The AP just pushed a great piece (with a curiously buried lede) which has “Senate Gift Ban” written all over:
On Wednesday, for the first time, Coleman agreed to provide copies of his lease and a canceled utility check. The documents provided to The Associated Press show that Coleman and Larson didn’t sign a lease until July 3 of this year — a year after he moved into the house, and several days after the National Journal story broke. The lease is for the “basement bed and bath premises,” and expires Dec. 31 of this year.
The utility check is dated July 14 of this year, but Sheehan said that Larson and Coleman always had an agreement that the senator would pay the utilities at the end of the year.
Being a Senator cannot receive a gifts greater than $50, Coleman’s looking forward to some more trouble considering his living situation is clearly about half of the market value of the space he’s renting, didn’t even have a lease until the National Journal started investigating and and apparently the utilities will eventually be paid for in a presumably verbal “agreement.”
Asked how Coleman could prove that he had intended to pay the utilities all along, Sheehan responded, “Take the senator at his word. Look at what he gave to you and other reporters. He’s been remarkably transparent, open and honest about the entire situation.”
He added: “Clearly, it would have been good to have a written lease, which is why they have one now.”
Larson said the two men decided to come up with a lease partly in response to all of the questions surrounding the arrangement.
“I’m not in the leasing business, and it never occurred to me until the questions came up,” he said.
The first part is a huge lie: Coleman has not been transparent, open and honest about any of this situation. He has only revealed information about his living situation only after being repeatedly questioned by reporters.
…and you don’t need to be in “the leasing business” to understand the Senate Gift Ban. You need to understand and abide by the Senate Gift Ban to be an ethical United States Senator.
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Its funny how the lease expires on December 31st. He knows that he is going
to lose!
This one has got “cover-up” all over it.
Does Coleman really have that little common sense? You’re a Senator, for crying out loud; don’t you think you’d want to document your real estate transactions?
I could maybe get with exchanging cash under the table with a buddy, but how could Coleman ever think he could?
It probably would have been better for him never to have signed a lease. Now it just looks like he scrambled to cover up a deal. So… he hasn’t paid for the utilities yet? He just has a verbal agreement that he will? Who has been paying for it in the meantime?
Doesn’t Coleman have a degree in law? You would think he would know that it’s a good idea to have a signed lease.
Yeah. One swift one for Minnesota in Normy!
Here’s what Tom Steward, a Coleman spokesman, is quoted as saying in a June 30th Star Tribune story:
“”As the senator indicated to the National Journal and further articulated last Friday, he is paying fair market value for his cramped bedroom in a basement of a home in D.C. As our research shows, this rent is comparable to other rent in the D.C. area,” Steward said. (emphasis added)
People have been asking for that “research for over a month; Team Smokescreen hasn’t given it up; yet Sheehan claims they’ve been “transparent, open and honest”??!?
Unreal - but, typical of Team Smokescreen.
“Cramped bedroom in a basement”
Republican spin is so damned transparent.
My DC realtor gets back from vacation on the eighteenth.
Say, lo?
That AP story, contains this:
“The utility check is dated July 14 of this year, but Sheehan said that Larson and Coleman always had an agreement that the senator would pay the utilities at the end of the year. In a separate telephone interview, Larson also said that had been the arrangement from the start. The total came to $532.88.”
$532.88, for electricity, for a year? $44.41 per month?
Ask your realtor, if that sounds correct.
Oh - and ask about heat - cable, too. What’s the going rate for that, in W.D.C.?
Interesting not a single republican posting here tonight.
Our Hobo Senator might just get excused for this… mostly because he is such a “cheap whore” nobody can believe it. Norm Coleman might get some respect if he at least got Ted Stevens type money in exchange for his honor.
Minnesota gives New York Norm the keys to the “most exclusive club in the world” the U.S. Senate, and the guy besmirches our state’s reputation over cheap rent.
It makes me wonder what else the man is willing to do for a few bucks… say NOT investigate corruption and bribes in Iraq? Or perhaps steer political business to a particular lobbyists company? Or maybe just support certain earmarks over others… without being tagged for proposing them… as in no bid contracts. New York Norm can’t be that cheap a dime-a-dance-romance… can he?
How many states did Frickin’ Franken-stien not pay taxes in for how long?
How much would you pay for a basement apartment where the landlord had office staff using as an office all day long? Hmmm… The lying libs excuse everything for their corrupt heroes.
Finally a republican poster! And instead of responding to the issue at hand, ie the Ethics Violations committed by Norm Coleman, he chooses to post trash, name calling and mud slinging.
Trouble is, this story has hit the mainstream media now, so it won’t go away no matter how loud the temper tantrums get.
A Senate Ethics Violation is a big deal, and we should care that our seated senator has hit the national news with this behavior.
So are any of the republicans going to stand up to this the way they are supposedly standing up to the Olson endorsement?
In post 11 The Truth stated the area in the house that Coleman lived was a
“basement apartment where the landlord had office staff using as an office all day long”. Is this correct?
Is the down stairs used by Coleman and by Larson’s company, while the upstairs is rented to the Political
Director of the RNC and his family?