Attention Floridians! Keep your eye on this story re. Katherine Harris!

[cascadiance]

She's noted only on the periphery now, but Randy "Duke" Cunningham (my Rethuglican Congress Critter) appears to have his days numbered with these pukes working at MZM buying him off so blatantly...

Katherine Harris is one of two other congress critters that these slimeballs have been giving money too (the other being Virgil Goode of Virginia!

If Cunningham goes down hard, which it is starting to look like he will, this will be more ammunition in your bow against Harris when she runs for Senate! Have at her!

From:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20050622-9999-1n22mzm.html


Head "Slimeball" Mitchell Wade

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...
They and other former MZM employees questioned the way Wade solicited contracts from Defense Department intelligence agencies during the time they worked for the company.

They also expressed concerns about Wade's dealings with three House members who received a large portion of the money disbursed by MZM's PAC. The three – all Republicans – are Cunningham and Reps. Virgil Goode of Virginia and Katherine Harris of Florida.

MZM's PAC donated $17,000 to Cunningham from 2000 to 2004. Donations included $12,000 to "Friends of Duke Cunningham" and $5,000 to his leadership PAC, the American Prosperity PAC. During the same period, MZM PAC gave Goode $11,000 and Harris $10,000.

Neither Goode's nor Harris' offices returned calls seeking comment.
...

[zbdent]

1. Like that's going to linger on

"Look over there! Something shiny!"

[cascadiance]

2. Harris offering refunds for MZM contributions (Er, maybe that is...)

Katherine Harris, now looking to be dropped like a bad habit by state Republicans to push someone else, is looking to publicly come out and refund people's contributions at MZM that were forced to contribute to her campaign... Well, unless they weren't force that is... But Katherine, how can we tell if those still employed aren't *still* being forced to keep their contribution active or be punished for it?

From:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050703/COLUMNIST36/507030404

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Tom Lyons — >

Harris' campaign donation refund offer may have strings attached

When U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris learned of press accounts in which some former employees of a defense contractor said they were pressured to donate to her 2004 campaign, her response was interesting.

The Harris campaign had received about $50,000 from MZM Inc. and about 20 of its employees, according to press accounts.

That amount would have grossly violated campaign donation limits had it come only from the company. But individual employees are free to make donations, too.

It is flat-out illegal, however, to coerce employees into making campaign contributions.

....

[cascadiance]

3. Mitch Wade just pled guilty today...

Would appear to be implicating Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris with having received illegal campaign funds from MZM's Mitchell Wade, and even moreso than Duke Cunningham received.

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/02/reps_harris_and.html

February 24, 2006
Reps. Harris And Goode And The Wade Indictment

What Wade Did
The Plea Agreement

The defense contractor who bribed ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (D) says he directed $80K in illegal campaign contributions to two members of Congress. In exchange for the campaign cash, a staffer for one of the members inserted a $9M provision that benefited MZM into an approps bill.

From the indictment: "His solution was to have his employees and their spouses make contributions to these two campaigns under their own names, then reimburse them -- a technique, known as "straw contributions" that is a felony under federal election law when the straw contributions amount to over ten thousand dollars. ... All in all, he made 39 different "straw" contributions, with 19 different employees or spouses. In order to maximize the impact of these contributions, Wade personally handed a number of the campaign contributions, in the form of personal checks from employees and their spouses, to one of the representatives."

Who might those members be?

Well, a San Diego Union Tribune story from '05 suggests that Wade's employees were pressured to donate money to the campaigns of Cunningham, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) and Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA).

Cunningham and Goode were on the defense appropriations subcommittee in '04; Harris was not. At FECINFO.com, we searched for all contributions given by MZM employees in '04.