The Silence of the Lambs

Speaker of the state House or Representatives Chris Donovan is the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut 5^th District. His former campaign finance director Robert Braddock has been arrested following a Grand Jury indictment on a series of charges involving campaign finance money laundering.

During an arraignment proceeding on Thursday in federal court in New Haven, charges were brought against other people involved with Mr. Donovan’s U.S. Senate campaign, among them former Donovan campaign manager Joshua Nassi,  Paul Rogers, affiliated with two roll-your-own tobacco shops in Waterbury, and union officials associated with the Department of Corrections.

Mr. Donovan appears to be weathering this brutal prosecutorial storm with a degree of calm indifference that has astonished some reporters and commentators familiar with other political corruption cases in Connecticut.

Leaders in the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Bailey, beginning with Governor Dannel Malloy, the titular head of the state Democratic Party, and including Mr. Donovan’s associates in the General Assembly, so far have not been sufficiently stirred to appoint an informal delegation of Democrat Party grown-ups to pay a visit to Mr. Donovan and suggest strongly that he withdraw from his race for the sake of his party.

Even within the Democratic Party, some are wondering -- why not?

There are two separate questions: 1) Was Mr. Donovan involved in campaign money laundering? Answer: We don’t know, yet. And 2) Should a politician whose campaign finance director – and now others -- arrested for campaign financing illegalities be running for the U.S. Congress?

Somewhat like God, the FBI doesn’t play dice with the universe; once they start a prosecution, it’s a pretty safe bet they’ve got the goods or will get them by squeezing all the singing canaries that come their way.

According to an FBI media release, birds in the cage now include Benjamin Hogan, a.k.a. “Benny,” 33, of Southington, an employee of Smoke House Tobacco, a Roll Your Own smoke shop with two locations in Waterbury; David Moffa, a.k.a. “Moff” and “Buffalo,” 52, of Middlebury, the former president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Local 387, representing employees of the Connecticut Department of Correction; Daniel Monteiro, 33, of Wolcott, an owner of a company located in Waterbury; Joshua Nassi, 34, of Fairfield [the former campaign manager for Mr. Donovan’s congressional campaign];  Paul Rodgers, a.k.a. “Paulie,” 39, of Watertown, a co-owner of Smoke House Tobacco, and George Tirado , 35, of Waterbury, a co-owner of Smoke House Tobacco.

So far, eight people have been charged in the case, but the FBI’s prize specimen may be Ray Soucy, a former state corrections employee and Treasurer of AFSCME, Local 387.

On July 24, Mr. Soucy pleaded guilty on one count of concocting a scheme to bribe a public official, one count of conspiring to make false statements to the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) and one count of impeding the FEC’s enforcement of federal campaign finance laws.

While Mr. Donovan is not named in the FBI indictment, a conversation cited in the document between Mr. Soucy and Josh Nassi, Mr. Donovan’s former campaign manager, strongly suggests the Speaker may have been in the loop.

When Mr. Souci asks Mr. Nassi if the candidate (Mr. Donovan) was “good with this,” Mr. Nassi replies, “Yeah. I’m, you know, doing everything I can … you gotta just monitor this s**t all the time.”

That answer would seem to imply that Mr. Donovan approved a scheme to ferry illegal contributions into his campaign by means of proxy contributors. It is difficult to put any other construction on this telling conversation.  In addition, Mr. Soucy may have been wired when he spoke to Mr. Nassi and others, in which case the FBI may have in its custody other incriminating conversation not noted in its indictment.

Confronted several times by reporters in the course of his now underfunded congressional campaign, Mr. Donovan has refused on the advice of his council to discuss matters relating to the FBI’s investigation and prosecution of his former employees.

Possibly, the grown-ups in the Democratic Party do not yet feel that push has come to shove. If so, they are poor readers of the times.

The Devil And Stan Twardy

The Devil, it is sometimes said, lies in the details.

The Devil did not show his hand in the Twardy investigation of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan’s tawdry campaign for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s 5^thDistrict.

Mr. Donovan’s former finance director was arrested by the FBI in a sting operation in which straw contributors, the FBI showed in an arrest affidavit, violated campaign finance regulations. FBI investigators almost certainly are squeezing some of the principals involved in Speakergate to obtain from them information their lawyers have denied to Mr. Twardy.

Virtually all Mr. Donovan’s Republican campaign opponents have said Mr. Donovan either did or did not know that his finance director, Robert Braddock, was, to put it kindly, delinquent in avoiding the near occasion of arrest. If Mr. Donovan knew about the financing irregularities that led to Mr. Braddock’s arrest, he was participating in corrupt activity; and if he did not know, he is not competent, most of his rivals say, to become a U.S. Representative. Mr. Donovan’s Democratic primary opponent, Dan Roberti, has similarly spanked Mr. Donovan.

There is no painless way to escape the perilous jaws of this Either-Or.Former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy's report on Mr. Donovan’s connection with his office is depressingly uninformative.

Mr. Twardy – sidestepping Will Rogers’ apothegm: “It’s not what you know that can hurt you; it’s what you doknow that ain’t so” – has presented Connecticut with a partial investigation. Many of the principals caught up in the FBI investigation refused on advice of council to be interviewed by Mr. Twardy, according to a Hartford Courant story. Any exculpatory conclusion drawn from unexamined facts is bound to be provisional.

The FBI’s investigation of Mr. Donovan’s political operations is certain to be more thorough. Even now, agents of the FBI or the State’s Attorney charged with prosecuting the case are squeezing principals whose lawyers have declined to speak to Mr. Twardy.

Mr. Donovan’s Republican opponent Mark Greenberg , who earlier called upon Mr. Donovan to drop his campaign and resign his Speaker position, issued a statement following Mr. Twardy’s media release that seems pertinent:

“By Mr. Twardy’s own admission, his report is incomplete and it leaves many questions unanswered. Much of the important relevant information was not forthcoming, and the investigation was hampered by the inability of Mr. Twardy to interview or receive documents from the principles in this scandal. People who commit crimes are not often reckless enough to leave a paper or email trail– the absence of such documentation is not surprising and accordingly, the“independent” investigation is certainly not conclusive. Unfortunately, the cloud of this campaign finance scandal will continue to hang over Donovan’s campaign until the federal investigation is concluded.

“Once again, I call on Chris Donovan to suspend his campaign for Congress. Nothing in the internal investigation diminishes the fact that the Speaker either knew or should have known of the illegal activity in his campaign. Whether it is a gross violation of the public trust or gross mismanagement, Chris Donovan is not an individual who should represent Connecticut in the United States Congress.”

The Donovan crisis is still unfolding.