The Los Angeles County Democratic Party tells TPM that it is not sure it will be able to make payroll this month after its treasurer was rung up on federal mail fraud charges for allegedly misappropriating the campaign funds of her clients.
Carol Bartz is out as CEO of Yahoo, reports Kara Swisher.
We just got a hold of the FBI complaint against Kinde Durkee, the California accountant who has been a campaign treasurer for hundreds of Democratic campaigns. The feds charged her late last week with mail fraud for allegedly taking campaign funds from accounts she controlled and using them to pay personal and business expenses as well as cover for shortfalls in the accounts of other campaigns.
The victim in this case is alleged to be the campaign of state Assemblyman Joe Solorio, from whose accounts Durkee allegedly misappropriated more than $600,000, some of which ended up in the campaign accounts of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA). (There is no suggestion in the complaint that the the Sanchez campaign knew of these deposits.)
But the key takeaway from the FBI complaint may be that Durkee admitted, according to the feds, that she has been “misappropriating her clients’ money for years.” So who knows how many other victims there and the amounts of money involved.
Here’s a copy of the complaint. Read More
A California accountant who has served as treasurer for dozens of major Democratic campaigns in that state and nationally has been charged with violating federal mail fraud laws, apparently for her work involving a campaign for state assembly.
Curious to hear more about this from readers in the know. Drop us a line at the tip line at the top right of this page.
Sprint jumps in and files anti-trust lawsuit against the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, too.
New Ron Paul TV ad: Rick Perry was “Al Gore’s Texas cheerleader” — a reference to then-Democrat Perry’s support for Gore’s 1988 run for President.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) declares candidacy for retiring Sen. Herb Kohl’s Senate seat.
I’d missed this article by my friend John Judis from late July. I thought I’d reprint one of the key passages …
THIS IS IMPORTANT because Obama may now be facing his own crisis of the Union. Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today’s Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to, and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.