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Trump commutes remaining prison term of former Texas GOP congressman Steve Stockman, who was convicted of misusing charitable funds

President Donald Trump also pardoned former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting an unarmed drug smuggler and covering it up in 2006.

BY SHANNON NAJMABADI DEC. 22, 2020

Former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, right, leaves the United States District Courthouse in Houston in 2018. Outgoing President Donald Trump commuted the remainder of Stockman's 10-year prison sentence for misuse of charitable funds. Credit: Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday commuted the remaining prison sentence of former Republican Texas congressman Steve Stockman, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2018 after he was convicted of nearly two-dozen felonies, including fraud.

Prosecutors said the conservative firebrand from Friendswood misused $1.25 million in funds from political donors to pay for expenses like hot air balloon rides, kennel bills and a new dishwasher — rather than for charity like the donors were told. He was also accused of planting an undercover intern in the state House office of a political rival.

Former U.S. Reps. Bob McEwen and Bob Barr, Republicans from Ohio and Georgia, respectively, were among the public figures who called for Stockman’s release, according to a statement from the White House press secretary, announcing the outgoing president had pardoned 15 people and commuted the sentences of five....

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Terrence Scanlon

Retired Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commn.

Retired Chairman and President, Capital Research Center,

(22 years)

The Honorable Bob McEwen

U.S. House of Representatives

Former Member, Ohio

The Honorable Stephen Stockman

U.S. House of Representatives

Former Member, Texas

Rusty Cannon

President, Utah Taxpayer Association

Floyd Brown

Founder, The Western Journal

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Alliance Defense Fund To Launch Law School Aimed At Creating "Liberal Chaser" Attorneys

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 12:56pm

Religious Right leaders are coming together to form yet another law school to train future lawyers of the conservative movement.The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund is helping Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution,start the Paul Pressler School of Law, which will join Liberty University, Regent University and others in providing politicized training to the next generation of Religious Right lawyers.

Pressler’s ties to the Alliance Defense Fund will be similar to the Liberty University School of Law’s partnership with Liberty Counsel and the Regent University School of Law’s (originally Oral Roberts University’s Coburn School of Law) alliance with the American Center for Law and Justice. As Sarah Posner notes, such law schools intend to“teach the ‘biblical’ foundations of the law” and create “lawyers unafraid to inject their particular Christian beliefs, not only into the public square, but quite deliberately into legislation, policy, and jurisprudence.”

According to the National Law Journal, the new law school “is named for Paul Pressler III, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge who helped lead the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1970s.”

The founding dean of the Pressler law school, J. Michael Johnson, was previously senior counsel of the ADF and, according to his Townhall.com bio, has “provided legal representation to organizations such as Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Toward Tradition, the American Family Association, and Coral Ridge Ministries, and numerous family policy councils and crisis pregnancy centers.” In 2005, Johnson won the “Faith, Family and Freedom” award from Family Research Council president Tony Perkinsfor his work defending the Louisiana Marriage Protection Amendment, which placed a ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution.

Yesterday on Today’s Issues, Perkins, who is a member of Pressler’s board of reference, spoke to Johnson about the new law school. Johnson said the law school would be “not unlike what our colleagues are doing at the Liberty University School of Law and the Regent University School of Law.” Perkins said, “This law school’s not going to be pumping out ambulance chasers, this is going to be pumping out liberal chasers, I mean we’re gonna track them down, wherever they are and we’re gonna defeat them, and if we can’t defeat them in the policy realm we’re gonna defeat them in the courts.” He added, “This law school is gonna be pumping out God-fearing, American-loving, family-defending attorneys”:

The choice of Louisiana College is no surprise. The school claims it “seeks to view all areas of knowledge from a distinctively Christian perspective and integrate Biblical truth thoroughly with each academic discipline” and believes “academic freedom of a Christian professor is limited by the preeminence of Jesus Christ, the authoritative nature of the Holy Scriptures, and the mission of the institution.”

In 2008 the school barred members of the Christian LGBT group Soul Force from appearing on campus. In his decision to bar the group, the college’s president cited a fake James Madison quote propagated by David Barton, which states that the U.S. government was based on “the Ten Commandments.”

Now David Barton is serving on the board of the law school.

Along with Perkins and Barton, Religious Right leaders on the board include Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association,Alveda King of Priests for Life, Religious Right luminary Tim LaHaye and his wife Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, Kelly Shackleford of the Liberty Institute and Reagan’s Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese. Republican politicians including Reps. Rodney Alexander and John Fleming, former congressman Bob McEwen, and senatorial candidate and Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz are also on the board.

PFAW

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Allied Special Operations Group, as the firm was first named, was initially envisioned as a one-stop shop for government and corporate clients seeking cybersecurity, physical protection and sophisticated open-source intelligence services, Ramsland and former employees told The Post.

The company was formed in June 2017 by Adam T. Kraft, a former senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Kraft was the company’s chief executive, and it was based out of his house in a subdivision north of Fort Worth. Kraft declined to comment for this report.

An early promotional video described ASOG as “a group of highly trained professionals who have seen it all,” and it stressed the intelligence backgrounds of some team members. “When someone says, ‘I know a guy,’ he’s talking about ASOG,” said the narrator, who said that ASOG personnel had taken part in the types of missions “that many of us only see in the movies.”

Months after Kraft filed papers to establish the company, he was joined by a trio of other men, state records show.

Alvan “Locke” Neely, a retired Secret Service agent who first served in the Ford administration, became ASOG’s chief operations officer.

J. Keet Lewis was named ASOG’s vice president of strategy. Lewis served on the executive committee of theCouncil for National Policy (CNP), a Washington-based organization that for decades has been a networking hub for powerful conservative activists and donors.

According to his biography in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Lewis consulted on international energy projects and had helped develop the Skimmer Basket Buddy, a patented maintenance tool for swimming pools. He did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Ramsland, who was also then a member of the CNP,joined as ASOG’s chief financial officer. The son and grandson of West Texas oilmen lived with his wife in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas, home to former president George W. Bush and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Ramsland had charted an unusual career path, including investment banking, consulting on a proposed cattle ranch in the South Pacific and working with NASA on a venture aimed at growing crystals in space. He also owned oil and gas interests in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, records show.

According to business filings in Florida, Lewis and Ramsland later served together on the board of Photonx, a company that according to its website uses variable wavelengths of light “to treat specific pathogenic and chronic diseases.” (Ramsland told The Post that in its current form Photonx’s device “expressly doesn’t purport to treat disease.”)

Photonx now has office space inside the Addison hangar, according to a mailbox outside and a sign visible to visitors at the front door.

Ramsland was a “numbers and models” man, said Gene Street, who partnered with him in the 1990s on the London restaurant that Ramsland’s résumé, obtained by The Post, says was “Europe’s highest-grossing Tex-Mex restaurant.”

“If you ever needed to know where a single penny went, he was the guy that could tell you,” Street said.

Ramsland had donated to the campaigns of numerous Republicans, including Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), campaign finance filings show. He had also run for office himself, challenging Rep. Pete Sessions in the 2016 Republican primaryas a part of the tea party, the fiscally conservative movement that had formed in opposition to President Barack Obama’s agenda. A campaign ad showed Ramsland wearing a cowboy hat and shooting a rifle at cardboard boxes labeled “open borders” and “Obamacare.” Ramsland lost by nearly 38 points.

Weeks before he joined ASOG, Ramsland spoke to a conservative association, delivering remarks rife with outlandish claims, according to video reviewed by The Post. Ramsland called the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, a “deep-state operation,” and he traced the origin of the “deep state” to a World War II-era collaboration involving Prescott Bush, the father of former president George H.W. Bush; the Muslim Brotherhood; and liberal financier George Soros— who was born in 1930 and was not yet an adult.

ASOG’s early work included hunting for intelligence about a group of Chinese nationals for an exiled Chinese billionaire, an associate of former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, and providing VIP protection details in the United States and abroad, a specialty Neely brought from the Secret Service.

In the fall of 2018, influential Texas Republican fundraiser JoAnn Fleming urged Ramsland and Pressley to join forces, Pressley told The Post. Ramsland soon shifted ASOG’s attention to election security. Fleming did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Neely said he left his position with the company when resources moved toward election security.

“My focus was and has always been protection and investigations,” he said in a brief interview outside his home in suburban Dallas. “They were going a totally different direction, and it was just not — they were pouring all their resources into that, and it was just not my gig.”

The relationship between Ramsland and Kraft also grew strained, according to three people who worked for or with the company at the time. Kraft eventually departed under pressure, the people said.

‘It had to get to Trump’

In November 2018, Texas Republicans were reeling from a battering at the polls. Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke had lost only narrowly to Cruz, and strong Democratic turnout had cost Sessions his longtime seat representing a swath of Dallas and its fast-growing suburbs as the party picked up seats in both chambers of the state legislature. Some Republicans were looking for explanations beyond the apparent purpling of Dallas.

Soon, Pressley was in the hangar, briefing Ramsland on her election-fraud theories. “Russ got really excited. They all did,” Pressley said. “I think they saw this as their next big thing.”

ASOG and Pressley began looking for a losing candidate who would challenge the election outcome and force Dallas County and ES&S to lift the hood on their technology to show whether votes had been manipulated, according to Pressley and to emails and other documents provided by her attorney.

They alighted on state Sen. Don Huffines (R), a wealthy real estate developer whose bid for a second term in the Texas legislature had just ended in defeat, handing his district to a Democrat for the first time in almost four decades.

Within weeks of the election, Pressley said, Huffines was in the hangar with James E. “Trey” Trainor III, who had been nominated by Trump to serve on the Federal Election Commission but was not yet Senate-confirmed. Trainor was advising Huffines at the time.

An email from Pressley to Ramsland. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Pressley presented her analysis of the audit logs and their mysterious “replaced” and “cleared” messages, she said. Ramsland told Huffines he was “horrified” by signs of fraud, she said. Challenging the result and forcing officials to turn over voting-machine data could prove the vote was manipulated, they argued.

Pressley said she and Ramsland waited impatiently for Huffines to decide. In early December, he told them he would not challenge his loss.

“We were all ready to go. We had someone who was going to fund the challenge and everything,” she said. “It was devastating.”

Huffines did not respond to requests seeking comment.

In an interview, Trainor confirmed the hangar meeting with Ramsland and said he advised Huffines not to bring a challenge. Under Texas law, contested state Senate races are decided by a Senate vote rather than by a judge.

“We were never going to convince senators that something nefarious had gone on, whether it did or didn’t,” Trainor said, noting that some Republicans might not have backed a challenge that risked embarrassing the GOP secretary of state.

ASOG briefed a number of people during this period, including Powell and Gohmert, according to Pressley and a former ASOG employee named Joshua Merritt. Pressley said Powell approached her after one briefing in the hangar, gave her a business card and called the audit-log analysis proof of fraud.

Ramsland and Lewis were also working to coax another losing candidate to bring a challenge: Sessions, the ousted congressman.

Lewis called a Sessions donor and left a voice message suggesting that the congressman’s race had been stolen. The donor forwarded the message to Carolyn Malenick, a volunteer for Sessions. Within days, Sessions was on a plane from Washington to Texas for a trip to the hangar, according to Malenick, who joined him there.

A calendar invitation for the Dec. 14, 2018, meeting shows that Ramsland, Lewis and Pressley were among those expected, as was Fleming, the conservative fundraiser who Pressley said had connected her and Ramsland.

An invitation to ASOG founders and allies to meet with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) on Dec. 14, 2018, for a briefing on alleged election fraud. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Also in attendance, Malenick said, was conservative talk-show host Kevin Freeman.

Pressley said she gave a PowerPoint presentation that began with a picture of Joseph Stalin and a quote attributed to the Russian dictator: “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes and how.”

Ramsland followed, accompanied by the purported white-hat hacker, who would not provide his name to the audience, Malenick said. The two presented a $4 million plan that included ASOG standing up an “operations” center to search for voting irregularities, Malenick and Pressley said.

Malenick, a longtime Republican fundraiser, told The Post she eventually came to believe Ramsland was misleading donors.

Ramsland told The Post the center was Kraft’s idea and that election investigations are costly. He said Malenick had “problems with truthfulness,” citing an FEC case from the 1990s that ended with her paying a $5,000 fine.

With a certification deadline fast approaching, Sessions, too, decided against formally challenging his election result, according to his brother and attorney, Lewis Sessions.

Privately, Pete Sessions did not drop the matter. He filed a confidential complaint with Paxton, the Texas attorney general, alleging “a variety of legally questionable conduct” in Dallas County voting. The complaint, provided to The Post by Lewis Sessions, included an affidavit from Pressley in which she claimed her poll-watchers reported they had been treated with hostility and had seen an elections worker using an Internet-connected laptop. She also enumerated audit-log messages — including “replaced” and “time stamp mismatch” — she considered suspicious.

On Jan. 31, 2019, Pressley presented her findings to Paxton in a meeting in an Austin office used by Ramsland, she said. Emails between her and Ramsland show preparations for the meeting.

But again, nothing came of the effort.

Ramsland has said in media appearances that ASOG brought information to Paxton’s office and urged further examination. It is unclear whether he was referring to the Pete Sessions complaint and Pressley’s briefing or to a separate complaint, and Ramsland did not respond to messages seeking clarification. He told The Post that he now believes Paxton’s office lacks the financial resources and the “level of technical expertise and sophistication” necessary for a meaningful investigation.

In a statement, Paxton’s office said: “We take every credible allegation of fraud seriously. In this case, after a thorough investigation by our office with the assistance of election systems experts, cybersecurity experts, and the FBI, we found the claims in this case were unverifiable, and an audit of the voting records confirmed the outcome of the election.”

Legally, the allegations of fraud in Dallas in 2018 had all but reached a dead end, Pressley said.

With Pressley in tow, Ramsland launched a fundraising blitz, traveling to the ranches and mansions of some of Texas’s wealthiest conservative funders. Ramsland told potential funders that their money would support legal challenges to ensure election integrity ahead of the 2020 election, Pressley said. “The hook was always Trump — that their guy could lose,” Pressley said.

Pressley said that early in February 2019, she accompanied Ramsland to present her audit-log analysis in Midland to Charles Richard “Dick” Saulsbury, who had made a fortune in engineering work in oil and gas. In Cisco, they met withFarris and Jo Ann Wilks, whose wealth stemmed from the sale of a family fracking business.

An email from Ramsland to Pressley on Jan. 30, 2019. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Pressley said pledges as high as $700,000 were discussed. The Post obtained correspondence in which Ramsland named Saulsbury as a potential funder and in which Pressley referred to a “Wilks investor meeting.”

Saulsbury did not respond to questions through a spokeswoman. Reached briefly by phone, Farris Wilks said he had no memory of providing money to Ramsland and then hung up.

Ramsland said neither the Wilkses nor the Saulsburys were donors. Malenick and a former ASOG employee said the company had sought to raise capital at the time by selling ownership shares. Ramsland did not respond to a follow-up question about whether the Wilkses or the Saulsburys were investors.

Pressley, a Republican who has donated to candidates from both major parties, said she began to grow suspicious that Ramsland’s motives were political or financial, or both, particularly in February 2019 when he took her research to D.C. to meet with Washington insiders but excluded her.

“I don’t think he wanted me there and hearing what he was saying,” Pressley said. “Everything he was doing … became about getting to Trump. He had this idea it had to get to Trump.”

Pressley’s company, True Texas Elections, sought a consulting contract from ASOG in February 2019, but it never materialized. As their relationship deteriorated, Pressley sent a cease-and-desist letter to ASOG late that month demanding that Ramsland stop presenting her research without authorization, according to their correspondence.

A cease-and-desist letter from Laura Pressley toAdam Kraft, then CEO of ASOG,on Feb. 23, 2019. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Ramsland denied to Pressley that he had tried to exclude her from the meetings in Washington and challenged her allegation that he had co-opted her audit-log analysis. She had shown her presentation to dozens of people without any confidentiality agreement or copyright markings, he wrote. “We frankly do not understand how a project to save Texas and our country has turned into this,” he wrote in a letter reviewed by The Post. “This isn’t just your project. This has been a team effort from the beginning.”

Ramsland spreads the word

As 2019 progressed, Ramsland decided to take his case to the public via “Economic War Room,” the online television show hosted by Freeman.

Like Ramsland and J. Keet Lewis, Freeman was a member of the Council for National Policy,according to membership directories posted online by the watchdog group Documented.

“We finally decided that if we couldn’t get the government to pay attention without public opinion and public pressure, the best guy to go to would be Kevin,” Ramsland later recalled in a panel discussion, a recording of which is posted online.

Asked whether CNP had supported Ramsland’s efforts, the group’s executive director, former congressman Bob McEwen (R-Ohio) said: “CNP is a convening organization of several organizations and individual members. And that’s what it does. It doesn’t sponsor legislation or oppose legislation. It is an opportunity for people, patriotic citizens, to gather together to share their concerns and interests in our nation’s security.”

Secretive Council For National Policy Pushing Trump To Sign ‘Religious Liberty’ Order

Ted Cruz And Mike Huckabee Follow David Lane’s Christian-Nation Road Show To Michigan

After a primary battle with another incumbent whose district was combined with his, McEwen narrowly lost the 1992 general election to Democrat Ted Strickland. Following a run in the adjacent second district in 1993, McEwen was largely absent from the Ohio political scene for a decade, until in 2005 when he sought the Republican nomination for Congress in the second district special election to replace Rob Portman, who beat him in 1993, and finished second to the winner in the general election, Jean Schmidt. McEwen's 2005 platform was familiar from his past campaigns, advocating an anti-abortion stance, defending Second Amendment rights, and promising to limit taxes and government spending.

Before Congress

Born in Hillsboro, Ohio, McEwen graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1968. He earned a Bachelor's in Business Administration from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972. He also attended Ohio State University's College of Law for one year from 1972 to 1973.[1]

McEwen is married to the former Elizabeth "Liz" Boebinger and has four children: Meredith, Jonathan, Robert, and Elizabeth. He is a member of many fraternal organizations and civic groups, including Sigma Chi, the Farm Bureau, the Grange, Rotary International, the Jaycees, and the Optimist Club.[1]

After two years in his wife's family real estate business, serving as a vice president of Boebinger, Inc., he was elected at the age of twenty-four to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1974 from the 72nd House District representing southern Ohio. McEwen's district contained parts of Clinton, Fayette, Greene, and Highland Counties and all of Madison County. He was re-elected to two more two-year terms. In 1976, his plurality against Democrat L. James Matter was 14,816 votes, a number larger than the votes cast for Matter. (McEwen received 27,657 to Matter's 12,841.) McEwen was a supporter of the state lottery in the House.[2] Having previously directed Sixth District Congressman Bill Harsha's re-election campaigns to Congress in 1976 and 1978, McEwen ran for Harsha's seat when he retired in 1980. Harsha was neutral in the eight-man primary that McEwen won but supported McEwen in the general election where he defeated psychologist and minister Ted Strickland, Harsha's opponent in 1976 and 1978, who went on to become Governor of Ohio.

Congressional career

Seal of the U.S. House

In Congress, McEwen, who "had a reputation as a man who thinks about politics every waking moment," claimed *Congressional Quarterly*, was a staunchconservative, advocating a strong military.[2] In addition, he was a strong advocate for government works in his district — dams, roads, locks and the like much as Harsha had been — as McEwen was on the House's Public Works and Transportation Committee.[3] The Chillicothe Gazette would salute him for his work on funding for U.S. Route 35, a limited access highway linking Chillicothe to Dayton.[4] In general, however, McEwen advocated reduced government spending.

A vehementanti-Communis**t, he visited Tbilisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1991 to help tear down the hammer-and-sickle iconography of the Communist regime.[5] That year he also called for the House to establish a select committee to investigate the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue – whether any soldiers declared "missing in action" in the Vietnam War and other American wars were still alive – by sponsoring H. Res. 207.[6]

McEwen's district

When McEwen was first elected in 1980, the Sixth District of Ohio consisted of Adams, Brown, Clinton, Fayette, Highland, Pickaway, Pike, Scioto, and Ross Counties plus Clermont County outside the city of Loveland, Harrison Township in Vinton County and the Warren County townships of Clearcreek, Deerfield, Hamilton, Harlan, Massie, Salem, and Wayne.[7] The Washington Post described the Sixth as "a fail-safe Republican district."[8] It had been in Republican hands since a 1959 special election.

The Ohio General Assembly redrew the Sixth District following the results of the 1980 Census. The boundaries from 1983 to 1987 included all of Adams, Clinton, Fayette, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton and Warren Counties, plus Waterloo and York Townships in Athens County; Wayne Township in Clermont County; Concord, Jasper, Marion, Perry, Union, and Wayne Townships in Fayette County; and Washington Township and the Cities of Miamisburg and West Carrollton in Montgomery County.[9]

Effective with the 100th Congress in 1987, adjustments were made by the legislature to the boundaries. A small part of the Montgomery County territory was detached, as were parts of Fayette County in Washington Court House in Union Township and the townships of Jasper and Marion. Part of Brown County was added, Jackson and Eagle Townships. These were the boundaries for the rest of McEwen's service in Congress.[10]

The district was largely rural and agricultural with no large cities. One of the major industries was the United States Department of Energy's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon, which manufacted uranium for nuclear weapons. The district was 97% white with a median household income of $21,761.

Strong words

McEwen was not known as a man to mince words. In the heated debate in 1985 over a Congressional seat in Indiana between Republican Richard D. McIntyre, whom the Indiana Secretary of State had certified as winning a seat in the 99th Congress, and Democrat Frank McCloskey, in which the House declined to seat McIntyre, McEwen declared on the House floor, "Mr. Speaker, you know how to win votes the old fashioned way — you steal them."[11] When McEwen was late in 1990 to the House because of a massive traffic jam on the I-495 beltway around Washington, D.C., he said on the House floor on February 21 that the District of Columbia's government should be replaced:

The total incompetence of the D.C. government in Washington, DC, has become an embarrassment to our entire Nation. This experiment in home rule is a disaster. All of us who serve in this Chamber, well over 95% of us, have held other positions in government. We have been mayors. We have been township trustees, State legislators, and the rest. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that there are well over 2,000 township trustees in my congressional district who with one arm tied behind their backs, could blindfolded do a better job of directing this city than the city council of D.C. It is high time that this experiment in home rule that has proven to be a disaster for our nation be terminated, that we return to some sort of logical government whereby the rest of us can function in this city.[12]

After McEwen was criticized for his remarks, he delivered a thirty-minute speech in the House on March 1, 1990, on "The Worst City Government in America".[13] Because of the crime problem in the District, McEwen also attempted to pass legislation overturning the District council's ban on mace, saying people in the District should be able to defend themselves.[14] During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, McEwen introduced legislation to end President Gerald Ford's ban on U.S. government employees assassinating foreign leaders (Executive Order 12333) in order to clear the way for Saddam Hussein's removal, McEwen objecting to the "cocoon of protection that is placed around him because he holds the position that he holds as leader of his country."[15]

Considers Senate run

In October 1987, encouraged by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, McEwen announced he would challenge Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, a Democrat, in his 1988 bid for re-election, but McEwen found he lacked statewide support and would face a strong primary challenger in Cleveland mayor George V. Voinovich. He dropped out of the race in December.[16] McEwen's name was floated in 1991 as a possible challenger in 1992 to Ohio's other senator, John Glenn, another Democrat, but McEwen did not enter the race.[17]

Easily reelected

McEwen was easily re-elected to the House in every election but his last. In 1982, he defeated Lynn Alan Grimshaw, 92,135 to 63,435, and in the Reagan landslide of 1984 he beat Bob Smith nearly three-to-one, 150,101 to 52,727. In 1986 and 1988 he faced Gordon R. Roberts, defeating him two-to-one in 1986 (106,354 to 42,155 with independent Amos Seeley receiving a scattering) and three-to-one in 1988 (152,235 to 52,635).[18] In the rematch, McEwen outspent Roberts twenty-to-one, $884,754 to $43,485.[19] McEwen in 1990 beat his opponent, Raymond S. Mitchell — who the Dayton Daily News said "is an unknown small businessman who hasn't thought things through" — by three to one. The tally was 117,200 to 47,415 in a race where Mitchell was outspent seventeen-to-one, McEwen spending $196,934 and Mitchell $11,171.[20] Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America pronounced him "invincible" in his district.[19]

See also: Election Results, U.S. Representative from Ohio, 6th District

In the spotlight in his last term

McEwen served on the Public Works and Transportation and Veterans' Affairs Committees from his election to 1991. By 1989, he had risen to be the ranking minority member of the Public Works Committee's Economic Development Subcommittee and was sixth in seniority on the full committee.[21] During the 99th and 100th Congresses, he was also a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. During his last term, in the 102nd Congress, he left Public Works and Veterans' Affairs for the powerful Rules Committee and served on its Legislative Process Subcommittee. He was chosen for the Rules Committee by Republican leader Bob Michel of Illinois, but McEwen would grumble that "the Committee on Rules is stacked in a partisan manner 2 to 1 plus 1" by the Democratic majority.[22] During the 102nd Congress, he was also on the Select Committee on Children, Families, and Youth.

Late in his Congressional career, he began regular appearances on public affairs programs such as Nightline and the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and was often a guest on C-SPAN and the Cable News Network. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News, a Democratic newspaper, thought McEwen's performances showed why he had remained in the background previously:

In the past, McEwen's ambition has taken the form of interest in higher office. Twice he made feints about seeking statewide office. But he didn't want to risk his congressional seat. Now he's found a way to nurse a healthy level of ambition without taking that risk. He has, of course, a pronounced tendency to be wrong about the issues . . . . Most typically, he appears as an ideological combatant. He seems to be selling himself to the nation's conservatives as an attractive spokesman. He's got enough talent to do it. In the days when McEwen was content to be a back-bencher, he was criticized on this page for his irrelevance on the important issues. Now, however, it is clear that the nation as a whole was better off when he was keeping his views to himself.[23]

In his decade in Congress, McEwen compiled a conservative voting record, usually scoring in the single digits in the annual Americans for Democratic Action ratings and 85% or higher in the American Conservative Union's similar polls, though McEwen was never one of the most conservative Republicans in the House nor the most conservative Republican in the Ohio delegation.[2]

McEwen often joined his fellow Republicans in making special order speeches in the House, which occur after the business for the day has concluded and are made to a nearly empty chamber. McEwen's ally Newt Gingrich of Georgia had discovered that, thanks to the C-SPAN cable network's promise of "gavel-to-gavel coverage" of the House, he and his fellow conservatives such as McEwen, Mississippi's Trent Lott, California's Robert K. Dornan, and Pennsylvania's Robert S. Walker could speak directly to Americans. Congressional Quarterly wrote viewers often found "McEwen playing the trusty sidekickSancho Panzato Bob Dornan of California, both tilting at the latest liberal windmill."[2]

1992 campaign

New district lines

McEwen easily won re-election in every race save his last and was seen as unbeatable in his district. However, Ohio lost two seats in the 1990 reapportionment. The Democrats and Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly struck a deal to eliminate one Democratic and one Republican district, as one congressman from each party was expected to retire. The Republican expected to retire was Clarence E. Miller, a thirteen-term veteran called "chairman of the caucus of the obscure" for his invisibility on Capitol Hill. However, Miller surprised everyone by deciding to run for a fourteenth term. The Democrats in the Statehouse would not reconsider the deal and Miller's Tenth District was obliterated.[24]

The new district map was not agreed upon by the General Assembly until March 26, 1992, one week before the filing deadline for the primary originally scheduled for May 5. Governor George Voinovich signed the new map into law on March 27, and on April 1 the General Assembly moved the primary to June 2. Miller's hometown of Lancaster was placed in freshman David Hobson's Springfield-based Seventh District, but Miller chose to run in the Sixth District against McEwen since the largest piece of his old district — five counties — was placed in the new Sixth. Miller's decision was also impacted by his strong personal distaste for McEwen.

After being hurt in a fall in his bathtub after slipping on a bar of soap, Miller was expected to withdraw and the Republican leadership hoped for a deal as late as May 15, the day Miller was to hold a press conference Ohio political observers thought he would use to announce his withdrawal. However, Miller stayed in the race and the two incumbents faced each other in the Republican primary on June 2, 1992.

Miller and McEwen spar

The primary race was bitter. Miller called McEwen "Pinocchio," and McEwen said of Miller, "His misrepresentations and falsehoods are gargantuan. I tried to be his best friend in the delegation. I am deeply disappointed at the meanness of his effort." Tom Deimer of Cleveland's Plain Dealer wrote that the two candidates were largely identical on the issues: "both are textbook Republican conservatives, opposed to abortion, gun control, high taxes, and costly government programs — unless located in their districts." Miller noted he had no overdrafts at the House bank, saying, "the score is 166 to nothing." McEwen said "every one of my checks was free and clear. Every month's statement had a balance." McEwen ran commercials against Miller claiming the long-time congressman "has fallen out of touch with Ohio" and "doesn't live in our district and isn't even registered to vote here." Miller struck back in a live-television interview by taking a Wheat Thin, claiming it to be McEwen, and then taking a bite out of it.[25]

Close results

The 1992 primary was so close it forced a recount and prompted a lawsuit. When Ohio Secretary of State Bob Taft dismissed Miller's charges of voting irregularities in Highland, Hocking and Warren counties, Miller filed suit in the Ohio Supreme Court.[26] Miller dropped his court challenge in August and then only because his campaign treasury was exhausted.[27] In the final count, McEwen won 33,219 votes to Miller's 32,922, aplurality of 297 votes. In the end, McEwen's geographic advantage (he retained 59% of his old territory) put him over the top. Ominously, however, Miller trounced him in the five counties that had been in Miller's old district.

After the final result, Miller refused to endorse McEwen, though McEwen tried to soothe feelings by introducing H.R. 5727 in the House to name the dam and locks on the Ohio River near Gallipolis after Miller.[28] Miller carried an unsuccessful legal challenge to the redistricting to the United States Supreme Court, insisting district lines should be drawn on a politically neutral basis.

Defeated in the general election

The old Sixth District was centered in southwestern and south-central Ohio around McEwen's hometown, Hillsboro. After redistricting, McEwen found himself running in a huge area stretching from Lebanon to Marietta. This new district was very difficult to campaign in. It spilled across six media markets, meaning that McEwen had to buy ads in cities where most of the viewers couldn't vote in the district. It also lacked any large cities and possessed few unifying elements. His Democratic opponent was psychologist Ted Strickland, whom he had defeated in his initial run in 1980.

Pat Buchanan, the conservative columnist who challenged President Bush in the 1992 presidential primaries, came to Ohio to campaign for McEwen, as did Vice President Dan Quayle and Oliver North. Though George H. W. Bush won the district, McEwen was narrowly defeated by Strickland in the general election on November 3. While he won 55-45 in the area he once represented, McEwen did not win in any of the counties that had once been in Miller's district, losing the unfamiliar territory 59-41. Strickland received 122,720 votes to McEwen's 119,252, a plurality of only 3,468.[29] "I think McEwen's loss was a case of bounced checks and some arrogance," said Alfred Tuchfarber, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati who runs the Ohio Poll. "He just had a certain personal arrogance about him that didn't go down well in a poor district."[30] Strickland said, "I ran against Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, the National Rifle Association and Right-to-Life. They threw everything at me. I'm just so happy I beat back those guys. I think they're so divisive."[30]

Run in the second district in 1993

McEwen then sought election to the House in the Second District near Cincinnati, immediately west of his former district, and which contained some territory he represented in the 1980s. The election was to fill the vacancy caused by Willis D. Gradison's resignation to become a lobbyist for the insurance industry on January 31, 1993, three months after his re-election.[31] "It's important that we have an experienced person to fight for jobs for Southwest Ohio. We need to bring economic growth to our area," McEwen said. "It's important that we have someone who can hit the ground running, representing our values of economic growth and low taxes."[32] Though a congressman does not need to live in the district he represents, McEwen put his home in Hillsboro up for sale and rented a home in Bethel in Clermont County.[33]

In the Republican primary on March 16, McEwen facedtrade lawyer Rob Portman, who had worked in the White House under President George H. W. Bush; real estate developer Jay Buchert, the president of the National Association of Home Builders; and several lesser known candidates: real estate appraiser Garland Eugene Crawford of Loveland; pro-life activist Ken Callis of the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming; Robert W. Dorsey, a professor at the University of Cincinnati and township trustee in Hamilton County's Anderson Township; and Ku Klux Klan leader Van Darrell Loman of Cheviot. Three other candidates filed and qualified but withdrew from the primary, former Madeira mayor Mary Anne Christie; Lebanon attorney Bruce Gudenkauf, a member of the Warren County Republican Party's central committee; and Donnie Jones, city auditor in Norwood.[34]

In February the press reported that, according to campaign finance filings, McEwen trailed both Buchert and Portman in funds, Buchert having three times the treasury McEwen did.[35] McEwen was endorsed by Oliver North, whose prosecution in the Iran-Contra Affair McEwen had labeled a "political witch hunt" when he was in Congress.[36] McEwen also criticized Portman for lobbying Congress to pass the tax increase President George H. W. Bush supported when Portman was a White House aide. He also criticized Portman for being a lobbyist for Oman. McEwen brought his former House colleague Jack Kemp to Ohio to campaign for him.

McEwen faced questions about the bounced checks he had written on the House bank. Buchert ran campaign commercials citing McEwen's checks, the expenses of his Congressional office, and his campaign finance disclosures, while noting Portman was "the handpicked choice of the downtown money crowd" and was "a registered foreign agent for the biggest Democrat lobbying firm in Washington," labeling Portman and McEwen "Prince Rob and Bouncing Bob."[37] McEwen, who had taken a hard-line on his checks in 1992, relented in the campaign. Martin Gottlieb wrote, "McEwen says now that his problem was a form of excessive pride. He says he used to 'demand perfection' of himself." McEwen also said, "I felt I could never admit a mistake. . . . I am very, very sorry. I should have watched it more carefully. . . . I have learned a great deal."[38] Les Spaeth, chairman of the Warren County Republican Party and former Warren County Auditor, said, "People very much disliked the check overdraft thing, but I think they don't see it as happening again. I think it's past. He made a mistake and he got caught. But that's overridden by the service he's given, particularly to our county."[38]

After his successor in Congress, Ted Strickland, found election-related files on his office computers, questions were raised about whether McEwen had been illegally using his House office in his re-election campaign in 1992. McEwen's former chief of staff said McEwen knew nothing about it, and the chief of staff admitted "a technical violation of the rules."[39]

McEwen won four of the five counties in the district — Adams, Brown, Clermont and Warren. In Adams, once part of his district, he received 77% of the vote, sixty-seven points ahead of Portman. However, McEwen finished third in the largest county in the district, Hamilton, one he had never represented and which contained 57% of the Second District's registered voters. In the primary, Portman won only Hamilton County, but by a large enough margin to win the primary with 17,531 votes (35.61%), while McEwen received 14,542 (29.54%), Buchert 12,488 (25.37%), Dorsey 2,947 (5.99%), the rest scattering. The race in the Second District, one of the most Republican in the country, was determined in the primary — six times as many Republicans as Democrats voted in the primary — and Portman easily defeated attorney Lee Hornberger 53,020 (70.1%) to 22,652 (29.1%) in the special election on May 4.[40]

Following the primary, the Dayton Daily News criticized McEwen for having voters return absentee voter request forms to his campaign office rather than directly to the county boards of elections.[41] The Daily News also said the "primary was completely about personalities, rather than issues."[42]

Returns to private life

After his defeat, McEwen remained active in politics, but press accounts said he spent most of his time in the Washington, D.C., area residing in northern Virginia.[43] Since 1997, he has been a partner with eleven other former Members of Congress in the Washington firm Advantage Associates, a lobbying and consulting firm. He founded FreedomQuest International, an international investment banking firm based in Washington, D.C. McEwen took to the lecture circuit, delivering speeches for $10,000 apiece.[44] During the 2004 presidential election, McEwen traveled widely to speak for George W. Bush, focusing on Ohio. In 2006, he joined the law firm of Greenebaum, Doll, and McDonald as a consultant in its Cincinnati and Washington offices.[45]

As executive director of the Council for National Policy, McEwen was embroiled in controversy over inaction of alerting the Ohio Republican Party about Wes Goodman's sexual activities in 2015 before Goodman ran for office of the Ohio House of Representatives. Goodman resigned from his seat in November 2017 when allegations were made public.[46]

2005 congressional run

Main article: Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2005

The State ofOhio, showing the Second District.

Detailed Map of Ohio's Second Congressional District

Days after PresidentGeorge W. Bush nominated Second District Congressman Rob Portman to be United States Trade Representative in March 2005, McEwen announced he would run for Portman's seat. He then moved from his home in Fairfax Station, Virginia and purchased a second residence, a condominium in Hamilton County's Anderson Township, east of Cincinnati.

Ed Meese came to Cincinnati on May 31 to campaign for McEwen saying "Ronald Reagan relied on him heavily." Rival candidate Pat DeWine, a Hamilton County Commissioner and the son of Senator Mike DeWine, the same day questioned McEwen's post-Congressional career as a lobbyist, issuing a press release saying "no one who has ever served in Congress ought to be allowed to become a lobbyist. Ever."[50] Congressman John Boehner, whose Eighth District was to the west of the Second, endorsed McEwen on June 7. Boehner was a freshman in McEwen's final term. He said, "Bob is the most qualified to step in and represent that district."[51] The Congressmen from other neighboring districts, Steve Chabot and Mike Turner, were silent in the primary race. McEwen a week before the primary was reported to have raised $366,429, McEwen donating $250,000 to his campaign; DeWine's total was $743,407.

DeWine focused his attention on the most experienced candidate, McEwen. DeWine attacked McEwen with charges used against him in his last two campaigns. Dewine charged McEwen had "wasted taxpayers' money" by having the most expensive Congressional office of any Ohio member of the U.S. House and criticized McEwen's bouncing of 166 checks on the House bank. DeWine also tried to depict McEwen as a carpetbagger, asking in television advertisements "If Bob McEwen really cares about us, why has he spent the last twelve years living in Virginia?" McEwen denied he had bounced any checks, repeating what he had claimed in 1992 and insisted that he had continued to reside in Ohio since he lost his re-election bid, noting he had never voted in Virginia nor held a Virginia drivers license.[52] (McEwen did not live in the second district until April 11, when he bought a condominium in Anderson Township; but DeWine did not live in the district until he bought a home there on April 6.[53]) DeWine quoted correspondence from the Highland County Board of Elections claiming the Board had cancelled McEwen's voter registration for living in Virginia.

DeWine also questioned McEwen's record on taxes, sending out mailings criticizing McEwen's vote on May 24, 1982 in the 97th Congress "in support of a Democrat budget that raised out taxes by $233 billion." Two mailings focused on this issue, one featuring a photograph of Ronald Reagan that was captioned "When President Reagan Needed Votes to Keep Taxes Low, Bob McEwen Said 'NO'", the other asking "Are We Still the Party of Lower Taxes?"

Jean Schmidt, a former member of the Ohio House, benefited from the conservative vote being split by McEwen and Tom Brinkman. The official returns showed Schmidt had won with 14,331 votes (31%). McEwen finished second with 11,663 (25%), Brinkman was third with 9,320 (20%), and DeWine, who spent $1 million on his campaign, finished a distant fourth with 5,467 (12%). The remaining vote was split by the seven others, none of whom received more than 5%. Following the primary, McEwen campaigned with Schmidt in the general election against the Democratic nominee, attorney Paul Hackett.

Facing Schmidt in 2006

From left to right: Doug Mink, Eric Minamyer, Bob McEwen,Tom Brinkman, Steve Austin

:{On October 12, 2005, the Internet domain name BobMcEwenForSenate.com was registered.[54][55] McEwen also considered a campaign for Lieutenant Governor as the running mate of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwel:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:l:{, who sought to replace }:Bob Taft:{ as }:governor:{.}:[56]:{ On December 16, 2005, }:The Cincinnati Enquirer:{ reported McEwen was considering challenging Schmidt for her congressional seat in 2006 and had formed an }:exploratory committee:{. "I am in serious consideration," he told the newspaper.}:[57]:{ On January 18, 2006, McEwen confirmed that he would run in the May 2 primary against }:Jean Schmidt:{.}:[58]:{ He started his campaign with little in the way of reserve cash.}:[59]:{ "I won't let this distract me from my duties as a congresswoman," Schmidt told }:The Cincinnati Enquirer:{ upon McEwen's announcement. "I have a job to do. I can't worry about this."}:[60]:{ Anti-pornography activist Phil Burress told the Associated Press that a race between Schmidt and McEwen would be tough. "They are two totally different types of personalities. Bob is a statesman, and I love that. Jean will get in your face in a heartbeat, and I like that too," said Burress.}:[61]:{ Also running were Deborah A. Kraus, who worked for the West Clermont school district's computer services department, and James E. Constable, who ran to protest the care his disabled son received from a state hospital.}:

McEwen finished second to Schmidt in the May 2 primary. Unofficial returns gave her 33,314 votes (47.75%) to McEwen's 29,611 (42.45%), Kraus's 4,358 (6.25%), and Constable's 2,480 (3.55%). McEwen won Adams, Brown, Pike, and Scioto counties while Schmidt won Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren.

Lobbying

Following his primary challenge to Schmidt, McEwen worked as a lobbyist for Côte d'Ivoire strongman Laurent Gbagbo.[62] "In December [2010], McEwen was hired at a rate of $25,000 per month to assist the Ivorian ambassador to the U.S. 'in exerting his influence in the most strategic way possible,' according to lobbying records."[62] When asked about his representation of Gbagbo, McEwen said: "I was a member of the intelligence committee. There are not too many places in Africa I haven't been. So I'm knowledgeable of the issue and what's going on."[62] "Despite allegations of human rights abuses, McEwen still supports Gbagbo, calling the 2010 crisis 'a coup in progress' by Gbagbo's opponents. He believes the international response is driven by French financial interests in the country."[62]

Namesake

There is a water treatment plant in Clermont County's Batavia Township named for McEwen. Clermont County was grateful to McEwen because he successfully forced the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to sell the county water from Harsha Lake after the state denied them water for years; the plant treats the Harsha Lake water he obtained for the county.[63]

See also

References

https://cfnp.org › bob-mcewen

CNP is made up of "a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country.". "CNP's influence is beyond dispute.". "A vigorous voice to influence policy and elite opinion at the margins.". "If you want to reach the key movers and shakers of the conservative movement, the place to go is the Council for National Policy.".

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CNP is made up of "a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in...

Bob McEwen

bobmcewen.com

The Honorable Bob McEwen Bob McEwen is known for his spectacular talent at communicating complicated issues in an easy to understand manner. An economics major and six-term Member of the United States Congress, Bob explains the part that Liberty plays in understanding why some nations are rich and some nations are poor.

Bob McEwen - Truth and Liberty Coalition Guest - Bio Page

https://truthandliberty.net › bio › bob-mcewen

Former Congressman Bob McEwen is the Executive Director of the Council for National Policy, a nonprofit educational foundation whose members are united by their belief in limited government, a strong national defense, and support for traditional western values. Cong.

:{:{PDF:(style="background-color:#d0d0d0ff"):}: REMARKS The Honorable Bob McEwen May 16, 2015 - CNP}:

https://cfnp.org › wp-content › uploads › 2018 › 04 › McEwen.pdf

REMARKS The Honorable Bob McEwen May 16, 2015 P 1411 K STREET, N.W. ∙ SUITE 601 ∙ WASHINGTON, DC 20005 HONE (202) 207 -0165 ∙ FAX 0173 EMAILCNP@CFNP.ORG COUNCIL FOR NATIONAL POLICY REMARKS The Honorable Bob McEwen May 16, 2015 Twelve minutes of observations. That is, America is the hope for the world. When a teacher leaves a 4th

Top Republicans rub shoulders with extremists in secretive ...

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2021 › sep › 30 › revealed-council-national-policy-republicans-extremists

Sep 30, 2021A leaked document has revealed the membership list of the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP), showing how it provides opportunities for elite Republicans, wealthy entrepreneurs, media...

Bob McEwen - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Bob_McEwen

Born in Hillsboro, Ohio, McEwen graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1968. He earned a Bachelor's in Business Administration from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972. He also attended Ohio State University 's College of Law for one year from 1972 to 1973.

Bob McEwen on Ignorance on Socialism, COVID-19 & More ...

https://truthandliberty.net › episode › bob-mcewen-on-ignorance-on-socialism-covid-19-more

Bob McEwen Former Congressman Bob McEwen is the Executive Director of the Council for National Policy, a nonprofit educational foundation whose members are united by their belief in limited government, a strong national defense, and support for traditional western values. Cong. McEwen is a Senior Advisor with the nationally recognized law firm……

God, Trump and the Closed-Door World of the Council for ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com › magazine › 2021 › 10 › 25 › god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy

Oct 25, 2021By contrast, CNP's executive director, Bob McEwen, told me that the organization itself does not "do anything." He and other CNP leaders will tell you it is merely an educational venue aimed at...

Conservative Activist Leaders Call For an End to Democracy

https://www.exposedbycmd.org › 2020 › 12 › 11 › conservative-activist-leaders-call-for-an-end-to-democracy

in a dec. 10 letter posted to the website of the allied conservative action project, cnp members, including cnp president william walton, cnp executive director bob mcewen, former south carolina senator and former heritage foundation president jim demint, former ohio secretary of state ken blackwell, leadership institute president morton …

CNP List: Over 1,000 Past & Present Members of the Council ...

trumpfile.org › cnp-list

Here I've compiled a list of 1,011 CNP members from 1981 through 2020. This list may include less than half of the members spanning CNP's 40-year existence, but it's 1,011 more members than the Council wants you to know about. When you read the list, pay attention to the companies, too.

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