Posted on 06/30/2014 6:34:36 PM PDT by Viennacon
Edited on 06/30/2014 6:57:17 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
A black reverend stiffed by the Cochran campaign has exposed an alleged criminal conspiracy by Cochran staffers to commit massive voter fraud ahead of Tuesday's controversial U.S. Senate Republican runoff election in Mississippi.
Reverend Stevie Fielder, associate pastor at historic First Union Missionary Baptist Church and former official at Meridian's redevelopment agency, says he delivered "hundreds or even thousands," of blacks to the polls after being offer money and being assured by a Cochran campaign operative that Chris McDaniel was a racist. "They [the Cochran campaign] told me to offer blacks fifteen dollars each and to vote for Thad."
It is illegal under several provisions of Mississippi law and federal law for campaign officials to bribe voters with cash and punishable up to five years in jail. (MS Code 97-13-1; MS Code 97-13-3 (2013) (Federal Code 18 U.S.C. 597, U.S.C. 1973i(c)) Voter fraud schemes are not unusual for Mississippi. In 1999 Mississippi's attorney general reported massive voter fraud allegations throughout the Palmetto state. In 2011, a Mississippi NAACP leader was sent to prison for voter fraud, according to the Daily Caller.
It would seem that laws were broken here, too. At the direction of the Cochran campaign, Reverend Fielder went "door to door, different places, mostly impoverished neighborhoods, to the housing authorities and stuff like that," telling fellow blacks that McDaniel was a racist and promising them $15 per vote. "They sold me on the fact that he was a racist and that the right thing to do was to keep him out of office," Fielder says.
Text messages released to Got News and a recorded interview with Reverend Fielder confirmed that Saleem Baird, a staffer with the Cochran campaign and current legislative aide to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, and Cochran campaign manager, Kirk Sims, were involved in a $15 per vote cash bribery scheme to target members of the black community.
"They said they needed black votes," said the Reverend Fielder on the phone. He says Baird told him to put "give the fifteen dollars in each envelope to people as they go in and vote. You know, not right outside of the polling place but he would actually recruit people with the $15 dollars and they would go in and vote." Fielder said he received thousands of dollars in envelopes from Baird and distributed them accordingly. Fielder also says he went to the campaign office on another occasion to pick up $300 in cash and was among a room full of people who were doing the same thing he was.
Excerpt, read more at gotnews.com
I will say that I’m a little apprehensive, too. I was in one of my insomniac moods last night and I happened to look at FR shortly after this came out. At first I was very pleased, but the more I thought about it, the more one question bothered me: why would this minister come out and admit to a total stranger that he had done something that was completely illegal?
Black ministers are not very well educated, as a whole, and some of them may not be very bright (hence their fondness for the Dems), but they are canny. And I can’t believe he wouldn’t have known vote-buying was illegal and that, knowing this, he would still have announced to some unknown reporter that he had done it numerous times.
I think this needs to be investigated very thoroughly. I thought, from the tweets that he was showing off, that the minister was probably contracted to hire other people in a GOTV drive. In other words, each of these people would then be getting $15 for every voter they contacted who then went to the polls, while he would be getting a cut for having hired them. This isn’t illegal; both parties routinely hire people to do voter registration or canvassing, and pay them on the basis of the number of registrations, successful visits, etc.
It sounds as if the Cochran campaign either didn’t pay fast enough or wasn’t going to pay at all, once they’d gotten what they wanted. But if all they were paying for was people to go door to door to registered Democrats urging them to vote for Cochran...well, it may be underhanded, but it wasn’t illegal.
The article was more specific and incriminating, but I’m just going by the tweets that the minister was showing off in the photos, since I don’t know a thing about the reporter and how reliable he is. I feel like I’ve been burned too many times by excited reports of this “smoking gun” or that - and it usually turns out to be nothing but wishful thinking and makes people who believe it look like fools. Breitbart was reliable, but I think caution is required here and it should be investigated by someone else before we take it as the truth.
And I think the McDaniel campaign should continue amassing evidence of irregularities, but shouldn’t get openly involved in this until it’s clarified a bit.
According to AZ Central, McCain dismissed criticism over the tactics the Republican Establishment used to get black Democrats to cross over and vote for Cochran.
Said McCain, "There are some people complaining that African-American voters voted. [But] I thought one of the major priorities of the Republican Party was to get all minority and ethnic voters out to vote for Republicans."
He described Cochran's "get-out-the-vote campaign" as "excellent," then talked about how he will face similar circumstances in Arizona and needs to work equally as hard if he runs again. "The key is you'd better pay attention, you'd better work hard, you'd better organize." He added, "And you'd better understand that there's a strong anti-Washington/anti-incumbency sentiment out there, which is justified and you've got your work cut out for you."
Excellent news! I hope by ‘sorted out’, he means Thad Cochran, Haley Barbour, and Karl Rove ARRESTED!
I believe in the audio that is in the OP, the pastor says that he was near polling places.
But, to your point, I have no problem with scrutinizing this story. It's what we do here. With Mark Levin chiming in, more eyes will be on it.
It’s possible that he knows that activity around polling places seems not to be a crime if it’s done by black leftists. The Black Panther affair of a few years ago, which was never punished or even halted, has probably made many feel confident that whatever they did would get a pass.
I’m just a little uneasy with such a bold declaration of participating in illegal voting activity, although, of course, it’s certainly not unbelievable.
Is he not party to the conspiracy to commit voter fraud?
Listen to the audio of the interview. The Reverend names names and gives specifics. No stuttering, stammering or awkward pauses. It doesn’t sound like he’s making anything up on the spot. When he doesn’t know something, he says so. Something definitely happened.
I listened to an audio of an interview with him. THe “racist” charge was his excuse for doing what he did. He would have kept his mouth shut had he received the money he thought he was owed from the Cochran campaign. He was trying to get money from the McDaniels’ campaign. If he’s legit, he is monumentally stupid because he’s admitted to paying people for their votes.
/johnny
You would do both?
Josh Painter (I-TX) @Josh_Painter · 7h
Flashback, 2007: Haley Barbour relative defrauded FEMA after Katrina, judge rules - http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/31/122
Mom? Is that you?
Holy crap!
LOL - democrats have been buying and selling black voters for-EVER...
Blacks got $15 - that's chump change compare to what the 'church' was suppose to get. What was the 'donation' the good Reverend's church was suppose to get? Maybe a nice bonus for the reverend was in order? That's how it usually works. I suspect the IRS would look the other way... as they always do...
Republican Cochran tries the 'black-vote-buying' scam and gets caught... I like that.... good that he got caught.
None of the dems have been caught in all these years... but a Republican does it and BOOM - he's shot down.
So the real story is how will tghe MSM cover this? Will the New York Times cover this story and potentially damages democrats chances of 'bribing the vote...' next time... My guess is the New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Post will ignore this corruption. Because this type of corruption helps democrats.
None of the dems have been caught in all these years... but a Republican does it and BOOM - he’s shot down.
++++++++
This is true. It is the primary reason why I’m hopeful but am remaining skeptical of this story.
I listened to the full audio tape. Everyone should do that. The guy sounds credible. But a question that wasn’t asked really stood out for me: Do you know of anyone else we could talk to that could corroborate your story? Any other local ministers who might also have participated in this scam?
I checked Drudge and none of this is making headlines. Wonder why Drudge isn’t reporting on this.....
It’s usually done in the form of a ‘donation’ to the church... and some ‘walking around’ money. It’s so common I doubt this minister even thought it would be considered voter fraud.
For those people outside the system it has the emotional impact of hearing about a drug dealer calling the police because some user stiffed him. Sane people are going, ‘What? That’s nuts’...
Is this really the first time you’ve heard of this type of voter fraud?
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