Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a longtime friend and benefactor tried to steer money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, the Pioneer Press has learned.
Minnesota Independent’s Chris Steller:
In both [Coleman’s and Blagojevich’s] cases, the charges are that illegal payoffs to the elected official would be masked as payment of work performed by the wife. The monetary amounts are in the same ballpark: Laurie Coleman’s company received $75,000 and was to be paid $25,000, while the salary proposed for Patricia Blagojevich ran as high as $150,000.
One difference: In the Colemans’ case, payments — which haven’t been shown to be illegal, and whose propriety Sen. Coleman has insisted on — were actually made, not just talked about during wiretapped conversations.
More at the Pioneer Press and the Minnesota Independent.
Taking the Strib a while to get on this development. Just sayin’.
Perhaps Ed Meese knew what he was talking about when he said, and I paraphrase, there are no innocent defendants.
another big difference… Blagojevich was seeking payments up t o1 million dollars for the priviledge of becoming Senator….. not exactly samo samo… the net involving Blago is getting wider and wider
Maxus, these are the charges that the MSM allowed Norm to duck during the election.
You’re not punish on the amount, its the abuse and willingness to corrupt the system that you Republicans keep getting pinched for. Hell, Ted Stevens accepted a bar b que grill and some work.
You Republicans still don’t get it. Every Democrat in the US Senate and the incoming ones have a signed a letter for Blagojevich to resign now. You and other Republicans will keep trying to push back by framing this as not being as bad as Democrat X or Y. You guys rallied around Randy Cunningham, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Ted Stevens, Don Young, Larry Craig, and locally, Mark Olson, Dick Borrell and Steve Drazkowski. You never come out against them or what they did, you try to spin it that its the liberal press or they aren’t as bad as…
great day to be GOP
No day is a great day to be GOP, considering that the electorate just roundly repudiated the GOP brand.
“Maxus”, (lolols)
Did you pay attention to the latest election?
Why didn’t your right wing bullcrap work?
McCain should have won by a landslide, I’m sure all you righties thought that, considering the considerable amount of smears you people threw at Obama. Did you ever think to yourself “the mischaracterizations and guilt by association attacks aren’t working anymore”?
Apparently not.
Because here you are, at a Liberal blog, commenting with more of the same, acting like you are credible.
THAT is quite incredible.
Maybe this says something about the intelligence of the typical right wing troll, “Maxus”.
The Republican party is becoming a self-minimalizing entity….or should I maybe say “self-cleaning”.
In any case….good luck with that, pally. You, Maxus my friend, are pretty high on the mockable scale.
A great day to be GOP - does that include:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/
Normy remodeling fiasco?
Maybe Ted Stevens, Norm & Blagojevich could room together in jail?