Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager, Jesse Benton, was facing subpoenas for emails and financial transactions before he resigned last Friday from the helm of Senate Republican leader’s reelection effort.
The Center For Responsive Politics reported on Thursday that one of two grand juries investigating an Iowa bribery scandal in the 2012 presidential election had in late July subpoenaed documents from “at least seventeen individuals, including [Ron] Paul, [Michele] Bachmann and Jesse Benton.”
Benton is ensnared in the probe because he was a top aide to Paul’s 2012 campaign. He maintains he’s innocent and said he stepped down from McConnell’s campaign due to “inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors” which he said “risk unfairly undermining” the Republican’s bid.
The probe is about whether Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson (R) was bribed to switch his endorsement from Bachmann to Paul; the switch came after Sorenson received a $25,000 check that was traced to a store linked to another one of Paul’s aides, Dimitri Kesari.
