The corruption and malfeasance in Harrisburg just get worse by the day. The latest? House Democrats spent $1.7 million of your tax money to obtain thousands of e-mail addresses for the purpose of spamming constituents. AND they paid a consultant to make it look legit.
But lost in the sensationalism of the charges, which included allegations of a sex-for-state-job swap involving a former beauty queen, was the e-mail scam that authorities say ended up costing taxpayers, in total, more than $1.7 million over five years.State Attorney General’s Office prosecutors dubbed the scam the LCOMM EFFORT – short for Leader’s Communications Office. A leader of one government watchdog group called it “a theft of democracy.”
The Leader’s Communications Office, prosecutors allege, was the brainchild of Rep. Michael Veon, then the No. 2 House Democrat, and Michael Manzo, the former chief of staff to Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese.
What about the Republicans?
Where are the indictments of Republican House members and staff for having campaign material on their servers and hard drives back in February of 2007? It was covered at the time by the Inquirer. “A tangled Web at state House” Philadelphia Inquirer 2/18/07
Corbett’s spokesman who works a dual role as campaign and official AG spokesman, Kevin Harley, keeps saying that Corbett will “follow the evidence.” Well, it is very possible Corbett can’t follow an evidentiary trail because it no longer exists. Records from the Chief Clerk or the Republican leadership accounts should be checked to see if the House and Senate Republicans replaced or destroyed their servers and desktop hard drives in 2007. The sequence of Corbett’s investigation seems to give plenty of time for the Republican caucuses to destroy their desk top hard drives and servers.
8/31/07 — AG raids House D offices
10/22/07 — First subpoenas for House R documents
2/12/08 — First subpoenas for Senate R documents
Morganelli makes very good point in the Post-Gazette on Sunday:
“He only [investigated] the Democratic House. He left the Republicans and now says he’ll get around to them. There’s not going to be any evidence. ... The announcement of the [charges] gives the other targets all the info that they need to avoid being prosecuted.” (Attorney General race already getting rough. Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 7/27/08)
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