Alabama's Republican Governor Bob Riley may have attempted to conceal illegal corporate donations to his 2002 and 2006 campaigns by representing them in campaign finance reports as having come from individuals, according to an an investigation carried out by the Montgomery Independent.
I'll be watching the local paper closely to see if they pick up on the allegations, but I have few doubts that the Huntsville Times is anything more than a corporate shill and will either not report the story at all or will bury it as deep in the newspaper as possible! Let's look at what the Montgomery Independent has to say:
Riley's campaign finance reports for the 2006 campaign list in-kind contributions for transportation totaling $7,929.47 from John Saint of Mobile. Saint is listed on the Secretary of State Web site as president of a number of Alabama corporations. When asked about the in-kind contributions Saint said he did not recall when Riley may have used his company's plane. He said: "Our plane gets used every day. A lot of charities use our plane for Angel Flights."
When asked if he had reimbursed his company for the Riley campaign's use of the plane, he said: "I don't recall." He said he would have to go back and look, but it would be after the first of the year. When asked who owned the plane he said JDC Support Services, Inc. and added: "I own the company."
Federal Aviation Administration records show that JDC Support Services, Inc. owns a Bombardier Challenger CL-600-2B16, a twin engine jet airplane. There are no aircraft registered to John Saint individually
But, there is more!
Neither Saint nor Wellborn, through his spokesman, are able to affirm that they reimbursed their corporations for the Riley campaign's use of their corporate airplanes. It appears that the Riley campaign may have improperly reported in-kind contributions from corporations, by listing the presidents of the corporations individually, rather than the corporations themselves, as contributors. If that is the case, it would appear to be a violation of the Fair Campaign Practices Act.
Also, under Alabama law, there is no limit on campaign contributions from individuals, but corporate contributions, whether cash or in-kind, are limited to $500 per election cycle. Riley's name was on the ballot in only two election cycles in 2006, the Republican primary and the General Election. That means any corporate contribution more than $1,000 would appear to be unlawful.
Seems as though Riley has some questions to answer! Go read the entire article from the Montgomery Independent. I see some interaction with with my state legislative representative in my future!
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"Newhouse/Advance Publications Are Working With GOP Operatives To Create Corrupt Public Images Of Top Democratic Politicians."
In Alabama, Bob Riley is being groomed as a potential vice-presidential candidate. Bush's/Cheney's GOP operatives are using the prison system to keep Don Siegelman from talking to the media about Gov. Riley's past and what he knows about Alabama's dirty history of campaign corruptions. When Siegelman was Secretary of State and Attorney General, he worked with all branches of law enforcement which investigated sham organizations, Contra drug trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering. The investigations found that much of it were linked to high ranking GOP campaign contributions in Alabama as well as Florida, Arkansas, and sometimes Georgia, and Mississippi. Siegelman is a very smart attorney. He holds two law degrees. He knows more about Alabama's politics than anyone, being the only person in history to have held the top four government offices in Alabama and he has first hand knowledge of how a White House backed campaign conspiracy works. This is a partial list of the skeletons that they don't want big media to know about: (a)The Bush's/Cheney's Staff (Rove) has classified information from Diebold Election Systems, Inc. of Allen, TX.) which was shared with Dan Gans of Riley's staff. This included Diebold software code and registers addresses for each candidate along with passwords and a method of accessing the voting machines. This was used for vote stuffing in several counties in Alabama in 2002. (b) Millions of dollars of dirty campaign money were used to defeat Siegelman's Education Lottery and to defeat his gubernatorial campaigns. The money came from big business clients of Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Toby Roth, Rob Riley and William Canary. (c) Several different National GOP associations along with some sham organizations ran by Robin Vanderwall, Preston Gates, Ralph Reed, Glover Norquist and William Canary laundered the money so that it wouldn't be obvious who the donors were. (d) The newspapers of big media giant Newhouse/Advance Publications (controlled by Billionaire Donald Newhouse) agreed to print articles hand fed to them by Bush appointed U.S. government officials to create a corrupt public image of Siegelman, and other top Democrat politicians.
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