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Attorney for Former U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter Says New Information Key To
Getting To The Bottom Of "What Really Happened."
Detroit, MI - Former U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter filed a civil suit yesterday against former Deputy District Director Don Yowchuang and Dillon Breen in Wayne County's 3rd Circuit Court. The complaint alleges Yowchuang and Breen purposefully submitted forged petitions in order to keep McCotter off the ballot and, thereby, denying him the opportunity to appear on the August 2012 Republican Primary ballot. The 55-page complaint carefully details all of the inconsistencies in the defendants depositions with Michigan's Attorney General and outlines the specific misrepresentations the defendants made to investigators. Additionally, the complaint specifically details charges of fraud and conspiracy by the defendants against the former Congressman.
David Ottenwess, attorney for McCotter, said, "With the power of the subpoena in this civil suit, we will get to the bottom of what really happened to sabotage former U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter and get justice for the people of the 11th District to protect the integrity of the election process from this perversion of conspiracy, fraud and greed."
WDIV, Channel 4 in Detroit broke a story last week about Yowchuang detailing his desperate need for money prior to the May 2012 filing deadline. WDIV outlined Yowchuang's sealed settlement with a Central Michigan University Fraternity Housing Corporation and his purchase of a new quarter of a million dollar home while having a poor credit rating during the six months before and after the petition scandal took place. Yowchuang recently pled no contest to ten felony counts relating to petition fraud in McCotter's 2012 bid for the U.S. Congress and is currently awaiting a determination on appeal of a felony conspiracy charge by Michigan's Attorney General Bill Schuette.
We placed the names of those who supposedly stand for responsible government, and would have presumably known their power, upon these pages. We pointed out how they buckled to the deceiver in the white house, and perpetuated the burden on our children ad finitum. The faces and names have only been slightly changed,but here we go again, seeing the inability to recognize where the lines must be drawn. It was Congressman Dan Benishek, Congressman Bill Huizenga, Congressman Dave Camp, Congressman Fred Upton, Congressman Tim Walberg, Congressman Mike Rogers, Congresswoman Candice Miller, and the notorious Congressman Thaddeus McCotter who allowed the debt ceiling to increase.
No line in the sand was drawn, no ultimatum, just a stupid deal that we have understood for the last several months to be a "fiscal cliff" of automatic cuts, punishments, reductions, tax increases, etc. The obvious toilet bowl baby of massive proportion, baked up by the usual suspects. And rubber stamped on the foreheads of the dummies who call themselves Republican from the list above.
Redemption requires a real change of heart.
Amash played it right the first time. He understood that the Marxists in the other chamber, and specifically the thug holding the executive office could not be trusted without limits being placed on them. The debt, the spending, the taxation, and all the graft accompanying this most recent development changed nothing, but in fact buys the urn in which the ashes of our constitution will reside. The good representative needs no remorse, for he has served his office well.
He was joined in resisting the less than acceptable bludgeon to common sense and morality that Congress has dealt tonight.
Justim Amash, Tim Walberg, and Bill Huizinga, were alone out of our Michigan contingent to vote against being steam rolled. They voted against a package that raises taxes, spends MORE and does NOTHING to solve the debt or the deficit that we will likely never see an end to; at least until the collapse of our currency. Walberg and Huizinga have recognized the stakes in allowing the future of our country to be defined by the other side.
Dave Camp, Fred Upton, Candace Miller, and Dan Benishek? Just plain pathetic, weak, and merely useless.
Perhaps deserving of another spot on the wall.
Update [2013-1-2 6:42:10 by JGillman]: And how this one slipped I don't know. Mike Rogers as well. (Thanks C1)
No joke. Dick Posthumus' decade old Lt. gov running mate just announced he's going write-in.
Yannow, with all the light that is being shined on the incumbent mentality within the Party establishment, they really are starting to make the AGW zealots and Earth Day kooks look a lot less insane by comparison.
Attaboy, Mike. That's the "rules matter" Jarhead that folk like and respect.
via The Detroit News
"No one has heard of anything so over the top before," echoed former Republican Attorney General Mike Cox. He added: "To have really overt massive potential fraud is really very unusual."
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson's office had turned over preliminary findings to Attorney General Bill Schuette's office, which won't comment. But Cox said investigators have tools working in their favor -- a stack of paper evidence, names and signatures of circulators and the power of an investigative subpoena to compel circulators to talk.
"Ruth and Bill are going to have to go to where the facts go, whether that leads them to (McCotter's staff) or to Thad," said Cox, who said he won't run as a write-in for the McCotter seat. He said his family and the McCotters are close, but now he is for "anybody but Thad."
...
But for nominating petition fraud, the sanctions spelled out in Michigan's election law are misdemeanors.
Someone who signs another's name on a petition, makes a false statement, or signs a petition as a circulator who is not faces up to a $500 fine and 93 days in jail.
Additionally, if the candidate or a petition circulator knew of such petition fraud and didn't report it to authorities, he is guilty of misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and one year imprisonment, under the law.
Isn't that just lovely? Bottom line: We have a smarmy, career DC politico doofus from his specially redrawn District-11 who is now wasting our tax dollars on a misdemeanor witch-hunt that he is responsible for creating.
After the SOS was through, that was the number of legit signatures left.
Though he personally did not commit the criminal acts, it was his judgement of character to have hired whomever was responsible for this:
"A review by The Detroit News of the petition signatures found full copies of a sheet of signatures that were photocopied once and in some cases two times and mixed in with the 136-page stack of signatures. In some cases, a different petition circulator's name was signed to the duplicate copy.
The overt copying is "frankly unheard of," said Chris Thomas, Michigan's director of elections, as he thumbed through the stack of petitions. "It's amazing when you sit and look, and it starts to dwell on you what they've done."
Thad McCotter was pretty well toast the minute the first duplicate was signed by a second scoundrel in his campaign.
It will be an interesting thing to watch as McCotter takes an underdog position as a write-in candidate while simultaneously fighting the fallout commentary from this affair. It will also be interesting to see if the MIGOP adopts its usual support-the-incumbent position, things being what they are.
While we enjoy a primary like no other, at least you could have gotten yourself on the ballot properly.
Damn shame to throw away such a remarkable career, and then like chasing your last dollar bill over the rails of a bridge you take the leap. An Angel named Clarence isn't going to help as all the world becomes a little different Thad.
So much for dignity.
Its an amazing thing how someone can get so smug that he allows the simplest part of his campaign to slip out from under him. Signatures. A thousand legitimate freaking signatures. And then to say "the buck stops here", yet pretend that he is too loved to accept the situation as it is. In "You clean up your own mess" McCotter says:
"Having promised people I would seek another term in the United States Congress and, thereby, give them the chance to vote for or against me, the only way to clean up my mess is to run a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination for Michigan's 11th Congressional District.
This I'm doing."
Is that how he cleans up a mess?
Folks, it ain't spilt TEA here. That pot is brewing and hot, and quite full yet. Its the drunk on power embarrassment factor on full display. Grapes all over the floor, stains and all.
As you read this, there are interesting happenings that have an unknown possibility.
According to reliable news outlets, Michigan Representative Thaddeus McCotter may not be on the ballot this year.
"In preparation for the August Republican Congressional Primary, the Bureau of Elections did what is called a "face review" of the petition signatures that McCotter turned in as part of his re-election campaign in the 11th Congressional District.
That review suggested that McCotter may not have enough valid signatures to be put on the ballot."
Excuse me, say what? Wow?
If this is true, one must ask .. how?
According to the Unofficial SOS primary count, on the last day, team McCotter turned in 2000 signatures. Only 1000 are needed. Thad McCotter Turned in 553 more signatures than Kerry Bentvolio, a Republican primary challenger, yet his turn in of May 14th (a day before the deadline) doesn't seem to be creating a stir. For a "face count" to demonstrate a potential loss of more than half of signatures gathered, it is a sign of real trouble for the veteran congressman McCotter.
Something big is going to break. I can feel it.
Stay tuned.
As an aside, if it is determined McCotter is ineligible, Veteran and educator Bentvolio will need to start raising cash FAST in order to compete properly and hold the seat for Republicans in the SE district CD11.
Candice got this one right. Well, partially right, up until she decided it's smart to start blathering for a Federal catastrophic fund to 'fleece' e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e into gummint subsidy.
Yessirree, it was Richard "I Never Met A Big Government Program That I Didn't Like" Nixon who mandated National Flood Insurance in 1973, further entangling folks to bureaucracy created floodplain schemes if you'd like a mortgage.
So, who were the Michigan Republicans that kicked the fleecing can down the road? Benishek, Camp, Huizenga, McCotter, Rogers, Upton, and Walberg voting in lockstep with nanny government entitlement Democrats Clarke, Conyers, Dingell, Kildee, Levin, and Peters.