Kent Sorenson
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://leestranahan.com/staffergate-steve-stockman-donny-ferguson-the-montana-connection/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://leestranahan.com/staffergate-steve-stockman-donny-ferguson-the-montana-connection/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1em; font-weight: 500;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">#StafferGate, Steve Stockman, Donny Ferguson & The Montana Connection</font></h1><p class="post-meta" style="margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by <a href="https://leestranahan.com/author/lee/" title="Posts by Lee Stranahan" rel="author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Lee Stranahan</a> | Dec 17, 2013 | <a href="https://leestranahan.com/category/staffergate/" rel="category tag" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Staffergate</a> | </font></p><p class="post-meta" style="margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent">For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been writing, tweeting, and talking about </span><a href="http://leestranahan.com/listen-your-one-hour-guide-to-gop-scandal-staffergate/" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" transparent="transparent" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" outline="outline" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">#Staffergate</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent">; a sweeping scandal that involves dirty, illegal and just plain wrong political shenanigans by key staffers of top name Republican politicians like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Rand Paul Rep. Michele Bachmann, & former Rep. Ron Paul.</span></p><div class="entry-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 30px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The #Staffergate scandal is being moved along by law enforcement interest that’s resulted in <a href="http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/234476391.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">recent FBI raids</a> as well as a continuing Office of Congressional Ethics investigation against Bachmann. So far, the story we’ve presented. The scandal threatens to impact the political fate of both McConnell, who is facing a tough reelection battle in Kentucky as well as the 2016 presidential ambitions of Rand Paul.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now add another ambitious GOP contender to the #Staffergate scandal roster: Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, who recently announced his primary challenge to Sen. John Cornyn.</font></p><div id="attachment_8465" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; padding: 8px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(243, 243, 243); text-align: center; max-width: 96%; float: left; width: 310px;"><a href="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/donnie.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><img class="size-medium wp-image-8465 " alt="donnie" src="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/donnie-300x251.jpg" width="300" height="251" srcset="https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/donnie-300x251.jpg 300w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/donnie.jpg 495w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; border: 3px solid white; outline: 0px; vertical-align: bottom; background: transparent; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></font></a><p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 4px 5px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Stock Senior Advisor Donny Ferguson</font></p></div><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The #staffergate connection is Danny Ferguson, whose <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/donnyferguson" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">LinkedIn resume</a> lists him as “Media Strategist/Senior Adviser at Congressman Steve Stockman” as well as Campaign Manager for Stockman’s 2012 House run.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ferguson is currently ensnared is allegations of campaign wrongdoing in Montana. It’s a story whose bizarre details–including <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/big-sky-big-money/remember-those-campaign-finance-documents-we-found-in-a-meth-house/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">boxes of documents found in a “meth house” in Colorado</a>–have attracted both national media attention and the FBI. It also ties directly to other key players in #Staffergate.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story is significant not just because of the impact on Rep. Steve Stockman for having a close advisor involved in alleged political malfeasance but because it also appears to indicate a multi-state, multi-election pattern of illegal campaign behavior by a top conservative political activism group, The National Right to Work Committee.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1em; font-weight: 500;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">#StafferGate Refresher : Iowa</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A quick refresher on the Iowa end of #Staffergate will help explain what happened in Montana.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just prior to the January, 2012 Republican Iowa Caucasus, a bald. burly, bearded Iowa State Senator named Kent Sorenson suddenly announced he was jumping ship from his position as the State Chair for the Michele Bachmann presidential campaign and told the world of his new allegiance to Ron Paul.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kent Sorenson’s last-minute treachery made national news. Candidate Bachmann said that Sorenson had gone to the Ron Paul campaign for ‘a lot of money’, a charge Sorenson denied. Kent Sorenson even <a href="http://youtu.be/UnZhTEa5thI" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">took to the airwaves</a> and told the world that Bachmann was lying and that he hadn’t taken a nickel.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cut to October 2, 2013. <a href="http://www.kcrg.com/home/top-9/State-Sen-Kent-Sorenson-Resigns-In-Wake-of-Ethics-Allegations-226237881.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Kent Sorenson resigns from office</a> on the heels of a massive ethics report by a special prosecutor in Iowa.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It turns out that when Kent Sorenson said he wasn’t paid by the Ron Paul campaign, he was the one lying. In fact, Sorenson had been paid around $100,000 by the Ron Paul campaign to backstab Bachmann. Worse for Sorsenson; because of Iowa Senate rules, the payment was also likely illegal.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part of that massive payment came in the form <a href="http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/10/03/politics/investigation-kent-sorenson-iowa" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">of a $25,000 check</a> written to Sorenson’s wife by a top Ron Paul staffer named Dimitri Kesari. The Iowa ethics investigation reported included a photo of the check, which Sorenson had not cashed. Dimitri Kesari had written the check from the account of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Designer-Goldsmiths-at-Leesburg-VA/436222790127" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">a jewelry business</a> owned by Kesari’s wife. In <a href="http://youtu.be/JLjQukwNG3M" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">this secretly recorded audio</a>, Sorenson claims that Dimitri Kesari had written the check at a restaurant dinner and given it to Sorenson’s wife while Sorenson was using the restroom.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[vid sorenson]</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[this] brings us to an important question : who is Dimitri Kesari? We’ve already established Kesari is a person who will write a $25,000 check to your wife when you’re in the bathroom in order to buy your defection in a presidential campaign.</font></span></p><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1em; font-weight: 500;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dimitri Kesari & The Secret Iowa Printing Presses</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dimitri Kesari is a longtime political operative with extensive ties to both the National Right to Work Committee and the Ron Paul movement. Kesari has <a href="http://www.bizapedia.com/people/DIMITRI-KESARI.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">set up groups</a>connected to both Paul’s Campaign for Liberty as well as affiliates of the NRTWC.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>So, how does this all Iowa activity relate to Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, his campaign manager / senior advisor Danny Ferguson, and the trouble in Montana?</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To understand that, you need to know about the secret printing presses that Dimitri Kesari is said to have set up in Iowa.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sources close to Dimitri Kesari say that a few years ago, he bought Risograph machines for use in Iowa politics. If you aren’t familiar with a Risograph, it’s a device that Wikipedia describes thusly:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 20px 0px 30px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(36, 79, 86); border-image: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; quotes: none;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For schools, clubs, colleges, political campaigns and other short-run print jobs, the Risograph bridges the gap between a standard photocopier (which is cheaper up to about 50 copies) and using a commercial printer (cheaper over about 10,000 copies).</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The secret Iowa printing operation allowed Kesari to coordinate political mailings for candidates using voter lists that were targeted using surveys that had been conducted by, among other, groups connected to the National Right to Work Committee. Sources involved say that these mailings were done in Iowa ‘off the books’; not listed an expense as required by election law on the candidates expenditure records.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the political campaigns that is alleged to have made use of Dimitri Kesari’s illicit campaign printing and mailing services is that of Kent Sorenson.</font></p><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1em; font-weight: 500;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cut to Montana.</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to the 2010 elections, National Right to Work Committee operative Dimitri Kesari contacts the Montana Right to Work chapter and says they are moving a new field rep into the state. The new rep sent into Montana is a man named<b> Christian LeFer.</b> LeFer’s <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlefer" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">LinkedIn page</a> says he worked with the National Right to Work Committee from 2004 until 2011.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlefer" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8464" alt="clf" src="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/clf.jpg" width="640" height="246" srcset="https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/clf.jpg 640w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/clf-300x115.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: bottom; background: transparent; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Dimitri Kesari & NRTWC put Christian LeFer into place in Montana, two things happen. LeFer begins to set up a new entity: a 501(c)(4) group called Western Tradition Partnership. This <a href="http://www.zoominfo.com/s/#!search/profile/person?personId=1865181266&targetid=profile" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">ZoomInfo page</a> lists LeFer as Director of Strategic Programming. As a 501(c)(4), WTP had restrictions. As a PBS / ProPublica report explains:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 20px 0px 30px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(36, 79, 86); border-image: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; quotes: none;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social welfare nonprofits like WTP are allowed to engage in some political activity, but IRS regulations say they must have social welfare as their primary purpose. ProPublica has extensively reported on how some of these nonprofits, known as 501(c)(4)’s after their section of the tax code, appear to exploit gaps in enforcement between the Internal Revenue Service and election authorities so they don’t have to disclose where they get their money.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When WTP applied for recognition of its tax-exempt status, the group also told the IRS under penalty of perjury that it would not directly or indirectly attempt to influence elections.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Western Tradition Partnership named a friend of Christian LeFer as their Executive Director; Donny Ferguson. After leaving WTP in 2011, Donny Ferguson went to become Texas Rep. Steve Stockman Campaign Manager and Senior Advisor.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second thing that happened after Dimitri Kesari and the National Right to Work Committee brought in Christian LeFer as the Montana field rep is that LeFer’s wife Allison set up a new printing and mailing company. The company was called Direct Mail and it did campaign mailings.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Don’t worry, we’re almost to the part about the documents found in the Colorado meth house. That’s the boxes of documents that Christian and Alison LeFer would later sue the state of Montana over. Two of boxes of documents are currently in possession of the FBI. Almost there.</font></span></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx pix doc</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://leestranahan.com/2014/01/">https://leestranahan.com/2014/01/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Behold: National Right to Work Committee’s 2010 Iowa “Target List”</font></font></font></font></div><div>by Lee Stranahan | Jan 26, 2014 | Staffergate | </div><div>
</div><div>The National Right to Work Committee is a 501(c)(4) organization. They are not supposed to be engaged in direct or indirect campaign activity for candidates.</div><div>
</div><div>So why did they need a detailed spreadsheet called the “Iowa Target List” that goes into detail about each race?</div><div>
</div><div>Look at the National Right to Work Committee’s 2010 Iowa Target List here. </div><div>
</div><div>The list was attached to this email in 2010. Laura Lee worked at National Right to Work Committee, as did Gamble, Fusaro and Coburn.</div><div>
</div><div>From: Jared Gamble <jaredgamble gmail.com="gmail.com" /></div><div>Date: Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 2:36 PM</div><div>Subject: Please Forward to Lauren Lee</div><div>To: Jedd Coburn <jnc nrtw.org="nrtw.org">Cc: Dennis Fusaro <midamericartw gmail.com="gmail.com" /></jnc></div><div>
</div><div>Hi Jedd,</div><div>
</div><div>Can you please forward this to Luaren Lee, I forgot her email address.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Jared</div><div>— </div><div></div><div>Jared J. Gamble</div><div>jaredgamble@gmail.com</div><div>Phone: 401-633-5185</div><div>Their IRS 990s forms say that they don’t engage in direct or indirect campaign activity on behalf of candidates.</div><div>
</div><div>2010-990s</div><div>
</div><div>And it’s signed by President Mark Mix.</div><div>
</div><div>MARK MIX</div><div>
</div><div> Stafford Email: Activities Done With “A Wink And A Nod By The Top”</div><div>Stafford Email: Activities Done With “A Wink And A Nod By The Top”</div><div>by Lee Stranahan | Jan 23, 2014 | Staffergate | 0 comments</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>
</div><div>Sen. Rand Paul & Doug Stafford</div><div>Sen. Rand Paul & Doug Stafford</div><div>
</div><div>It’s the sort of admission almost never seen in writing.</div><div>
</div><div>A 2009 email sent by National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford shows a clear intent to skirt the law by creating plausible deniability for NRTW President Mark Mix.</div><div>
</div><div>The illegal campaign activities of the National Right to Work Committee often filter through state groups. In Iowa, for example, whistleblower Dennis Fusaro ran MidAmerica Right To Work.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2009, Fusaro was concerned about questionable activities he was seeing and went over the head of Stafford to President Mark Mix. In an email rebuking Fusaro, Stafford admits to the deceptive purpose of the structure in writing:</div><div>
</div><div>Why did you believe you should give Mark knowledge of something of a nature we try to keep from his desk? (one of the reasons the groups are LEGALLY SEPARATE by the way). It’s not done to “cover” for anyone, or Travis, or whatever. It’s done to keep the legal head of one group from having involvement in the legal issues of another group.</div><div>
</div><div>Later in the short email, Stafford makes the shell game even more clear and says it’s done to benefit Mix.</div><div>
</div><div>Some of the things the state groups do are done with a wink and a nod by the top. You are compromising those things by approaching them the way you are/have. The reason I ask you to ask DNK or ME for something is so that I can decide what is not in MARK’s best interest to have to know or approve — or not. It’s not done for my benefit. It’s done for HIS benefit. He knows how much we spend in IA. He does not always know the exact expenditure. And there are reasons for that, and he knows that. But when you bring the specifics over my head to him, you blow the entire thing up.</div><div>DEVELOPING…</div><div>
</div><div>[su_box style=”soft” box_color=”#fcf1f1? title_color=”#000000? title=”Here is the complete email”]</div><div>
</div><div>From: Doug Stafford <das nrtw.org="nrtw.org" /></div><div>Date: Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 7:35 AM</div><div>Subject: 2 other items</div><div>To: Den Fusaro <midamericartw gmail.com="gmail.com" /></div><div>
</div><div>2 things I’d like your answer to, either by email now or if you prefer when we talk. </div><div>1. Why did you not tell ME there was a problem with Sorenson’s ticket? Instead you went to Mark, who by the way, is not going to do anything but come to me and ask me to solve it, which is what he did. </div><div>Did DNK know about it before you went to Mark? Why did you believe you should give Mark knowledge of something of a nature we try to keep from his desk? (one of the reasons the groups are LEGALLY SEPARATE by the way). It’s not done to “cover” for anyone, or Travis, or whatever. It’s done to keep the legal head of one group from having involvement in the legal issues of another group. Do you not understand that?? How long do you have to do this before you do?</div><div>2. Why did you ask Mark for more money for IGO after asking me, and receiving, the money for the mailing? </div><div>Some of the things the state groups do are done with a wink and a nod by the top. You are compromising those things by approaching them the way you are/have. The reason I ask you to ask DNK or ME for something is so that I can decide what is not in MARK’s best interest to have to know or approve — or not. It’s not done for my benefit. It’s done for HIS benefit. He knows how much we spend in IA. He does not always know the exact expenditure. And there are reasons for that, and he knows that. But when you bring the specifics over my head to him, you blow the entire thing up.</div><div>I’d like your thoughts on these matters, by email or by phone, ASAP today.</div><div>[/su_box]</div><div>
</div><div> Secret Audio: Top Rand Paul Staffer Doug Stafford Managing Illegal Campaign Op</div><div>Secret Audio: Top Rand Paul Staffer Doug Stafford Managing Illegal Campaign Op</div><div>by Lee Stranahan | Jan 23, 2014 | Uncategorized | 0 comments</div><div>
</div><div>dougandrand</div><div>Sen. Rand Paul & Doug Stafford</div><div>
</div><div>A secretly recorded audio conversation from 2010 shows National Right to Work Vice President Doug Stafford managing the vast illegal campaign operation that took place in multiple states over a period of years. The recording was made by whistleblower and former NRTW employee Dennis Fusaro, who was ostensibly in charge of Iowa during 2010.</div><div>
</div><div>Stafford is a key staffer for Sen. Rand Paul. He was an advisor to Paul during 2010, while at the same time working as a V.P. for National Right to Work. Currently, Doug Stafford is the head of Rand Paul’s Rand PAC and is calling the shots in the run-up to Paul’s potential Presidential run.</div><div>
</div><div>The National Right To Work Committee is a 501(c)(4). Their required IRS 990 forms for the year 2010 claim the group was not involved in direct campaign activity, as shown in Part IV, question 3.</div><div>
</div><div>2010-990s</div><div>
</div><div>The unedited audio leaves no doubt whatsoever that Stafford was managing and intimately familiar with direct campaign activity that was being coordinated with candidates.</div><div>
</div><div>The 20+ minute audio speaks for itself but here are some highlights to note.</div><div>
</div><div>Key NRTW staffers mentioned throughout are Dimitri Kesari and Jerad Gamble, who ran the day-to-day operations of the illegal writing, printing and mailing program.</div><div>
</div><div>[su_list icon=”icon: microphone” icon_color=”#900938?]</div><div>
</div><div>At 1:30, Stafford says that ‘a large portion of the Mail Operation will be moving with Dimitri to Indiana.’</div><div>At 2:00, Stafford says ‘four years of election cycles of having Dimitri and his guys run the mail shop, shows me that that’s who needs to be running the mail shop.’</div><div>At 3:25 mentions ‘as per Mark’s direction’ moving people to Indiana. This appears to indicate that NRTW President Mark Mix was aware of the mail operation.</div><div>At 6:40, Stafford asks about the status of the candidate mailings.</div><div>At 10:10, Stafford says “We’re seriously sending out 2,000,000 pieces of mail.” It’s unclear whether this refers to legal activity, such as surveys or the direct campaign activity.</div><div>At 12:00, Stafford and Fusaro discuss enticing candidates to join the NRTW mail program.</div><div>At 13:00 Stafford discusses how the house Republicans in Iowa didn’t like the NRTW mail program and how candidates who used the NRTW program were ‘bucking the party.”</div><div>At 16:30, Stafford discusses the decision to move the secret printing operation from Iowa to Indiana.</div><div>17:50, Stafford discusses how postage will be handled for six candidates; they will pay for postage since it’s third class mail.</div><div>[/su_list]</div><div>
</div><div>Here is the audio:</div><div>
</div><div>[su_audio url=”http://stran-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/doug-mail.mp3?]</div><div>
</div><div>DEVELOPING…</div><div>
</div><div> College Students Used For Illegal Campaign Activity By Right Wing Group</div><div>College Students Used For Illegal Campaign Activity By Right Wing Group</div><div>by Lee Stranahan | Jan 23, 2014 | Staffergate | 0 comments</div><div>
</div><div>Christian LeFer</div><div>Christian LeFer</div><div>
</div><div>The National Right to Work Committee’s massive illegal campaign activity involved manipulating and using college students in Montana, a report issued in October, 2010 shows. The incidents involved National Right to Work employee Christian LeFer, who set up front groups in Montana in 2008. LeFer and his wife Allie also ran a print shop there.</div><div>
</div><div>I’ve previously written about LeFer and the Montana scheme in my article #StafferGate, Steve Stockman, Donny Ferguson & The Montana Connection. That piece provides a good primer to some of the other activities in states like Iowa.</div><div>
</div><div>[su_pullquote align=”right”]NRTW isn’t above ensnaring college students…[/su_pullquote]Part of the NRTW’s pattern of illegal campaign activities involves setting up front groups in order to mask their activities and move money around. LeFer set up two front groups:Western Tradition Partnership (referred to in the report WTP) and the Coalition for Energy and the Environment (referred to as CEE.)</div><div>
</div><div>I’ve phoned Mr. LeFer twice. He declined to speak to me.</div><div>
</div><div>The report’s charges give an indication of illegal campaign activities that the National Right to Work Committee has been involved in other than the candidate letter writing, printing and mailing program I’ve written about.</div><div>
</div><div>The report states that charges were filed in Montana againt :.</div><div>
</div><div>Western Tradition Partnership (WTP) and the Coalition for Energy and the Environment (CEE), alleging a flyer produced and distributed by one or both of the groups failed to include proper “paid for by. . .” attribution language, in violation of Montana campaign finance and practices laws. The complaint against WTP also alleges that the person responsible for the flyer failed to provide public disclosure by registering and filing campaign finance reports with the office of the Commissioner of Political Practices</div><div>
</div><div>The report says that</div><div>
</div><div>The evidence is overwhelming that CEE was established by WTP as a sham organization to create the illusion that WTP was not directly involved in campaign activities directly opposing candidates for public office. The evidence shows that WTP?s ultimate purpose in Montana in 2008 was not to discuss issues, but to directly influence candidate elections through surreptitious means.</div><div>
</div><div>I’ve written about National Right To Work’s willingness to involve wives and daughters in their illegality. The Montana report shows they aren’t above ensnaring college students, either.</div><div>
</div><div>Fawn Kirkpatrick</div><div>The report says:</div><div>
</div><div>On June 11, 2008, CEE filed a Statement of Organization (Form C-2) with CPP as a political action committee (PAC). Fawn Kirkpatrick, who at the time was a student at Montana State University – Bozeman, was listed as the Treasurer.</div><div>
</div><div>According to her LinkedIn account, Ms. Kirkpatrick is now a law student:</div><div>
</div><div>fawk-li</div><div>
</div><div>The Montana commission-the CPP- was looking into Finance report filed by the CEE.</div><div>
</div><div> The report listed MSU student Fawn Kirkpatrick as Treasurer (see Fact 25), but was not signed. CPP staff members were unable to contact Kirkpatrick – her email and telephone contact information listed on the previously filed Statement of Organization (Form C-2) was found to be incorrect. The report listed a $2,000 contribution from treasurer Fawn Kirkpatrick…</div><div>
</div><div>The idea being that many college students write $2,000 checks to start political groups.</div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Kirkpatrick soon left the group. LeFer was forced to find a replacement.</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>
</div><div>Brian Witt</div><div>The report shows how LeFer ensnared another MSU student named Brian Witt. Christian LeFer sweet talked Witt.</div><div>
</div><div>Witt stated he was a student at MSU- Bozeman and spoke to a friend about becoming active in politics. The friend introduced Witt to Christian LeFer, who convinced Witt to become Treasurer of CEE.</div><div>
</div><div>According to Witt, LeFer told him it would “look great” on his resume, and he wouldn?t have to do anything – that LeFer would prepare all the necessary reports for Witt?s signature.</div><div>
</div><div>Witt claims he only signed reports and correspondence that were prepared by others and submitted to him. He was not involved in compiling the reports or drafting the correspondence, he said.</div><div>
</div><div>When Witt was interviewed by investigators, he reveal the extent of the LeFer’s actual participation in the groups.</div><div>
</div><div>Witt also provided copies of email exchanges between him and Christian LeFer which establish that LeFer was affiliated with and closely involved in the activities of WTP and CEE.</div><div>
</div><div>An October 5, 2008 email from LeFer directs Witt to contact CPP and “find out what it takes to switch a treasurer . . .”</div><div>An October 6, 2008 email discusses the submission of an amended campaign finance form to CPP.</div><div>An October 22, 2008 email from LeFer to Witt includes as an attachment an attack mailer that was sent out against Brad Hamlett. (See Fact 2, Exhibit 1.)</div><div>A November 26, 2008 email from Allison LeFer (see Fact 62) to Witt states: “I have had the guy who handles PAC filings compile yours. I wanted to get them to you for your signature so you can drop them off in the mail.”</div><div>An email from Christian LeFer to Witt dated December 17, 2008, includes as an attachment a letter to CPP from Witt responding to the complaint filed against WTP and CEE. The email instructed Witt to sign the letter and fax it to CPP, followed with a hard copy to CPP.</div><div>DEVELOPING…</div><div>
</div><div> Email Shows National Right To Work Committee’s “Gameplan” States For 2010</div><div>Email Shows National Right To Work Committee’s “Gameplan” States For 2010</div><div>by Lee Stranahan | Jan 23, 2014 | Staffergate | 0 comments</div><div>
</div><div>A May 2010 email from National Right To Work Employee Jerad Gamble shows staffers and operatives being assigned to Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa and Montana.</div><div>
</div><div>The exuberant email was CC’d to Dimitri Kesari and says that Gamble and Kesari think the “dynamics of the team are great.’ Many, if not all, of the people mentioned in the email would go on to play roles in the National Right To Work Committee’s illegal ‘mail program’ that wrote, printed and mailed campaign letters for candidates.</div><div>
</div><div>The list of people included in the email includes:</div><div>
</div><div>Christian & Allison LeFer would go to Montana. Eventually, they would sue to try and get boxes of documents found in a Colorado meth house related to the National Right to Work ‘mail program’ that they claimed belonged to them. They would lose the case. Big time.</div><div>
</div><div>Conservative political consultant Christian LeFer, a former WTP official, and his wife, Allison LeFer, who helped run the couple’s printing shop, sued Montana’s former Commissioner of Political Practices Jim Murry and the state of Montana to recover the documents.</div><div>
</div><div>On Tuesday, the LeFers lost in almost every way possible. They didn’t get their documents. They didn’t get any money; instead, they’ll have to pay Murry’s fees, which haven’t yet been totaled. They won’t be able to file their complaint against Murry ever again.</div><div>
</div><div>And on every page of his ruling, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy seemed to somehow insult them.</div><div>
</div><div>At one point in his 34-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy referred to “the procedural morass caused by the LeFers’ posturing.” Since last fall, the LeFers have filed at least five separate complaints in different courts, sometimes with factual errors.</div><div>
</div><div> Brenden Boudreau who would go on to head the NRTW operation in Kentucky.</div><div>
</div><div>People like Betsy DeFord & Rocco Moffa would also be mentioned in other emails about the NRTW mail program.</div><div>
</div><div>Here’s the complete email:</div><div>From: Jared Gamble <jaredgamble gmail.com="gmail.com" /></div><div>Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 12:32 PM</div><div>Subject: Game Plan</div><div>To: Josh Pearson <josh.j.pearson gmail.com="gmail.com">, Rocco Moffa <moeroffa yahoo.com="yahoo.com">, ryan flowers <pope94 hotmail.com="hotmail.com">, Shaun Bowen <bowen161 gmail.com="gmail.com">, Samuel Haun <zsgh6 goldmail.etsu.edu="goldmail.etsu.edu">, Jennifer Winters <jennybeth5 gmail.com="gmail.com">, caceyariana@gmail.com, Betsy DeFord <betsydeford gmail.com="gmail.com">, Brenden Boudreau <brenden.boudreau gmail.com="gmail.com">, Nick Seligh <nickseligh gmail.com="gmail.com">, gabriel.sukenik@gmail.com, Jeremy Dahl <jeremybdahl gmail.com="gmail.com">, Ross Phar <rlp22 case.edu="case.edu" /></jeremybdahl></nickseligh></brenden.boudreau></betsydeford></jennybeth5></zsgh6></bowen161></pope94></moeroffa></josh.j.pearson></div><div>Cc: Dimitri Kesari <dkesari aol.com="aol.com">, Dennis Fusaro <midamericartw gmail.com="gmail.com">, allison@directmailwins.com, Allison LeFer <allison brownmugs.com="brownmugs.com">, Christian LeFer <christian christianlefer.com="christianlefer.com" /></allison></midamericartw></dkesari></div><div>
</div><div>Congrats Everyone!!!</div><div>What a week of History, and you get to say you were a part of it. Nice job! Dimitri and I feel the dynamics of the team are great and we cannot wait to continue onward to Iowa and Montana.</div><div>Here’s the Gameplan:</div><div>Headed to Kentucky/Indiana: Nick, you are going to stay here and help Rob out.</div><div>Headed to Iowa: Josh, Rocco, Ryan, Brenden, Betsy, Gabe, Jeremy, and Ross.</div><div>Iowa Address:</div><div>1100 North Hickory BLVD</div><div>Suit 104</div><div>Pleasant Hill, IA 50327</div><div>Headed to Montana: Jenny, Casey, Shaun, and Sam.</div><div>Montana Address: Call Allie Lefer for an address. Allie’s phone: 406-461-6917</div><div>If you guys want to hang out down here for a day or two that is fine. You are welcome to make your way up to the state you are going to anytime. For those coming to Iowa, plan on being there by Friday evening, May 21, the latest. For those going to Montana, plan on showing up no later than Saturday evening, May 22.</div><div>If you need anything from me at all, please call me, as I will be on the road today and tomorrow.</div><div>Other than that, enjoy what little time we have off and drive safe! Awesome work Everyone!</div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Jared</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>Jared J. Gamble</div><div>jaredgamble@gmail.com</div><div>Phone: 401-633-5185</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://leestranahan.com/2014/02/">https://leestranahan.com/2014/02/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 style="margin: 30px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 1em; font-weight: 500; font-family: Nunito, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif;"><a href="https://leestranahan.com/computer-records-appear-to-tie-stockman-to-501c4-behind-fake-newspaper/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(205, 92, 92);">Fake Newspaper</a></h2><p class="post-meta" style="margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">by <a href="https://leestranahan.com/author/lee/" title="Posts by Lee Stranahan" rel="author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Lee Stranahan</a> | Feb 27, 2014 | <a href="https://leestranahan.com/category/staffergate/" rel="category tag" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Staffergate</a> | <span class="comments-number" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"><a href="https://leestranahan.com/computer-records-appear-to-tie-stockman-to-501c4-behind-fake-newspaper/#respond" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">0 comments</a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Records found on the website for a 501(c)(4) group called the Center for the America Future indicate that donations made to the group are going to Steve Stockman’s Senate campaign.</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/02/26/Pro-Stockman-Fake-Paper" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(205, 92, 92);">I broke the story on Breitbart Texas</a> on Wednesday that a fake newspaper called <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Conservative News</em>had been sent to people in Houston and Austin. The paper attacked Sen. John Cornyn and supported primary challenger Rep. Steve Stockman and did not have the FEC required “Paid For By” notice. I reported that the website connected to the newspaper was commissioned by longtime Stockman associate Jay Posey.</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now, records discovered on the website are are even more explicit connection to the Stockman campaign. The records contains names and addresses of donors, along with the amount of their donation. Each donation record reads:</p><blockquote style="margin: 20px 0px 30px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(36, 79, 86); border-image: initial; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; quotes: none; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 1.7em;">description => Stockman for Senate 2014 Donation</p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’ve confirmed a number of names and addresses on the list and they all appear to be real people from several different states.</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here’s a few redacted examples:</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record3.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(205, 92, 92);"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8756" alt="stockman-record3" src="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record3.jpg" width="1326" height="591" srcset="https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record3.jpg 1326w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record3-300x133.jpg 300w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record3-1024x456.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1326px) 100vw, 1326px" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: bottom; background: transparent; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a><a href="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record2.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(205, 92, 92);"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8757" alt="stockman-record2" src="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record2.jpg" width="959" height="727" srcset="https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record2.jpg 959w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record2-300x227.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 959px) 100vw, 959px" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: bottom; background: transparent; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a><a href="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record1.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(205, 92, 92);"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8758" alt="stockman-record1" src="http://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record1.jpg" width="1291" height="631" srcset="https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record1.jpg 1291w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record1-300x146.jpg 300w, https://leestranahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stockman-record1-1024x500.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1291px) 100vw, 1291px" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: bottom; background: transparent; max-width: 100%; height: auto;" /></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 1.7em; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-family: Bitter, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">DEVELOPING:</p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/rand-paul-2016-kent-sorenson-iowa/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/rand-paul-2016-kent-sorenson-iowa/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/rand-paul-2016-kent-sorenson-iowa</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><div id="node-body-top" class="clear-block" style="line-height: 28px; width: 630px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="">Update, 8/5/15:</strong> The Justice Department has indicted Paul world operatives Dimitri Kesari, John Tate, and Jesse Benton on numerous charges including making false statements, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice in connection with the alleged scheme to payoff then-Iowa state senator Kent Sorenson for his endorsement of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid. Read the indictment <a href="http://http//www.justice.gov/opa/file/643166/download" target="blank" sites="sites" all="all" assets="assets" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-shadow: white -1px 0px 0px, white 0px 1px 0px, white 1px 0px 0px, white 0px -1px 0px, white -1px -1px 0px, white 1px 1px 0px, white 1px -1px 0px, white -1px 1px 0px; background-image: url(">here</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="section-lead" style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On December 26, 2011,</span></span> a week before Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, an influential Republican state senator named Kent Sorenson and his wife, Shawnee, arrived at a steak house in Altoona, a suburb of Des Moines. A goateed Mr. Clean look-alike,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Sorenson was a hot commodity. His deep ties to the state's<b> evangelical leaders and home-schooling activists</b> made his endorsement highly sought after by GOP presidential hopefuls, particularly the second-tier contenders who had staked their campaigns on a strong Iowa showing. Sorenson had picked his horse early, signing on as Michele Bachmann's Iowa chairman in June 2011—a coup for the Minnesota congresswoman's upstart campaign.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joining the Sorensons was a bespectacled political operative named Dimitri Kesari, the deputy campaign manager of Rep. Ron Paul's 2012 presidential bid. As caucus day neared, Ron Paul's campaign was surging in the polls but needed a late boost if he wanted to meet his goal of finishing in the top three.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's where <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1684038-kent-sorenson-plea-agreement.html#document/p17/a207090" target="blank" sites="sites" all="all" assets="assets" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-shadow: white -1px 0px 0px, white 0px 1px 0px, white 1px 0px 0px, white 0px -1px 0px, white -1px -1px 0px, white 1px 1px 0px, white 1px -1px 0px, white -1px 1px 0px; background-image: url(">Sorenson came in</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the state senator left to use the restroom,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Kesari produced a $25,000 check—drawn from the account of Designer Goldsmiths, a jewelry store run by his wife—and gave it to Shawnee Sorenson. Two days later, Kent Sorenson left a Bachmann campaign event, drove straight to a Ron Paul rally, and declared that he had defected.</span></font></p><div class="pullquote-left" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top: 10px solid black; position: relative; width: 283.5px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; letter-spacing: -1px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; left: -55px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 20px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It'</font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As it turned out, Paul's inner circle had been secretly negotiating for months to lure Sorenson away from the Bachmann campaign. In an October memo to Paul campaign manager <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John Tate</span>, a Sorenson ally outlined the state senator's demands, which included an $8,000-a-month payment for nearly a year, another $5,000-a-month check for a colleague of Sorenson's, and a $100,000 donation to Sorenson's political action committee. The memo explained that these payments would not only secure Sorenson's support in the near term but also <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">help to "build a major state-based movement that will involve far more people into a future Rand Paul presidential run." Kesari's $25,000 check, in other words, amounted to more than a down payment on an endorsement for Ron Paul; it was an investment in Rand Paul 2016.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kentucky senator officially declared his candidacy on Tuesday. With the 2016 Iowa caucuses nine months away, this scheme could become a liability for the latest Paul presidential enterprise. The Sorenson deal exploded into public view in 2013, thanks to a pair of whistleblowers from the Ron Paul and Bachmann campaigns, and the episode now hangs over Rand Paul and his inner circle like a dark cloud.</font></p></div><div id="node-body-break" style=""><div id="node-body-bottom" style="line-height: 28px; width: 630px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Sorenson scandal has sparked state and federal <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1684033-kent-sorenson-iowa-ethics-investigation-report.html" target="blank" sites="sites" all="all" assets="assets" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-shadow: white -1px 0px 0px, white 0px 1px 0px, white 1px 0px 0px, white 0px -1px 0px, white -1px -1px 0px, white 1px 1px 0px, white 1px -1px 0px, white -1px 1px 0px; background-image: url(">investigations</a>.<b> After resigning his seat in 2013, Sorenson <a href="http://theiowarepublican.com/2014/sorenson-pleads-guilty-to-concealing-federal-campaign-expenditures/" target="blank" sites="sites" all="all" assets="assets" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; text-shadow: white -1px 0px 0px, white 0px 1px 0px, white 1px 0px 0px, white 0px -1px 0px, white -1px -1px 0px, white 1px 1px 0px, white 1px -1px 0px, white -1px 1px 0px; background-image: url(">pleaded guilty</a> last year to two criminal charges for which he faces up to 25 years in prison</b>. The episode involves central figures in the Paul family's political apparatus, including Kesari and Jesse Benton, who served in senior roles on Rand and Ron Paul's recent campaigns. (Benton is also married to Ron Paul's granddaughter and Rand's niece.) And it has pulled back the curtain on the roguish band of advisers, political organizers, and fundraisers whose sometimes sketchy tactics have fueled Rand Paul's political ascent. This crew—call it Paul World—reflects the damn-the-rules, libertarian worldview of the candidate himself. But as Paul may find out, the brash operatives largely responsible for his political rise could end up posing a major threat to his presidential ambitions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It's a strange universe," says a conservative strategist who's well acquainted with members of the Pauls' inner circle. <b>"You've got the real <em>Star Wars</em> cantina identified—Hammerhead, Greedo—and let's be honest, a lot of these guys would not have work in the mainstream, even in the tea party."</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many of the central players in Paul World hail from the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> National Right to Work Committee</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the leading anti-union group where these operatives spent their formative political years.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Doug Stafford, who is Rand Paul's Karl Rove, is a former NRTWC vice president. John Tate, Ron Paul's former campaign manager, worked with Stafford at the NRTWC; he is now the president of Campaign for Liberty, the political group founded by the elder Paul. <b>Kesari—</b>described by someone who knows him as "like Radar from <em>MAS*</em><em>H</em>"—previously led the NRTWC's government affairs department. Mike Rothfeld headed the committee's direct-mail operation in the late '80s and early '90s; he now runs the fundraising firm of choice for Rand Paul's PAC, as well as the NRTWC and Campaign for Liberty.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">...</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">graphic]</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thanks in large part to this crew, Rand Paul has broken into the political mainstream, a feat never achieved by his father.</b> But some of the operatives who have formed the backbone of his machine have at times thought little of stretching the rules to win elections and acquire power. And their past tactics may come back to haunt Paul during what could be the most important campaign of his political career.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="section-lead" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 400;">Of the GO</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 400;">P</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 400;">‘s</span></span> current presidential hopefuls, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is most closely associated with an anti-union agenda, due to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/wisconsin-supreme-court-walker-union" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">his 2011 law</a> curbing collective bargaining for the state’s public-sector unions. But the Republican whose policy stances pose the most direct threat to labor is Rand Paul. In the eyes of the National Right to Work Committee, one former NRTWC staffer told me, “he is the golden child.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After Paul was sworn into the Senate in 2011, one of the first pieces of legislation he cosponsored was the National Right-to-Work Act, the committee’s holy grail.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The bill—also championed by Ron Paul—would make every state in the union a so-called <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">right-to-work state </a>and eviscerate organized labor as we know it. (Twenty-five states currently have such laws, banning unions from collecting dues from nonmembers to pay for representing those workers and bargaining on their behalf.) Since 2013, Paul has twice more introduced the <a href="https://www.opencongress.org/bill/s504-112/show" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">legislation.</a> (The bill never has gotten out of committee.)</span></font></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_3" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-11" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><div class="mj-floating-ad-wrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; min-height: 282px; right: calc(0px + 6rem); position: absolute; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 1212px;"><div class="pullquote-right" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 273px; margin: 0.75rem 0px 1.25rem 2rem; padding: 1rem 0px 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top: 12px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; letter-spacing: -1px; float: right;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kent Sorenson, for his part, isn’t holding anything back. “He’s cooperating and answering their questions about all the information that he knows.”</font></div><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He has frequently <a href="http://righttoworkcommittee.org/facebook/randpaulforward.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">lent his name</a> to NRTWC fundraising emails and <a href="http://righttoworkcommittee.org/rprtwa_petition.aspx" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">petitions</a> drumming up support for the bill and the group. Days after Paul took office,<a href="http://righttoworkcommittee.org/facebook/randpaulforward.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px"> an NRTWC email blast</a> went out under his name spelling out his intentions: “They snickered when I said I came to the US Senate to change Congress,” it reads. “But their laughter stopped when I sponsored the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> National Right to Work Act to free US workers from forced unionization and break Big Labor’s multi-billion dollar political machine forever.”</span></font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Paul has credited John Tate, a former NRTWC vice president, with playing a “crucial role” in assembling his 2010 Senate campaign, including introducing Paul to Stafford, now his closest adviser.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <b>NRTWC <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00395533&cycle=2010" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">donated</a> $7,500 to that campaign and deployed field staffers and other personnel to Kentucky to support Paul during his primary fight against establishment-backed Trey Grayson.</b> In an <a href="http://leestranahan.com/email-shows-national-right-to-work-committees-gameplan-states-for-2010/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">email sent </a>the day after Paul’s primary upset, an NRTWC staffer congratulated the committee’s field organizers: “What a week of History, and you get to say you were a part of it. Nice job!”</span></font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Just as the libertarian-leaning Pauls have worn the Republican label with unease, the 60-year-old NRTWC hasn’t always played well with the conservative movement or the GOP. (The mantra inside NRTWC, says an ex-staffer from the 1990s, was: “We’re Right-to-Work. We hate everybody.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">) The group’s origins on the far right (its longest-serving president, Reed Larson, was affiliated with the John Birch Society) and fixation solely on defeating labor unions created a cultlike atmosphere in which even allies on the right were viewed with suspicion. “There has been a culture from the beginning of isolation and hyper-self-reliance,” says a former NRTWC senior staffer. “It’s the hermit kingdom of the conservative movement.”</span></font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the committee gained respect for its brutally efficient political operation. It was one of the first outside groups to create an in-house phone bank to influence elections around the country, an operation that proved so successful that NRTWC spun it off into a stand-alone firm named Liberty Phone Center, Inc. Mike Rothfeld, a heavily caffeinated, hard-charging mentor to a generation of Virginia political consultants, cut his teeth running NRTWC’s direct-mail shop; he went on to form his own fundraising firm, Saber Communications, the Paul World’s go-to consultancy. (A born-again Southerner whose office features a mural of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, Rothfeld is no libertarian: He once <a href="http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/02/what-ron-paul-inc-really-thinks-about.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">referred</a> to Ron Paul’s most die-hard supporters as “cwazy wabbits.”)</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Over the years, NRTWC has served as a training ground for operatives drawn to the group’s zealous focus and its bare-knuckled style.</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former staffers say NRTWC instilled a cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality in its employees. One former staffer from the 1990s recalls that the group hired nine people for only five or six positions, pitting the new hires against each other to see who came out on top. The group was also notorious for its low pay—until the early 2000s, midlevel staffers got less than $20,000 a year and worked overtime to eke out a living.</span></font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To earn extra cash, NRTWC staffers also moonlighted for political candidates who supported the right-to-work cause—a practice supported by the top brass—often spending lunch breaks and evenings helping candidates with their mail programs or fundraising pitches.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The near-religious devotion to the cause, the hard-ass attitude, and the freelancing all melded to create a win-at-all-costs approach that sometimes saw NRTWC, a tax-exempt nonprofit, disregard campaign laws banning outside groups from coordinating with candidates and officeholders. “They treated the rules as guidelines,” the ex-staffer from the ’90s says.</font></span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="section-lead" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 400;">The circuitous path </span></span>to the Kent Sorenson debacle leads, of all places, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/documents-found-in-meth-house-bare-inner-workings-of-dark-money-group" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">through a dilapidated meth house</a> on the outskirts of Denver. That’s where boxes of files and bank records belonging to Western Tradition Partnership, an energy-company-funded Montana nonprofit created to fight environmentalists, were discovered and handed over to Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices. As the commissioner later concluded, these files indicated that Western Tradition Partnership and its leader, an operative named Christian LeFer, had possibly broken the law by directly coordinating with candidates for Montana’s Legislature.</font></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_5" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-10" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><div class="mj-floating-ad-wrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; min-height: 282px; right: calc(0px + 6rem); position: absolute; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 1268px;"><div class="pullquote-left" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 273px; margin: 0.75rem 2rem 1.25rem 0px; padding: 1rem 0px 0px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top: 12px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; letter-spacing: -1px; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They are in such a bubble in this Rand Paul universe, and I think the bubble’s going to pop real quick in the heat of the primaries.”</font></div><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LeFer was a key cog in the right-to-work movement. I</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">nternal NRTWC emails depict him as the committee’s man on the ground in Montana, where, in addition to Western Tradition Partnership, he ran Montana Citizens for Right to Work. NRTWC funded LeFer’s group to the tune of <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1684026/national-right-to-work-committee-2010-form-990.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI5WMXH27O6KH3ALA&Expires=1426201286&Signature=f9AwEHU85vGrKLPcFhf7%2F16lN5E%3D" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">$217,600 in 2010 </a>and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1684301-national-right-to-work-committee-2011-form-990.html#document/p21/a207240" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">$56,500 in 2011</a>, tax records show. After the meth house documents came to light, LeFer and his wife, Allison, sued to reclaim them, but a state judge <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/805334/2013-10-16-lefer-order-doc-no-61.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">dismissed their suit in October 2013</a>, and the documents remained in the hands of a federal grand jury investigating Western Tradition Partnership.</span></font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two thousand miles away, at his home in rural Virginia, a former NRTWC staffer and Ron Paul aide named Dennis Fusaro watched the drama unfolding in Montana with growing alarm. Fusaro knew all too well who LeFer was—in 2009 and 2010, Fusaro worked for NRTWC in Iowa and had been included on many email chains with LeFer. He feared the Montana investigation could spark a probe of NRTWC activities. Fusaro says he tried to bring his complaints to NRTWC leadership, but was rebuffed. (NRTWC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, in what Fusaro says was an effort to save his own skin, he went public, eventually releasing to conservative bloggers a trove of emails, memos, and other records showing potentially illegal coordination between the NRTWC and a host of GOP candidates. But the biggest bombshell he dropped had to do with Kent Sorenson, whom Fusaro knew well from his days as an NRTWC operative in Iowa. Fusaro had been included on Paul campaign correspondence about securing Sorenson’s endorsement. Attached to one of those emails was the three-page memo outlining Sorenson’s demands for joining Ron Paul’s presidential campaign; its publication in August 2013 fueled the criminal investigation that eventually brought Sorenson down.</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fusaro’s documents also laid bare how NRTWC may have overstepped the rules banning outside groups from coordinating with political candidates. (We’ll spare you the legalese, but coordination is a campaign finance no-no because it provides a way to circumvent contribution limits to political campaigns.) Fusaro’s documents show NRTWC was involved in creating and sending out mailers on behalf of dozens of Republican candidates for the Iowa Legislature in 2010. Mailers ostensibly authored by candidates or their spouses were written on NRTWC computers and later approved by the candidates. In some cases, candidates instructed NRTWC on the mix of Republican and independent voters that should receive their mailers. Helping oversee this NRTWC mail program were two Paul World fixtures: Doug Stafford and Dimitri Kesari. (Stafford, emails obtained by <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mother Jones</em> show, also worked on Rand Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign while he was an NRTWC employee. Stafford declined to comment.)</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not only did Fusaro’s documents show evidence of coordination, but on their 2010 tax forms NRTWC and a Midwestern affiliate told the IRS they didn’t plan to get involved in <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">any</em> political work that year. Marcus Owens, a tax lawyer who from 1990 to 2000 ran the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, says that filing false tax reports “could not only be a civil problem but a criminal one.”</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While it is unclear whether Fusaro’s documents have prompted IRS scrutiny of NRTWC, they caused a world of hurt for Kent Sorenson. Nearly three years after his dramatic switch to the Ron Paul campaign, Sorenson pleaded guilty to covering up payments from both the Paul and Bachmann campaigns—her campaign was secretly paying him as well—and to obstructing an investigation into the payments. Sorenson never ultimately cashed Kesari’s jewelry store check, but he admitted to receiving payments totaling $73,000, which an <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1684033-kent-sorenson-iowa-ethics-investigation-report.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Iowa Senate ethics investigation</a> all but concluded came from the Paul campaign.</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Had the Sorenson saga ended there, Rand Paul and his presidential team could probably breathe easy. But on February 19, a Justice Department lawyer requested a delay in sentencing Sorenson because the feds were<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/02/investigation-into-ron-pauls-2012-campaign-expanding/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px"> “making progress”</a> on a “larger investigation” into the scandal. This prompted conservative radio host Steve Deace to <a href="https://twitter.com/stevedeaceshow/status/568516881633538049" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">tweet</a>: “Asteroid coming. Impact could produce potentially large blast radius.” The DOJ did not say who else was in its crosshairs, but emails and internal documents show that Benton and Kesari both played roles in the deal. Sorenson, for his part, isn’t holding anything back. “He’s cooperating and answering their questions about all the information that he knows,” says F. Montgomery Brown, Sorenson’s attorney.</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the meantime, Paul World has lawyered up. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign has shelled out $364,000 in legal fees since August. Reached on his cellphone, Kesari said he wouldn’t comment and hung up; Benton and his lawyer did not respond to repeated interview requests. At least publicly, Rand Paul has said little to suggest he’s worried about the legal headaches that may ensnare Paul World fixtures. In December—before the Justice Department’s latest announcement but after emails showed Jesse Benton’s involvement in the Sorenson deal, prompting Benton’s resignation as Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 2014 campaign manager—Paul <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/226478-paul-jesse-benton-will-help-us-in-2016" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">defended Benton to the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Hill</em></a> newspaper as an “honest” political operative who would be “welcome” on his 2016 team. “He’ll help us,” Paul said.</font></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_7" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-9" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><div class="mj-floating-ad-wrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; min-height: 282px; right: calc(0px + 6rem); position: absolute; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 617.313px;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman">But as Rand Paul launches his presidential campaign, questions linger about how long his cadre of advisers and operatives will last under the merciless glare of the national stage. “They are in such a bubble in this Rand Paul universe, and I think the bubble’s going to pop real quick in the heat of the primaries,” says the conservative strategist familiar with the Pauls and their allies. “They are not ready for prime time.”</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div>