Posted on 06/30/2014 7:21:24 PM PDT by Viennacon
An audio interview has surfaced in which the interviewee claims that he was to be paid by the Cochran camp to grease voters in the Mississippi GOP Senate runoff election. The audio interview, which coincides with a separate audio recording and batch of evidence produced by the newly launched GotNews.com, a project by Charles C. Johnson, alleges that the Cochran campaign conspired with a Mississippi Reverend to buy the votes of African American voters, who happen to be democrats.
Before I get into the weeds of what is in the audio interview and transcript, which are both below, let me set up the stage a bit. What is alleged to have occurred is illegal and very serious business. Under Mississippi law the alleged crimes could lead to Thad Cochran being removed from the Senate. Everything that follows comes from sources either on the ground in Mississippi, or those working closely with them.
Reverend Fielder has claimed to have evidence that would prove illegal activity took place in the Mississippi GOP Senate run off election. Furthermore, the evidence he claims he has would implicate the Barbour machine and a staffer to Cochran’s Senate campaign. The motivations of the Reverend are not those of a saint. As is made clear throughout the interview and in the transcript, this Reverend is looking to get paid to provide information, just as he sought to get paid to deliver votes by illegal means. Reverend Fielder claims that Cochran’s people were supposed to pay him approximately $15,000 for his efforts, but failed to do so after the incumbent Senator had achieved victory in the run off.
With all of that said, if the evidence is produced and validated, I don’t know how much longer Thad Cochran will be a Senator.
Read that article, it gives the who’s and wherefore’s.
Yeah I did. I’m trying to cook it down to bullet points
The dagger to all this would be if anybody can produce some video evidence of the $15 envelopes with recipients. Alas, most all of that money has likely already been eating, drank or smoked by now.
*eaten
Well, now that the GOP has pulled off a Dirty Rat Trick, the orgy of blaming and meta-blaming will be a hoot.
The Bag Man: Saleem Baird, paid staffer for U.S. Senator Roger Wicker. staffer with the Cochran campaign
Co-conspirator: Kirk Sims, campaign manager for U.S. Senator Cochran
Implicated: persons associated with former Governor Barbour
Implicated: Amanda Shook, director of operations to re-elect Thad Cochran
There is video of envelopes being passed. Needed proof to enforce shake-down. Hasn’t worked well so far.
This whole thing seems like a poison pill set up. The sheer incompetence of it. The “You know this Barbour fellow?”
Get a desperate Republican willing to play evil games into a payoff scheme to knock out the two sitting Republican Senators.
They need to be knocked out and real candidates having a shot for the office though.
Perhaps just someone actually did a good job reporting for a change and exposing it all. I’m all for taking out the RINOs however it’s done.
That thought has crossed my mind, too.
link?
Breitbart says Johnson paid Rev. Fielder for the story. Doesn’t really matter to me but does explain Fielder coming forward.
The text messages can be traced and verified. But with politics this high... will it be properly investigated?
https://twitter.com/ChuckCJohnson
I will not only help law enforcement officials conduct their investigation; I will testify under penalty of perjury if necessary. #mssen
We need a sworn affidavit from Fielder pronto, as in by 9AM this morning.
Fielder was paid by Johnson for the interview. Says so on Brietbart and that they cite some journalist ethics opinion saying don’t do that. But that’s why Fielder is coming forward.
Fielder says he SIGNED SOMETHING when he got the cash. This is the ‘walking around money’ that actually went to buy the votes.
It’d take someone flipping that’s a bit higher up to really get up to the campaign manager and Thad himself possibly.
But these are white folk Republican types. Would be easy to get one fearing prison to flip.
I think it would be good to get Fielder to swear out an affidavit sooner rather than later.
If Fielder signed something... well ha ha ha get ready for some pre-Fourth of July fireworks!
Be careful - like getting an affidavit - but now is the time to pick up the pace - attack Attack ATTACK.
As far as a higher-up flipping, there are the phone records. Fielder has a phone with messages from Saleem Baird, (paid? unpaid?) staffer with the Cochran campaign
From the transcript it sounds like the Cochran people gave Fielder the phone, and they want it back. Better have that phone seized as evidence right away. Get the phone records, but get the phone too - there’s dna/prints on/in it and other assorted information.
Here’s the issue:
In these types of situations there are lots of people (plants) that step forward saying they have great info and want money for it.
Fielder was paid here. His story may or may not be true.
In one situation I know of the go-between guy was paying people and it later turned out their specific story was a fraud. This discredited the entire effort.
Here, McDaniel already has 1500-1800 votes in one county where Dems were allowed to cross over and vote improperly. That’s enough to order a statewide check to see if it exceeded the margin.
He doesn’t have to prove how every improperly cast vote would go, he just has to show there’s a number of them legitimately in question to surpass the threshold of the election being in doubt.
McDaniel should applaud the efforts here but not make it HIS effort. Let it take place parallel.
Great thing about the crossover ‘illegal’ (technically they are) votes is that it’s all in the voter roles. They signed voting Dem and then voted R. Chalk that as an improper vote.
The payoff is his word vs. this guy or that guy’s word. Text message yes but, “oh that was for knocking on doors. We only paid people to knock on doors, not to vote and never told him otherwise.”
His word vs. their word.
Maybe you can connect the dots for me—why is gerrymandering responsible for vote buying?
It is neither an omen nor a portent, but a wake-up call. For how many election cycles have the Republican candidates been shedding their conservative mantles as soon as the votes are tallied?
Over and over, conservatives have held their nose and voted for the lesser evil, thinking somehow it would be different this time.
Reality. Nothing will change until we change it. The lesser evil is still a step for evil and all the people in power are comfortable with more power. Very few are working toward having less power, less government, less invasiveness in government, partly because that reduces their power.
We have been marching down the road to a totalitarian state for some time, just more slowly on some days than others.
Lesson: Never borrow money from a preacher and never rip one off....
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