Soucy’s Song

"It's not what you know that hurts you, It's what you know that ain't so" -- Will Rogers

At this point in the FBI Donovan “sting” operation, what is not known is paramount – including whether the operation was a sting operation. Stories involving corrupt politicians have reporters and editors reaching for their adjectives: “In an apparentsting operation…”

In order to persuade a judge to issue a warrant for arrest, those seeking the arrest – in this case, FBI agents – must first present an affidavit containing information that certainly would be of interest to news editors and commentators. The assertions made in affidavits contain certifiable information on the basis of which an arrest is made, and these assertions, partly edited, soon find their way into news stories. The affidavit information may or may not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth For the purpose of launching an initial story, it is presumed to be reliable by many reporters and editors.

Consider the identity of CC1, noted in the affidavit securing the arrest of fired finance director Robert Braddock, part of whose business it was to haul in contributions for the 5^th District U.S.House campaign of present Speaker of the State House of Representatives Chris Donovan. Co-Conspirator 1 is not identified by name in the affidavit, nor are CC2 or CC3, identified as Co-Conspirators 2 and 3 in the affidavit.

In the news business, information flows into a story, once it finds its way into print, from a variety of sources, some more reliable than others. Then too, reporters and editors are supremely conscious of “changes in the force” when a major tremor such as the firing of a finance director shakes the political universe. The name of CC1, still unconfirmed by the FBI, surfaced following a) the appearance of the initial story, b) the identification of CC1 by reliable sources as Ray Soucy, a correction officer and labor union official politically active in Democratic Party politics, and c) the decoupling of Mr. Soucy from his union responsibilities.

The union official who showed Mr. Soucy the door did so because he had become a possible witness in a possible criminal case that involved his participation in corrupt activity.

In the FBI affidavit, Mr. Soucy is the proverbial cooperative co-conspirator; which is to say, he is cooperating with the FBI investigation by serving as a plant in the putative (note the adjective) “sting” (note the quote marks) operation. Someone prompted Mr. Soucy to ask compromising questions of Mr. Braddock, which are then recorded for use in an FBI affidavit, certainly seems to be a “singing canary” in a“sting” operation. Here, of course, we bump into Will Rogers’ admonition.

What prompted the canary’s song? Was it an injured conscience? A sudden resolution to rout all campaign contributors who play fast and loose with campaign financing law? Or was the canary’s participation in the possible sting operation necessitated by a threat of prosecution? At this moment, we don’t know it’s so, and we don’t know it ain’t so. But if it lives in a cage and eats FBI seeds and sings like a canary, it’s probably a canary.

What initially prompted the FBI investigation? Did the FBI detect an odor of corruption arising from Speaker Donovan’s office before Mr. Soucy was recruited to pass along to Mr. Donovan’s former finance director about $20,000 said to have been contributed by an investor hoping to persuade Mr. Donovan to kill state legislation that would have imposed a $5,250 yearly licensing fee and higher taxes on owners of roll-your-own tobacco shops?

Is it plausible that Mr. Donovan was unaware that a major contributor was dumping $20,000 into his campaign kitty for the U.S. House seat soon to be vacated by U.S. Rep Chris Murphy. No whiff of the $20,000 campaign contribution was detected by Mr. Donovan, says the strangely detached Mr. Donovan. What bunnies are clamoring around in FBI hats longing to be pulled out by the ears? Does the FBI have a case against the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Congress? Are leading Democrats in the state right in assuming, following Mr. Donovan’s public mea culpa, that there is no fire in the FBI smoke?

“There’s no fishing expeditions in corruption cases,” said former special FBI agent Mike Clark in a phone interview with Hugh McQuade of CTNewsJunkie “There’s always some type of predicative offense or allegation out there to bring the attention of investigators.”

Mr. Clark is well known in the state as the special agent who helped to secure convictions in corruption cases involving former Gov. John G. Rowland, former state Treasurer Paul Silvester and former Waterbury Mayors Joe Santopietro and Philip Giordano.

Murphy And Friends

Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was violently attacked by the media of his day and responded with a more than adequate self defense, the “Apologia Pro Vita Sua,” used to say, “Throw enough dirt and some will stick – stick but not stain.” But Newman could not have been familiar with modern modes of politicking: UTube videos, blogs written by furious partisans, offshore political operations that are little more than "non-partisan" campaign finance producing operations in disguise, and sleepy eyed journalists, themselves partisan, who are willing to overlook their mud splattered political opponents.

But a bright warning line ought to be drawn somewhere.

An ad approved by embattled U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy that craftily connects Sam Caliguiri with former Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano throws a bucket of mud on Caliguri’s reputation. Mr. Murphy’s challenger is, after all, a politician and ought not to expect to remain unbloodied in a hotly contested political campaign. Even so, the Murphy ad sets a new floor and ceiling to shameless political advertising.

Mr. Giordano is the odious mayor who was sent to prison for having had sexual relations with the daughters of a prostitute in Waterbury. The object of the Murphy ad is to hitch Caliguri to the Giordano stench, hoping that some of the odor will radiate outward to voters who may be persuaded by it to vote for the more fragrant Mr. Murphy.

The ad, “Caligiuri And Friends”  -- already denounced, but not ardently or often enough, by some reputable papers --  charges, “When Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano went to jail for unspeakable crimes, many called for his impeachment. Instead, his Number Two man, Sam Caligiuri, negotiated a deal to allow the mayor to keep his salary and title while in prison.”

Not disclosed in the ad: 1) The negotiated settlement put Mr. Giordano in jail; 2) it spared the city, more furious with Mr. Giordano even than the slander-mongers who wrote the Murphy ad and signed off on it, the ordeal of a protracted impeachment which, while staining the city’s reputation, never-the-less would have been a political boon to Democrats; 3) most convictions for political offenses are negotiated rather than prosecuted. Such was the case with former Gov. John Rowland, former mayor of Bridgeport Joe Ganim and former Bridgeport state Rep. Ernie Newton, now out of prison and vowing to campaign for prominent Democrats in Murphy’s district; 4) Caligiuri turned Waterbury around during a trying period for the city, retiring from his position as acting mayor when his term had been fulfilled; 5 if you throw enough dirt, some will stick – stick but not stain.

Ads such as these offend the good conscience. They seek to take a strength -- Caliguiri led Waterbury through the wilderness -- and turn it into a moral deficit, at the expense of what everyone but committed partisans know to be the truth. People who endorse this junk-thought have lost all sight of the only bearing that matters. We should willingly submit to the dignity of truth, which is independent of us, and not use it as a tool of the moment to gratify our own ambitions. When truth wrapped in chains follows ambition, an honest conscience should recoil at the sight.


And it will. There are indications that people are bone weary with these fact-based truths. They want authenticity. They want the whole truth, not the half lie politicians dangle before them to purchase their votes.

The Murphy ad cannot be linked. According to a message attached to the ad on a newspaper site, it has been privatized. “This is a private video,” the message reads, “If you have been sent this video, please be sure you accept the sender’s friend request.”

Who would wish to befriend such mud slingers? As an alternative, voters who find ads such as these morally repugnant will have the opportunity to cast the sender and his friends into political oblivion on November 2.

Foley's Campaign Arrested By Reports Of Arrests

Tom Foley, the Republican Party nominee for governor, went to bed on Thursday thinking well of himself and woke up on Friday a near criminal. Two of his Republican primary opponents have called upon him in tones once used by James Cagney to “come clean” and release his arrest records.

According to a story written by Jon Lender, a superb digger and investigative reporter at the Hartford Courant, Foley was arrested 29 years ago for having bumped a car with his car. Foley was charged with first-degree attempted assault for having “rammed a vehicle, placing the occupants in fear of serious physical injury,” according to a July 2, 1981 story in the Southampton Press newspaper. The charges were later dropped.

The second arrest involved a dispute with his wife during what is described as a messy divorce. In politics, divorces are a dime a dozen, though not always messy. Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker, for instance, shed about half as many wives as Henry VIII, apparently without incident. U.S. Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman were both divorced and re-married. Unlucky in divorce, if not in love – Foley and his second wife are expecting the birth of a child soon – the gubernatorial hopeful found himself, one day nearly three decades ago, remonstrating with his soon to be divorced wife over their son. Both were arrested. The charges later were dropped.

Unlike other Connecticut pols who spent a good amount of time in the slammer – Phil Giordano, the mayor of Waterbury who molested young girls in his office, or Joe Ganim, the mayor of Bridgeport, who was remunerated for political favors, or state senator Ernest Newton, convicted of receiving a bribe and using campaign contributions as a private piggy bank, or Governor John Rowland, who sold his office for a mess of pottage – Foley cooled his heels in jail for only one night while awaiting the arrival of a lawyer next day. Both his arrests were the result of personal rather than political misbehavior.

There are as yet two unanswered questions: 1) Should Foley release to the media his arrest records? He should, unless the release of the records will disturb other legal arrangements he has made with his former wife. Why bait the sharks if there is no harmful skeleton locked away in the records? And 2) Did the information received by Lender come from some other politician who has an interest in the gubernatorial race?

Lender offers a tantalizing tidbit concerning the provenance of the story. The records obtained by the Courant were not given to the paper by Foley’s ex-wife. They were included in a mass of documents assembled during the administration of former governor Rowland – and were ferried from the gubernatorial office by whom?

We may never know, even if Foley does arrange to release the arrest records, as has been suggested by nearly every contender for the gubernatorial slot, all of whom would stand to benefit from the release.

A few weeks ago, a damaging report published by the New York Times concerning Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s fraudulent claims of service in Vietnam were partially softened by reports in the press that some of the information had been shuttled to the Times by the Linda McMahon campaign. Apparently the provenance of information does matter, at least when the reports tell against Democrats favored by Connecticut’s liberal media.

Those who stand to benefit immediately from the release of the records are present Lieutenant Governor Mike Fedele and Oz Griebel, both running for governor as Republicans. Waiting in the wings ready to pounce are Dan Malloy and Ned Lamont, Democrat gubernatorial hopefuls. Foley has characterized the Lender story as fair, well written and comprehensive. No other vital information, he insists, would be forthcoming from a release of the arrect reports. So far, Foley has told his political opponents to go take a hike, but the clamor for the release of the documents is still in its larval stage.