It's being pushed out of the spotlight by the Alito hearings. I can understand that. However, if the accused in this case were Republican operatives, I am certain that the mainstream media would manage to devote significant space and time to covering this Election Day 2004 crime.
Some background:
Republican rental vehicles vandalized, November 2, 2004
The tires of 20 cars and vans rented by the Republican Party to carry voters to the polls were slashed about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday, Milwaukee police said.
Tire-slashing questions await Democrats' sons, November 4, 2004
Police are planning to question the adult children of two prominent Democrats as early as today in the wide-ranging probe into who, early on election day, slashed the tires of 20 vans and cars rented by the Republican Party.
The investigation has already led to the Tuesday arrest of Opel E. Simmons III, a veteran party activist from Virginia in town to work on John Kerry's presidential campaign. Simmons, 33, was released Thursday afternoon without being charged.
Sources told us that police, who are being assisted by the FBI, plan to speak to Michael Pratt, son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, and Supreme Solar Allah, the son of state Sen. Gwen Moore, who won a seat in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. Allah's given name is Sowande Omokunde, and he lives in Moore's north side home, according to her campaign finance reports.
FBI starts own probe of vandalism of GOP vehicles, November 10, 2004
Federal authorities have launched their own investigation into the election day slashing of tires on 20 vans and cars rented by the Republican Party to carry voters to the polls, officials said Wednesday.
Milwaukee police have arrested and released at least five people - including the 25-year-old son of U.S. Rep.-elect Gwen Moore - on suspicion of felony criminal damage to property, according to police records. Prosecutors have not yet filed formal charges.
Police arrest ex-mayor's son in tire-slashing
Milwaukee police arrested and released Michael J. Pratt, the adult son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, on Thursday in connection with the election day tire-slashing of cars and vans rented by the Republican Party, records show.
Pratt, 32, was booked into the police holding facility at 11:27 a.m. and released at 12:37 a.m., the arrest records show. The allegation is criminal damage to property in excess of $2,500, a felony that carries a maximum penalty of 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Pratt and Sowande Ajumoke Omokunde, 25, the son of U.S. Rep.-elect Gwen Moore, are among six men who have been arrested and released. No charges have been filed. The district attorney's office said the case remains under review.
Federal authorities launched their own investigation this week. FBI agents are to interview potential witnesses who were in Wisconsin for the election but have returned to their home states. There were hundreds of out-of-state paid and volunteer staffers in Wisconsin for the election.
Now, January 2006, the trial is underway.
Five men who worked for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, including Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore's son and the son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, are getting their day in court for felony counts of vandalism in the tire-slashing of more than 20 vehicles rented by Republican campaigners.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that "they face up to 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted of felony property damage in the case."
Should this story be brushed off as a local "irregularity" in the 2004 election? Should it be considered an isolated matter?
That would be very hard to do after the opening statements for the defense.
The Journal Sentinel writes:
The real culprits in the election day 2004 tire slashings of Republican Party vans were emotional Democratic operatives from out of state, lawyers for some of the local men charged in the crime said Tuesday at the start of their trial.
"The out-of-towners, the industry people," played key roles in the tire-slashing but figured out how to shift blame onto the local party workers after John Kerry carried Wisconsin and they left, Craig Mastantuono told jurors in his opening statement.
...Ever since the incident was reported, the case has been fraught with political implications. District Attorney E. Michael McCann was heavily criticized for taking nearly 12 weeks to bring a case against the five men. He said it took so long because many of the people involved were Democratic Party workers who had returned to their out-of-state homes after the election.
Feiss said he will tie the defendants to the crime with cell phone records and the testimony of Democratic staffers about the defendants' own braggadocio.
He quoted Mohammad as having boasted after the attacks: "We got 'em. We got 'em good."
Several of the five defense attorneys tried to undercut the Democratic Party witnesses expected to testify for the state. They blamed Democratic national consultants brought to political battleground Wisconsin from out of state with masterminding - and possibly carrying out - the tire slashings.
Robin Shellow, representing Omokunde, tied the vandalism to reputed bitterness over losing the 2000 presidential election and claimed aggressive protests in the 2004 campaign were linked by strategy to the tire-slashings.
"These aren't just card-carrying staffers," Shellow said of the outside consultants. " . . . They believe the fight is for legitimate democracy, and they're passionate."
"Until Opel Simmons and his team hit Wisconsin, nothing like this had ever happened," said Rodney Cubbie, Pratt's attorney.
Simmons, of Virginia, told investigators he and a fellow national Democratic staffer had gone to Madison the night before the election but returned to Milwaukee to see some of the defendants leave the local party headquarters, return and brag about the vandalism, according to the complaint and prior testimony.
YIKES!
The lawyers' strategy is to place responsibility for this felony on Kerry's national campaign.
The local Dems are blaming the national Dem operatives.
These are the people that are still whining about voter suppression.
This case makes the Wisconsin Democratic Party look terrible. It casts serious doubt on the integrity of the DNC's campaign tactics. It also makes Kerry look bad, even worse than he did in his little blue space suit. After all, he was the one "reporting for duty."
Did Kerry run a dirty campaign?
He did in Wisconsin, where other instances of voter fraud, irregularities, and suppression have been documented.
Kerry won Wisconsin by 11,000 votes. While there is no evidence that the Dems' slimy operations were widespread enough to alter the outcome of the election, that should in no way deflect from the reality that Kerry's win in Wisconsin was tainted.
Now, what was that about a "Culture of Corruption"?
No comments:
Post a Comment