By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities

U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. followed a public shaming of the former D.C. Council chairman this week with a vow to "ensure public trust" — a pledge sure to be tested as he resolves his probe into Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 campaign, the last in a trio of investigations that blazed a path this year from city hall to the federal courthouse.

The embattled managed-care company owned by the man at the center of a federal probe into D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 campaign was carrying $3 million in unexplained revenue on its books and had transferred $1 million to an unknown recipient, city agency directors said Thursday.

The District has taken over a managed-care company owned by the man at the center of a federal probe into an alleged "shadow campaign" in 2010 that worked on behalf of now-mayor Vincent C. Gray, officials said Friday.

D.C. tax collectors have filed a six-figure lien against a company at the center of a campaign finance probe embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray and raising questions about the fundraising activities of many federal and local candidates during the past decade.

Since funding a lavish half-million-dollar party to celebrate the election of Prince George's County Executive Rushern L. Baker III about 18 months ago, officials at the Bowie-based Path to Greatness have continued to raise thousands of dollars from donors while counting Mr. Baker's wife as a trustee, an arrangement that critics say opens up another avenue for special interests to curry favor with his administration.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown is donating $17,000 in contributions his campaign received from a D.C. contractor now at the center of a fundraising scandal in Washington embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told a local radio station recently that city contractor Jeffrey E. Thompson, the central figure in a deepening campaign scandal involving D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray, didn't bundle any campaign cash for her.

If you believe in free speech as it relates to campaign funding and have any measure of a stake in what happens in the nation's capital, Monday is the day to speak now or risk having your mouth duct-taped.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley last week wiped his hands clean of donations made to his 2010 campaign by businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson.

In sharp contrast with her own Democratic Party's leadership, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton isn't planning with parting with her campaign cash tied to D.C. contractor Jeffrey E. Thompson, a central figure in the fundraising scandal now embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray.

Despite the return by President Obama and the Democratic Party of a tainted $10,000 donation from D.C. fundraiser Jeffrey E. Thompson, dozens of other federal and local campaign committees, Democrat and Republican alike, continue to hold on to tens of thousands of dollars they have received from the contractor now at the center of Mayor Vincent C. Gray's deepening fundraising scandal, records show.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton had strong words for Mayor Vincent C. Gray last week after a longtime political operative pleaded guilty to raising illegal campaign cash to help Mr. Gray defeat Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in 2010.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, one of the nation's largest water utilities, gave a six-figure, no-bid contract to an audit firm with ties to one of the commission's own directors, records show.

A veteran of D.C. government and politics who helped coordinate Mayor Vincent C. Gray's campaign in Ward 8, which voted heavily for Mr. Gray, said this week that official campaign workers were both aware of — and resentful of — what has come to be known as the "shadow campaign" of 2010.

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Thursday said the swirl of suspicion around an off-the-books effort during his 2010 campaign is "as frustrating for me as it is for others."
Mr. Thompson by name but told reporters that the "conspiracy" illegally directed money not only to local contests but to federal campaigns, too.
"Since 2001, this scheme has violated federal and local election law by using straw donors, many of them employees, friends and family members of the conspirators, to make high dollar campaign contributions that would then be reimbursed with personal and corporate money from the conspiracy," he said.