Days away from the race of his lifetime, Norm Coleman is being dogged in the media by questions surrounding a lawsuit detailing the secret funneling of $75K to the Coleman family. The Huffington Post provides a good summary:
The CEO of a major marine technology company is alleging that he was pressured by a friend and associate of Norm Coleman to secretly funnel tens of thousands of dollars to the Senator’s family.
Paul McKim, the founder and CEO of Deep Marine Technology, alleges in a civil suit that Nasser Kazeminy — a longtime Republican donor, friend of Coleman, and DMT shareholder — directed the company to send $75,000 to the Senator and his wife.
The transaction, which occurred in 2007, allegedly went as follows: DMT would make payments for services to Hays Company, even though no services would be rendered. Since Norm Coleman’s wife Laurie worked at Hays, that money would be given to her in the form of ‘salary.’
The lawsuit has produced a media frenzy with reports in The Huffington Post, Harper’s magazine, Politico, MN Indy, MinnPost, The Nation, and, of course, MNpublius. Our local media has also been reporting on the matter (MPR, KSTP, and CityPages) but in a move that shouldn’t surprise me, yet is still extremely frustrating, the Strib has buried the story below the fold in the Metro section… yeah, you read that right. Sigh.
Although the merits of the suit, obviously, have yet to be adjudicated, the plot thickened this morning with Politico’s report that accounting documents from Kazeminy’s company have been turned over to the Strib that show payments to Laurie Coleman:
They show a Kazeminy-controlled oil-rig servicing company paid “service fees” to the Mrs. Coleman’s employer, the Hays Companies. McKim served as the company’s CEO until last Friday.
(Here’s the link. The key pages are 29-33.)
The lawsuit brings forth a set of extremely important questions, especially given the similarities between this and Ted Stevens’ lawsuit:
“This is why [Sen]. Ted Stevens just got convicted,” said a Washington D.C.-based attorney. “If this is true and Kazeminy gave a gift — which includes money to a candidate’s family member — it doesn’t mean that you can’t take it, but you would have to report it on [your financial disclosure form]… If he knew about it, and of course, all of this has to be proven to be true, then yeah,” he could go to jail. [HuffPo]
Which further begs the question: If, God forbid, Coleman returns to the Senate and is convicted of what the suit alleges, will he follow his own advice (Coleman called for Stevens to resign) and resign from the Senate? Let’s just hope that it doesn’t come to that and Coleman is ousted before he has to make that decision himself, because if the last few days have shown anything, Coleman’s decision making skills probably shouldn’t be trusted…
And in related news, the clip of Coleman running away from media questions surrounding this whole affair is rapidly approaching 30,000 views in a little over 24 hours. If this suit is as illegitimate as Coleman claims it is, why is he running from reporters?
OK … time to get in the first word before Brodkorb can claim the summit with his sophisticated “liar”“ accusation.
Second! Coleman’s going down.
Coleman again drags Minnesota’s good government reputation through the mud. How can anybody vote for such a scummy politician? The very fact that his wife was paid $75,000 for a “job” at a company in Minnesota when everybody knows she lives in California stinks. Was this job one she wasn’t required to show up for? What did she do for her $75,000 payment or more importantly what did Norm Coleman do for that money?
Everyone needs to remember this is NOT an “11th hour” story; reporters have been looking into it for quite a while.
If there was nothing there, and Team Smokescreen had gotten in front of this when it first came up, we wouldn’t be discussing this today.
RentGate is a Senate Ethics Committee matter; UtilityGate is still an open question; SuitCase has never been satisfactorily answered - and the YouTube of it now has over 153,000 hits; and now there’s this.
Norm Coleman is Minnesota’s most ethically challenged politician.
Oh - and that YouTube? At the 1:02 mark, that’s Rachel S. of the PiPress, asking about Lori and The Hays Company.
Claiming this is “an 11th hour attack” is just more bullshit from the GreedOverPrinciples party.
Don’t you just love it when a politicial involves his wife in illegal activity? The couple that that takes bribes together…are made for each other.
First, it is still unknown whether these payments were unlawful. Even Politico says that they could just be the annual $100K insurance premium. Remember, the ex-CEO has an axe to grind with his former employer.
Ok, here is what we do not have allegations of
1) Mrs. Colmena knew about the payments to here employer
2) Senator Coleman knew about the payments to his wife’s employer
3) Mrs. Coleman directly benefited from the payments to her emplyer
4) Mrs. Coleman did no work yet recevied $75K
This may have legs (doubtful), but what it has today is a whole lot of unsubstantiated allegations put forth in a calculate October Suprise lawsuit and a lot of smoke being fanned by Matt
Really?
1) Mrs. Colmena knew about the payments to here employer
Why would that matter if these were illegal? Her employer and the giver have already admitted there was no business rationale for the payment between them.
2) Senator Coleman knew about the payments to his wife’s employer
Do you honestly think that Norm would not notice nor question when an extra $75,000 showed up in the family budget? And why would anyone give someone else $75,000 without some “credit” fo the giver? Can Norm prove he never knew about the payments and never asked where the extra $75,000 was from?
3) Mrs. Coleman directly benefited from the payments to her emplyerr
So the Hays Company received $75,000 for doing nothing and kept the money to themselves? That really doesn’t sound like a rational behavior for any company I have worked with… mostly the do nothing for 75 grand part.
4) Mrs. Coleman did no work yet recevied $75K
Why is the first we have heard of this “job”? All previous references from Coleman about his wife’s work and income have been about being an actress and Blow ‘n Go business owner. Is she also an insurance agent or something to the Hays Company we have never ever before heard about or is that company just used as a conduit to get money to Norm? Doesn’t she live in California and the Hays Company doesn’t seem to have a business organization there so what gives?
Occam’s razor… If you hear hooves, think horses not zebras.
Do I detect someone above stopping just short of saying:
“blame Coleman’s wife. arrest her,
but leave Norman alone?”
Throw the wife under the bus?
Really?
My initial skepticism about this lawsuit was largely dispelled by actually reading the filing. What jumped out at me is the fact that Hays isn’t licensed to sell insurance in Texas.
So, you have $75,000 going to Hays for a service they aren’t licensed to provide to DMT. That puts the lie to the notion there is a legit basis for the payment that we just don’t understand.
Awful lot of unsubstantiated allegations here:
“the plot thickened this morning with Politico’s report that accounting documents from Kazeminy’s company have been turned over to the Strib that show payments to Laurie Coleman:” THese show payments to Hays, not Laurie Coleman. You need to make a correction.