* Remember this story from yesterday?…
FBI agents met with Will County Auditor Stephen Weber for two hours Wednesday morning regarding an investigation the auditor initiated into a countywide office, the Tribune has learned. […]
Sources say the investigation centers on Will County Executive Larry Walsh’s office.
* Well, the Washington Times has twisted that all around in today’s edition…
The FBI on Wednesday raided the county offices of a former Illinois state senator who is a poker-playing buddy of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
* Um, nope…
At 9:45 a.m., Chicago agent Joseph Basile and another man walked into the offices of Will County Auditor Steve Weber. They walked back out again just after 11 a.m.
That was it. They talked to Weber for a bit over an hour and left. There was no “raid” of Walsh’s office. The Washington Times completely flubbed its story.
* Yesterday, I wondered whether this FBI visit might be all about politics. Today we find out that the visit was, indeed, motivated by Walsh’s Republican opponent…
The Republican challenger to Will County Executive Larry Walsh sparked what has turned into an FBI examination of Walsh’s connections to a county contractor.
* And it apparently has something to do with campaign contributions to a county vendor…
Dan Kennison, Walsh’s opponent in the November election, said Thursday that he began asking questions about $6,500 given to Walsh’s campaign by individuals who turned out to have family connections to Smith Dawson and Andrews, the lobbying firm hired by the county.
“I gave that information to Mr. Weber,” Kennison said. Kennison said he also has spoken with the FBI, but would not provide details.
* But that’s not what the Republican Kennison told the the Kankakee Daily Journal…
Kennison denied any involvement with what happened at the auditor’s office.
“I had nothing to do with this investigation. What I know about this is what I’ve read,” he said, but he added that he thought an investigation should be conducted.
What Kennison “read” in at least one paper was his quote about how he started the whole thing.
Looks like a setup to me.
* Walsh’s response to the campaign contribution stuff…
“I have known the Smiths, and Francis and Jim Smith have been very good friends of mine since I started as a state senator representing Kankakee County,” Walsh said. “If I’m guilty of taking a donation from a family friend, then God help us.”
- the Other Anonymous - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 1:07 pm:
Isn’t it interesting that the conservatives these years will pursue any connection between Chicago corruption and Barack Obama, while Obama has studiously (imo) avoiding bringing up McCain’s long-standing friendship and involvement with Charles Keating. And let’s be clear here, there has not been a shred of evidence that Obama was involved in scratch-my back-I’ll-scratch-yours politics, even if he got into stupid entanglements with, e.g., Rezko. On the other hand, there is abundant evidence — heck, even an Ethics Committee finding — that McCain attempted to intervene with government regulators on behalf of Keating.
- 2for2 - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 1:16 pm:
Total set up in my opinion. People don’t realize how nasty the politics in Will County can get. Very very dirty.
Its the classic set up. Raise suspicion, call the police (In this case the Feds), get an article written by a simpleminded reporter, saturate the voters with mail, robo calls and tv/radio talking about the investigation, and hope the truth does not come out until after election day. The other classic technique is to throw a brick through your own campaign office window and claim the opponent is trying to intimidate you.
If the FBI was in fact there, I hope they realize they are being played.
- tubbfan - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 2:10 pm:
2 for 2 - I saw this very tactic up close in 2004 during the previous election for County Exec. The incumbent GOP’er was never accused of anything, but the investigation by the FBI made headlines and led to his defeat. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 2:10 pm:
The incident itself, based on what’s been disclosed, seems to me like a nonstory.
On the other hand, Kennison’s role and certainly the Washington Times desperation to make this ominous, is a terrific story. Kennison and whoever at the Times bought this spin, is Washington politics at its worst.
- Rip - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:11 pm:
Good thing that simple-minded reporter wrote about the whole thing — without the story, you’d have one less thing to mull.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:12 pm:
Are people suggesting the FBI is a political tool? In Will County?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:15 pm:
===Are people suggesting the FBI is a political tool?===
No.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:15 pm:
I remember the Keating 5. It was a long, long time ago. McCain was practically Obama’s age. There were four Democrats and one Republican clustered together as the Keating 5. Out of the 5, McCain was the GOP fall guy to get the Democratically controlled Congress to comdemn the other 4, who were the more ethically challenged of the group.
Since that time, McCain pushed and lost a lot of friends when he joined with Senator Feingold to pass campaign reform. He did this all the while telling the public that he needed to do this in order to make amends over the mistake made back in the Keating 5 days.
Now, if you want to run against this issue, you must recognize that it occurred a long time ago, almost 20 years. You would need a candidate that was not implicated with Tony Rezko and the city of Chicago. You would need a candidate that at least matched McCain on reform and ethics. Then spend a lot of money to convince people that something that happened a generation ago was still relevent and that the famed reform package co-authored by McCain was an insincere, but politically costly effort.
It just doesn’t matter enough to spend the millions needed to resurrect this dead horse. There is simply no pattern there to indicate that McCain is the kind of guy you would be spending million portraiting him as. So it would be a pretty tough sell and a waste of money.
That’s why.
______________________________________________
As to the Walsh story, Kennison didn’t tell the truth. But then neither, it seems, has Walsh. Pick you liar. I’d rather go with the dishonest coward, than the dishonest fund raiser, but that’s just me.
________________________________________________
The Washington Times is a biased new source that offers a pro-GOP slant on the news. You can read it knowing this, or you can be stupid and believe everything within it.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:22 pm:
You’re right as usual VM,
The youthful indiscretions of Sen. McCain are ancient history. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
And the Washington Times is cited by lots of stupid people, making lots of stupid claims. We agree on that.
And now we get to hear stupid people making another stupid argument about Obama being some sort of Illinois Combine Manchurian Candidate.
- charles in charge - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 3:26 pm:
The Washington Times isn’t merely pro-GOP. It is wholly owned by self-proclaimed messiah and world-class nutjob Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Fox News is truly “fair and balanced” by comparison.
How any story from that kook-tacular rag merits mention here or anywhere else is beyond me.
- Leave Abby Alone - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 4:29 pm:
Larry Walsh is an honorable guy who knows the ins and outs of statewide and Will County politics well; but, compared to the Tomczak, Wennlund and Weller crew he’s a piker. The appearance of a conflict is one he probably should have avoided, but there’s not much more than that there. Remember, the Will County Board controls much of the purse strings there and they aren’t Ds.
- Arthur Andersen - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 4:30 pm:
AA barely understands the politics of the situation up there, but that first article in the suburban journal hit me as phony from the git-go.
It’s unusual for the “G” to declare to a reporter or anyone else that they are the “G” unless they need to, but even more so to say that they “work for Browning-Ferris Industries.” (Get it-BFI?)
AA thinks a cub reporter got played, regardless of what else may or may not be going on here.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 4:37 pm:
==And now we get to hear stupid people making another stupid argument about Obama being some sort of Illinois Combine Manchurian Candidate.==
If they made it into a film, I want to see Mayor Daley played by Angela Landsbury. They both have about the same amount of hair and wrinkles.
- Rob_N - Friday, Oct 3, 08 @ 4:58 pm:
….Imagine that… a right-wing propaganda paper twisting facts and using the fallacies to tie into six-degrees-of-Obama.
How many days left?
- Disgusted - Saturday, Oct 4, 08 @ 6:16 am:
“The youthful indiscretions of Sen. McCain are ancient history.” Tell that to the prisoner whose “youthful indiscretions” were the icing on the cake to earn him a longer sentence. What’s sauce for the goose, etc.