Regime Intimidates Romney Contributors

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | May 11, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kimberly Strassel is in the Wall Street Journal today with an amazing piece: "Trolling for Dirt on the President's List." Listen to this: "Here's what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent. Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

"Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, 'Keeping GOP Honest,' took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled 'Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney's donors,' the post accused the eight of being 'wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.' Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being 'litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.' About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot.

"Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee. Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk's office -- which [Miss Strassel says] I have obtained -- listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.

"Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He's found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from 'Glenn Simpson.' That's the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a [Washington] company that performs private investigative work. The website for that company, Fusion GPS, describes itself as providing 'strategic intelligence,' with expertise in areas like 'politics.'

"That's a polite way of saying 'opposition research.' When [Miss Strassel of the Wall Street Journal] called Fusion's main number and asked to speak to Michael Wolf, a man said Mr. Wolf wasn't in the office that day but he'd be in this coming Monday. When I reached Mr. Wolf on his private cell, he confirmed he had until recently worked at the Senate. When I asked what his interest was in Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records, he hesitated, then said he didn't want to talk about that.

"When I asked what his relationship was with Fusion, he hesitated again and said he had 'no comment.' 'It's a legal thing,' he added. Fusion dodged [Kimberley Strassel calls, so I couldn't ask who was paying it to troll through Mr. VanderSloot's divorce records. Mr. Simpson finally sent an email stating: 'Frank VanderSloot is a figure of interest in the debate over civil rights for gay Americans. As his own record on gay issues amply demonstrates, he is a legitimate subject of public records research into his lengthy history of legal disputes.'"

All he did was donate a million dollars to Romney's Super PAC, and Obama's opposition research people are after him to destroy him. Publicly.

"A look through Federal Election Commission records did not show any payments to Fusion or Mr. Wolf from political players, such as the Democratic National Committee, the Obama campaign, or liberal Super PACs. Then again, when political groups want to hire researchers, it is not uncommon to hire a less controversial third party, which then hires the researchers. ... That changed in January, with the first Super PAC disclosures. Liberal bloggers and media have since dug into his past, dredging up long-ago Idaho controversies that touched on gay issues. His detractors have spiraled these into accusations that Mr. VanderSloot is a 'gay bashing thug.' He's become a national political focus of attention, aided by the likes of partisan Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

"Bloggers have harassed his children, visiting their social media accounts and asking for interviews and information. Mr. VanderSloot has said his attackers have misconstrued facts and made false allegations. In February he wrote a long reply, publicly stating that he has 'many gay friends whom I love and respect' who should 'have the same freedoms and rights as any other individual.' The Obama campaign's response, in April, was to single out Mr. VanderSloot and repeat the slurs.

"Mr. VanderSloot acknowledges that 'when I first learned that President Obama's campaign had singled me out on his "enemies list," I knew it was like taping a target on my back.' But the more he's thought it through, 'the public beatings and false accusations that followed are no deterrent. These tactics will not work in America.' He's even 'contemplating a second donation,'" to Romney's Super PAC. "Still. If details about Mr. VanderSloot's life become public, and if this hurts his business or those who work for him, Mr. Obama will bear responsibility. This is what happens when the president makes a list."

Now, this goes back to the Romney Washington Post story a couple days ago. Much of it now made-up, front page. Something Romney allegedly did against a "presumed" homosexual, back 50 years ago. Thankfully, there are questions all over the place about the accuracy of the Washington Post story. ABC News is questioning it; the family is questioning it. But still, it's patently obvious what's going on here. The Obama administration is working hand in hand with all of these different left-wing groups and blogs and, you name it, and mainstream journalists to systematically personally try to destroy anybody who gives money to Romney and Romney himself.

It's like Mark McKinnon said holding up the Washington Post story. This means nobody can run for president. And I should add, on the Republican side. Democrats do not get this kind of media anal exam. They just don't. As I've demonstrated over and over again today with the names of highly reputed Democrat people like Ted Kennedy and John Edwards, Robert Kennedy, Robert Byrd, all of these stellar, above-reproach men about whom nothing was found to be problematic with anything they had done. But make up a story about Romney, time it to Obama's supposed evolution on gay marriage, which again, I have to stress, Obama didn't say anything new. The meter didn't move. There's not one thing new in the gay marriage movement other than gay advocates are opening their checkbooks and sending money out the wazoo to Obama. But not one thing has happened to advance the notion of gay marriage by Obama or anybody else.

Gay marriage, a social issue, is now a primary campaign issue. Gay marriage, a social issue, and who has introduced it? Not the pro-lifers. Not those people in the south that the Republican establishment hates. Nope, it's not the preachers. It's not the pro-lifers. It's not the NRA people. No way, Jose. No, the people introducing social issues into this race, Barack Obama and everybody beneath him on the flowchart. They are the ones. Barack Obama is attempting to win the presidency on the issue of gay marriage and gay-bashing. I need to amend that. Barack Obama is attempting to raise money on that issue and on that basis.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, so Barack Obama and his opposition research people make it a public project to destroy the reputation, the livelihood, of this VanderSloot man who donated a million dollars to Mitt Romney's Super PAC. What is the warning? You give money to Romney, I'm coming after you, too. You got anything to hide, and who doesn't? Who doesn't have something they'd rather people not know about? If you give money to Romney, I'm coming after you. So it's an intimidation factor as well as the impact on VanderSloot, which is personal destruction. Thankfully, VanderSloot's got a spine and says: I'm gonna double my donation.

END TRANSCRIPT

[GeronL]

Sounds like a voter intimidation lawsuit might be in order.

[Past Your Eyes]

When the money is unlimited, you can buy lots of this kind of stuff.

[GeronL]

Sounds like a voter intimidation lawsuit might be in order.

[jimfree]

Obama is a pr$ck and I hope that Romney can adequately match him (not everywhere, just where necessary).

[jimfree]

I didn’t say it for Carter. I didn’t say it for Clinton’s first term. Obama has disqualified himself - he doesn’t deserve the presidency he has had. He is an extremely low form of life, a truly evil man.

[Trod Upon]

Sounds like max donations to the man who will defeat 0bama are in order.

[jimfree]

You don’t become leader of a Brownie troop to turn it into the NRA. You don’t become elected to the presidency of a garden club chapter to turn it into a biker gang. The man wants to fundamentally transform us into his vision, not lead us and mold us according to the founder’s vision (as properly amended). He is effing evil.

[SaraJohnson]

Sounds like max donations to the man who will defeat 0bama are in order.

---

Ha! Fat chance in all of your assumptions. :)

[RedMDer]

[TigersEye]

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. "Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

That's how 0bama won his Illinois state senate seat. Got some crooked judge to open the sealed divorce records on his opponent.

[GeronL]

I wouldn’t send Romney the sweat off my toes.

[darrellmaurina]

I think there are two sides to this story.

Frank VanderSloot is a big opponent of gay marriage (good for him!) and a big supporter of Mitt Romney (not good) who is willing to use his money to “out” his opponents. I have zero problem with him doing that, but now it's being done back to him by people who, unlike some of his prior opponents, have sufficient money to fight back.

VanderSloot appears to have a long history of pretty aggressive attacks against opponents that I think would raise questions from Freepers who do the same kind of things to liberals that VanderSloot is complaining about being done to him. Here's one article by Salon on him:

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/17/billionaire_romney_donor_uses_threats_to_silence_critics/

There are quite a few other articles as well about VanderSloot which appear to cite facts using publicly available information. I don't think VanderSloot is a naive businessman who made a big donation to conservative causes and then got slammed for doing so.

If the claims in this article are true, he's a wealthy supporter of Mitt Romney who succeeded in business using some pretty aggressive tactics which he then applied to his critics in politics, and is now getting the same kind of scrutiny applied to him by liberals that we as conservatives would give to a wealthy supporter of Barack Obama.

That's America.

For whatever it's worth, while I don't like his support of Mitt Romney one bit, it certainly looks like he's done a lot of good for the opponents of gay marriage. I have no agenda against VanderSloot — I just wish he'd stick to fighting gay marriage and wasn't a Romney supporter.

The truth will come out sooner or later. If all VanderSloot did was make threats against “little guys” who were mad about his big donations, he's now playing in the big leagues and has found out that both sides fight hard.

Money can buy lots of things, but it can't buy freedom from critics — and shouldn't.

My guess is that when all is said and done, all we'll find here is that VanderSloot is having the same tactics applied to him that he's applied to others, and as a Mormon businessman, I expect that an in-depth evaluation of his personal and professional background won't turn up anything too bad.