE. TERM. PRESIDENT!!!!! have long since faded, the comical catastrophe that was her campaign may well live on forever.
When last we left our certifiably ridiculous heroine, her former staffer, Peter Waldron, was still hopping mad about Bachmann refusing to pay him and a few other staffers because they wouldn't sign a retroactive agreement not to cooperate with the police in any investigations into any potentially criminal activities by her campaign. Waldron has already filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging several violations of federal election laws by the campaign. But he's not stopping there. Oh no. The Iowa Republican reports:
State Senator Kent Sorenson (R-Milo) is the target of a complaint filed with the Iowa Senate ethics committee. Former Michele Bachmann presidential campaign staffer Peter Waldron filed the complaint against Sorenson, who was the state chairman for Bachmann’s campaign. Waldron’s complaint is 41 pages long. In it, he alleges Sorenson was involved in a violation of criminal law, as well as Iowa Senate ethics rules.
“I did it because it’s the right thing to do,” Waldron said, when TheIowaRepublican.com asked why he filed the complaint. “I witnessed a crime. My faith requires that I report that crime. I reported the crime first to Michele Bachmann. I reported the crime to the chairman of the campaign and no one did anything. On the contrary, they covered up the crime. And they sent me a non-disclosure form asking me not to report it. After one year of waiting on Michele and Guy Short to do the right thing, it became clear they would not.”
Let's go below the fold to look at the crime—sorry,
alleged crime—perpetrated and covered up by the Bachmann campaign.
Waldron, and several others, are accusing Bachmann's former Iowa state chairman, state Sen. Ken Sorenson—who quite dramatically and infamously jumped off that sinking ship to join the far more likely-to-win Ron Paul campaign—of stealing an email list from the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators (NICHE). In a sworn affidavit, Eric Woolson, yet another apparently disgruntled former Bachmann staffer—gosh, she sure does seem to have a lot of those, doesn't she?—claims that when this highly prized email list was used by the Bachmann campaign, he went to Sorenson, who admitted the campaign stole the list from Barb Heki, a NICHE board member, who also happened to be a Bachmann campaign staffer. At the time, the campaign insisted it had "accidentally" obtained and used the list, but now Heki, Woolson and Waldron are all alleging that the campaign knowingly stole and used the list, then lied about it and plotted how best to cover it up:
Other evidence provided in the complaint filed by Waldron is an email chain between himself, Eric Woolson and Bachmann campaign advisor Bob Heckman. In it, they discuss the “conflicting moral, legal and professional obligations” they faced in the aftermath of the NICHE scandal.
And then, of course, separate from stealing an email list and using it, in violation of election laws, there's the little matter of Waldron's
other complaint:
Elsewhere in his complaint to the Iowa Senate ethics committee, Peter Waldron alleges that Kent Sorenson violated Senate Code of Ethics Rule 6, “by conspiring” with the Bachmann campaign and MichelePAC “to conceal personal compensation for serving as the Committee’s IA State Chairman”.
Waldron states the amount of the compensation was “estimated to be $7,500 per month”. Rule 6 sets limits on the employment of senators by political action committees and tax-exempt organizations.
Oh, plus also money laundering.
Waldron claims he has five witnesses, two of whom are "confidential," who will back him up on his long and growing list of allegations. Plus there's Barb Heki's lawsuit. All these complaints sure are piling up, aren't they? Stay tuned ...