Forum Post: Why Grover Norquist Might Go to Jail
Posted 10 years ago on Aug. 9, 2013, 10:23 a.m. EST by GirlFriday
(17435)
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Norquist, who lives on money he virtually extorts from what he claims are 700,0000 idiots who think he'll repeal the 16th Amendment legalizing income tax, knows his days are numbered. He's tainted like he tries to taint others. He's going to prison, just as he claimed John Huang and Bill Clinton were going to prison. He's going to humiliated just as he spent his life humiliating others.
In short, he's facing a powerful mirror.
Senator Levin subpoenaed and got bank records and other data which show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Norquist used his tax-exempt corporation to launder money for the Republican National Committee.
The conspiracy, set up between Norquist, several RNC operatives and former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, worked like this:
Norquist and Barbour arranged for Norquist's "Americans for Tax Reform" -- in a highly detailed scheme -- to launder $4.6 million of RNC money through "Americans for Tax Reform" accounts in order to cloak the expenditure as an independent advocacy mailing.
Now, federal law prohibits coordination of such political activity between politics parties and so-called independent organizations like "Americans for Tax Reform." But Republicans have abused this law for years. I should know. I was trained at the presidential level by the Republican National Committee myself in 1980.
Norquist and the RNC claim there was absolutely no coordination between them -- but extremely detailed evidence show them to be liars.
In October 1996 the RNC gave "Americans for Tax Reform" a $4.6 million "donation." Keep that in mind -- nearly $5 million dollars. The "donation" itself would be questionable at any time, since Norquist seems to be universally loathed by a plethora of right-wing conservatives and liberals alike who see him as a nightmare in human form and an embarrassment to the Republican Party as well as the nation. But Norquists's closest allies, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour share this mantle.
But wait. It gets better.
look at the date and read the rest here
Now, you know why.
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Exactly. WTF?
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The author did update the article here: http://www.americanpolitics.com/20021209Koop.html
Now we come to Norquist and Oregon supporting tax activist Bill Sizemore.
One need only read Dave Hogan and Jeff Manning's indictment of Norquist in the Oregonian (8 December 2002) and the lack of movement by state and federal officials against him to wonder just what is going on with our nation's judicial system.
An ongoing court case has revealed documents which show that Norquist has reached across the nation into Oregon and is illegally impacting campaign finance in that state as well. Since 1996, Oregonians with misplaced loyalties have sent money to Norquist's group in Washington. Norquist then sent a million dollars to Sizemore's Oregon Taxpayers United political action committee.
Thus, Norquist laundered money for these Oregonian donors to cover the fact that they were breaking Oregon law. Although Oregon does not limit the size of a contribution, it does require that ALL contributors must be individually named. By sending money to Norquist, these Oregonians and their million were covered and made invisible by Norquist to Oregon officials. Sizemore simply showed the million, the entire amount according to canceled checks, as a "contribution" from Norquist's taxpayer group.
The questions one must ask -- especially as a prosecutor, and especially armed with the information Senator Levin compiled on Norquist -- are, "Where the hell is all this money coming from? And why would it all go to Norquist who hasn't been at all effective in carrying out his mission?"
The answer, it seems clear to me and hundred of other Norquist watchers, it that Norquist is operating an illegal laundry for campaign money that would otherwise be felonious contributions to candidates and issue campaigns either under state or federal law.
An Oregon Department of Justice brief calls the arrangement between Norquist and Sizemore "a laundering scheme" to conceal the identity of donors supporting Sizemore's organization.
Not revealing the names of donors who laundered their contributions through Norquist is a class C felony in Oregon.
Hogan and Manning quote Victoria Cox, spokeswoman for the Justice Department: "Oregonians expect the campaign finance process to be transparent. The evidence in the trial seems to indicate this may not have been the case in the exchanges between Americans for Tax Reform and Oregon Taxpayers United."
Sizemore told the Oregonian that there was never a "direct" guarantee that Oregon money would flow to Sizemore from Norquist's treasury. Naturally the donors also back up the story that their contributions were for Norquist -- not Sizemore. So why then did Norquist send the funds on to Sizemore?
You guess.
Teachers associations who took Sizemore to court attempting to shut down his group brought the current case that resulted in the latest revelations concerning Norquist. That case continues.
Instead of pursuing a case against Norquist, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers decided instead to hand the information to the IRS for investigation -- but the IRS has been traditionally blind when it comes to Norquist, as one can see from the aforementioned sleaze.
One Becky Miller, a former executive with Sizemore's group, testified in court that Sizemore collected the checks from Oregonians in Oregon and made out to Norquist's group and then sent the checks in a bundle to Norquist. Miller said specifically that these Oregonians wanted specifically to hide their names from prying eyes in their home states -- and from law enforcement, as well I might guess?
Don McIntire, a smaller player in the "tax activist" world, corroborated Miller's testimony to the Oregonian. He demanded a refund of a 1996 payment to Norquist's group after a lawyer told him about the plot between Norquist and Sizemore and that his check would end up in Sizemore's group's pocket in the end. McIntire claims that the attorney warned him this could LOOK like money laundering.
Really?
Cox, the spokesperson for Myers, said the AG would not pursue a case against Norquist because Oregon does not have the resources in DC to do so, and then muttered some gibberish about a "loophole" that would make it tough to prove the case. The alleged loophole is that because Norquist sent the money bundled in a check from Norquist's group back to Sizemore sans the names of the contributors, this would not be a violation of Oregon law.
Balderdash.
The truth is that is Norquist and Sizemore conspired to cover the names of these contributors -- the felony count WOULD apply -- and worse.
The Oregon Attorney General does not have to pursue the case against Norquist in the District of Columbia. He has the ability to indict Norquist, on information, along with Sizemore, based merely on the information presented the court in the teacher's union case.
Why he isn't is a mystery.
Or is it?
Of course the donors themselves are in some difficulty because the contributions to Norquist might be tax deductible whereas contributions to Sizemore would not be.
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20021209Koop.html
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lol Ya, I'd rather see him in prison where he belongs.
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The sooner the better. Toss in the rest of em as well.
Can we hurry up and arrest the "man"?
With enough money you can buy votes, you can buy turnout."
"Well...Republicans will ban non-citizens making camp contributions -- no Republican does that. We will ban the use of taxpayer money for politics, which is already illegal. We need to ban union dues for use in politics. In addition we need to let people part with their own resources, get rid of Mickey Mouse limits that only let people get around them.
"I would hope that we would move toward complete reporting of contributions and eliminating limits. Campaign finance reform is like gun control. I mean, if they're not obeying the other laws, why would a new law help?
I'm not holding my breath.
Who needs laws, when there's money at stake?
The Koch's must love this asshole.
Oh, absolutely.
Just another fucked up libe(R)tarian?
http://www.alternet.org/conservatives-used-mock-ayn-rand-how-did-she-become-hero-right-wing-nerds-everywhere
http://proudtobeafilthyliberalscum.com/2012/06/10/grover-norquist-is-a-libertarian-dick/
Why is it that so many here have never believed it?
Libe(R)tarianism, is what's fucking up the country and the World.
...........in a money laundering scam? Nobody saw that coming. hehehe (sounds like an appropriate insert at this point)
Libe(R)tarian concepts like this too.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/07/lack-of-government-regulation-allows-banks-to-own-and-speculate-against-their-own-commodities/
Ya http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-commodities-market-a-big-bank-love-story/
Meanwhile, they feed the lunatic fringe, while imparting them with the legitimacy of an actual caucus.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/08/gops-tea-party-astroturf-sprouted-roots-grown-fringe-crazy.html
That was a real good article, thanks.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
(R)epelican't ties to libe(R)tarians, become more obvious.
got live, if you want it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023428573
The grooming of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck's libe(R)tarian darling continues.
Wow.
More from TPM..
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mcconnell-campaign-manager-im-sorta-holding-my-nose
WOW indeed.
Will I still be called a partisan for exposing the libe(R)tarian connections?
Prolly.
Hey, remember this? A year or so ago, Frank Gaffney, conservative and former Reagan defense official, wrote an article that laid out in detail Norquist’s connections to Islamic terrorists. Arch conservative David Horowitz–a right-wing-whacko who seriously believes, and has written, that liberal leaders are actually members of a Fifth Column who ‘have worked for half a century with the agents of America’s communist enemies and with totalitarian states like Cuba and the former USSR’, and a purported friend of Norquist’s–decided to print Gaffney’s article at his right-wing online mag, Front Page, even though it was highly critical of his friend and Gingrich protege. Radcon uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) noted its importance and wondered what was taking the left so long to pick up on it. (It may have escaped Glenn’s mind but back in December we were a little more concerned about another of Junior’s little peccadillos–fomenting a pre-emptive and unnecessary war with Iraq using lies, distortions, and faked evidence.) What had them so fired up they’d turn against one of their own? This: [Norquist's front, The Reagan Legacy Project, was e]nabling a political influence operation to advance the causes of radical Islamists [that] targeted most particularly…the Bush Administration. The growing influence of this operation–and the larger Islamist enterprise principally funded by Saudia Arabia–has created a strategic vulnerability for the nation, and a political liability for its President.
The core of Gaffney’s problem with The Toad was his close relationship with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a Saudi with strong ties to the Royal Family and a ‘self-described supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah’ who had links to a number of Islamic groups known to be funneling money from rich Saudi businessmen to terrorist fronts. In November, for example, Alamoudi had been arrested for trying to send $340,000 allegedly from Libya’s Moammar Qaddaffi through a bank in Syria to a number of Saudi accounts linked to radical Wahhabist groups.
But that was frosting on the cake. Norquist’s contacts in the radical Islamic community were a lot wider than one man with a Qaddaffi connection. In 1997, Grover set up something called The Islamic Institute. Its office address is the same as his ATR office (Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group that is the core of Norquist’s political power)–it’s a desk in his suite. That desk is worth an estimated $250,000; that’s how much has been ‘donated’ to the Islamic Institute over the past 6 years–that we know of–through sources ranging from Alamoudi ($35,000+) to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian ($10,000+) to the Safa Trust ($35,000) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought ($11,000). The last two groups were, along with a number of others, raided in March of 2003 on charges that they were ‘supporting terrorist financial networks’.
The Islamic Institute is little more than a front for The Toad to do what he does best–sell access to Republican power brokers. What disturbed Gaffney was that I-I’s focus was squarely on the WH. From Gaffney’s point of view, Grover was using his status as the premier Republican power-broker to mount an ‘influence operation’ designed to bring selected Islamic representatives into the Bush inner circles, and he was uneasy that those ‘representatives’ mostly seemed to be under suspicion by anti-terrorist groups for their radical Islamic affiliations.
http://arran.wordpress.com/category/republicans/grover-norquist/
Is there anything about libe(R)tarians that isn't slimy?
Look at the Koch's support for anti-islamic's on one hand and using their foreign subsidiary's to sell weapons manufacturing materials to Iran, on the other.
There is nothing honest about them.
It makes Cathy Adams look even more stupid. So close.............and yet so far.
Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea who Cathy is.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cathie-adams-finds-proof-grover-norquist-secret-muslim-you-see-he-has-beard
Crazy people in Texas?
Who would have thunk?
Does she have any ties to the libe(R)tarians?
Oh he's much worse than the average screwed up republican. He has a following. Nothing is too low for him. His whole agenda is to intimidate and harass politicians to serve his needs. He should have been in jail many years ago. The fact he's not in jail defies logic.
Glad to see you notice that there's no difference between libe(R)tarians and (R)epelican'ts, although there's probably a few left somewhere.
Now about your lies about the UAW?