Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Bravely, Rick Green, a Hartford Courant columnist, titled his exculpatory column on the Speaker of the House Chris Donovan scandal, “My Donovan Flip-Flop: Where’s The Proof?” Mr. Green announced that he was “ready to believe Chris Donovan and the former U.S. attorney now vouching for him,” even though a red flag had ben prominently displayed in the partial investigation conducted by   former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy . Mr. Twardy acknowledged in his report that here were holes in his own investigation . Because some of the principals involved in the Donovan scandal declined on the advice of their lawyers to speak to Mr. Twardy, he was unable to interview the finance director arrested by the FBI for having accepted illegal campaign donations, fired by Mr. Donovan, and two other associates in Mr. Donovan’s office allegedly involved in a criminal conspiracy t o disguise the source of the illicit campaign donations, also fired by Mr. Donovan. Mr. Green rushed his opinion pie...

The Devil, it is sometimes said, lies in the details. The Devil did not show his hand in the Twardy investigation of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan’s tawdry campaign for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s 5 th District. Mr. Donovan’s former finance director was arrested by the FBI in a sting operation in which straw contributors, the FBI showed in an arrest affidavit, violated campaign finance regulations. FBI investigators almost certainly are squeezing some of the principals involved in Speakergate to obtain from them information their lawyers have denied to Mr. Twardy.   Virtually all Mr. Donovan’s Republican campaign opponents have said Mr. Donovan either did or did not know that his finance director, Robert Braddock, was, to put it kindly, delinquent in avoiding the near occasion of arrest. If Mr. Donovan knew about the financing irregularities that led to Mr. Braddock’s arrest, he was participating in corrupt activity; and if he did not know, he is not competent, m...

“Embattled” is a word you do not want waltzing around with your name on the eve of a U.S. Congressional election. “Embattled 5th District Congress candidate Chris Donovan,” the Register Citizen reported , “in a taping of WFSB TV’s ‘Face the State’ Thursday, said he has no plans to quit the race even if his campaign’s troubles start to adversely affect other Democrats and party leaders urge him to leave. Mr. Donovan is under scrutiny by the FBI for campaign financing irregularities. His campaign finance director, Robert Braddock, is under arrest for having conspired to hide the identity of certain donors allegedly involved in influence peddling; and other Donovan connected officials, two of whom are directly connected with his U.S. Senate campaign, have been named in an affidavit supporting the arrest of Mr. Braddock. Thanks to some impressive digging and nagging by a host of reporters , the influence peddlers –tagged anonymously in the affidavit as CC1, CC2 and CC3 -- have now bee...

The Donovan sting, now referred to by Tom Dudchik of Capitol Report as “Speakergate,” continues to froth. CC-1 (Co-Conspirator 1), the FBI canary who helped to turn the tables on Robert Braddock, the former finance director of Speaker of the State House Chris Donovan’s U.S. House bid, has now been identified as Ray Soucy, a correctional industries supervisor at the Cheshire prison complex, according to a Hartford Courant story . Just before Mr. Donovan was about to be pummeled over the weekend by Connecticut’s media, the Speaker, who has rejected calls that he quit the state House and terminate his campaign for the U.S. House in Connecticut’s 5th District, fired Mr. Braddock and hired Tom Swan, the director of the left of center Connecticut Citizen Action Group, to replace his former campaign manager, who was also fired. Even as Mr. Swan stepped before the Media to say he had looked Mr. Donovan squarely in the eye and asked him point blank whether he was in any way connected w...