NOTHING HAPPENED re: Christine O'Donnell this week

Another "slow news day" fake news story about Christine O'Donnell was generated from a non-event on Wednesday, December 30.

The Associated Press reported that a single person was interviewed in the routine handling of the September 21, 2010 complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

That is exactly what is expected, nothing new, and does not indicate that anything new has happened. In response to a September 2010, complaints by the left-wing Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (C.R.E.W.) and Delaware Republican Chair Tom Ross, officials previously reported in September that they would review the complaints to determine if they had any merit.

Now, when exactly what officials said they would do is happening -- someone (unknown) got interviewed -- this is being distorted into something new or different.

The core of the news story is that: ".. according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of a client who has been questioned as part of the probe."

So the only thing that occurred was that a routine review of CREW's complaint resulted in a single person being talked to in order to find out what they know.

Democrat Charles Oberly III, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, and his predecessor, David Weiss, did not immediately return messages Wednesday seeking comment. . . . . Kim Reeves, a spokeswoman for the office, reiterated Wednesday that the office was reviewing the CREW complaint. She would not confirm the existence of a criminal probe. Rich Wolf, a spokesman for the Baltimore office of the FBI, said he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

Furthermore, Kristin Murray, who was one of Christine O'Donnell's accusers after being fired after spending only 1 1/2 weeks on O'Donnell's 2008 campaign, said she had not been contacted by any investigation.

Similarly, Jonathon Moseley, who was O'Donnell's primary election campaign manager in 2008 and officially listed as interim Treasurer for her 2008 campaign, also had not been contacted or questioned by any investigation.

Even though the Associated Press and The Washington Post had no trouble finding and calling Moseley seeking a comment from the campaign, no one involved in any official investigation has ever contacted Mr. Moseley.

In order to review the September 21, 2010 CREW complaint, exactly as authorities said they would do, they have spoken to one (1) person, who then talked to the news media.

Christine O'Donnell's campaign released the following statement in response to rumors of a legal investigation. Campaign Manager Matt Moran stated:

"Let us be clear: there was no impermissible use of campaign funds. Period. This is just an ongoing effort by the George Soros-funded CREW and other liberal groups and individuals to intimidate and threaten Christine, even after the election."

"We have heard absolutely nothing other than the same unsubstantiated allegations and rumors that have been circulating in the press for months. If anything does materialize from this rumor, we will continue to fully cooperate as we have made every attempt to ensure we are in compliance with all rules and regulations. The politically motivated charge was all started by false accusations by Christine's political opponents, and ratcheted up by former Biden staffer Melanie Sloan and CREW with their false claims."

The Associated Press reported that a single person was interviewed in the routine handling of the September 21, 2010 complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). That is exactly what is expected, nothing new, and does not indicate that anything new has happened.
. . . What do journalists do when there isn't any news? MAKE IT UP!
What exactly did the AP say?
I only ask to point out that your otherwise well-written piece would be the stronger for your having made that explicit at the beginning of the piece.

The link you provide, to your site, makes a strong case that Delaware Republican Chair Tom Ross and I don't both belong in the same political party.
This is further evidence, if such were needed, of the mischief which "campaign finance reform" legislation enables. We have to assume that a similar attack will be made against Sarah Palin - or whoever wins the GOP nomination in '12.
The framers of the Constitution had one thing very wrong: they dismissed political parties as "faction" and made no allowance for the inevitability of their spontaneous development. They had every reason to know that freedom allowed the expression of contrary opinions; ratification of the Constitution was a close-run thing for that very reason. And the Twelfth Amendment was needed precisely so that a presidential election would not inevitably produce a VP who was the political opponent of the president.
Now certainly the inevitability of the development of "faction" creates a theoretical problem for the democratic republican polity the framers designed; in the same way that a baseball pitcher endeavors to make it difficult for the batter to predict whether his pitch will be called a ball or a strike, politicians will always adapt their parties to be competitive. With the result that in the same way that the baseball umpire has trouble if the pitcher succeeds in pitching right on the borderline of the strike zone, the electorate (not necessarily every individual voter, but the electorate as a whole) will make the wrong call about half the time.
The theory of the Constitution assumes limited government size, and therefore limited scope for these political squabbles. But painful experience shows that expansion of government is systematically made the object of political contention - so half the time the electorate makes the wrong call about that.
The theory of the democratic republic is also that journalism will not be a special interest, but the development of the newswire has produced that very effect. Journalism has its interests, and politicians can either oppose those interests when they conflict with the public interest of they can choose to "go with the flow" and promote themselves by promoting the interests of journalism in season and out. And that, it seems to me, is the biggest systemic bias in our polity.

and ratcheted up by former Biden staffer Melanie Sloan and CREW with their false claims."

Three points about Melanie Sloan and CREW:

1) They are hardly non-partisan, they just throw in the occasional Democrat to try and appear such

2) They are a fundraising organization first and foremost (like a lot of googoo groups (good government), and they saw O'Donnell as fertile ground for such on the left, and

3) Sloan is leaving CREW to work for Lanny Davis, which again shows that she actually is a partisan.

“The idea behind an investigation into Ms. O’Donnell is that she misused campaign funds to pay for person expenses, namely to pay rent for a town home she resided at.

However, on CNBC’s The Kudlow Report, Ms. O’Donnell explained that she actually paid her campaign money to list a town home rented to serve as a campaign office/headquarters as her legal residence following vandalism and a break-in at her own home.

Since candidates for office must disclose their legal residence and address, and unlike many of the elite politicians serving in Congress Ms. O’Donnell doesn’t reside on a large, gated estate with private security, Ms. O’Donnell listed the campaign’s office as her legal residence for her own safety and security — a move that was deemed okay by the Federal Elections Commission.”

excerpt http://www.redstate.com/soleynm/2010/12/30/is-christine-odonnell-really-the-subject-of-a-criminal-investigation/

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