OUT OF HIS CAMPAIGN ACCOUNT … RIGHT BEFORE ISSUING A HUGELY CONTROVERSIAL RULING …
S.C. attorney general and presumed “Republican” gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson paid a whopping $28,000 out of his campaign account late last year to former Democratic minority leader James Smith – a state lawmaker and prominent liberal attorney in Columbia, S.C.
Wilson and Smith did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on why such an unusually large sum of money was transferred – or why the payment was made from Wilson’s campaign account.
According to S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC) filings, the questionable disbursement – which accounted for nearly two-thirds of Wilson’s total quarterly expenditures – was listed as having been made on November 24, 2015.
That’s two weeks before Wilson’s office released a hugely controversial opinion in response to a request from Democratic first circuit solicitor David Pascoe relating to an ongoing investigation into public corruption at the S.C. State House.
Coincidence? Our sources think not …
“The powerful Democratic lawyer was probably hired to talk to the Democratic solicitor,” one source close to Pascoe’s office told us.
Wilson was supposed to be leading the State House anti-corruption investigation – but recused himself last summer citing undisclosed conflicts of interest.
He didn’t stay away from “the probe” for long, though.
Wilson’s December 11 opinion – obtained exclusively by this website – clearly sought to steer Pascoe’s investigation in such a way as to benefit elected officials belonging to the political stable of his neo-Confederate consultant, Richard Quinn.
The opinion was so flagrantly self-serving, in fact, that we’re told it has attracted the attention of some of the same federal investigators who were originally working with Wilson’s office in an effort to identify which State House lawmakers were on the take.
Incidentally, Wilson’s campaign paid Quinn’s firm – Richard Quinn and Associates – nearly $11,000 in three separate payments during the fourth quarter of 2015, according to SCSEC documents.
How cozy …
This website has taken an increasingly dim view of Wilson in light of his ongoing failure to do the job he was elected to do – a job he promised us two years ago that he would do.
“Once viewed as a crusader against public corruption, it’s now readily apparent Wilson has engaged in selective prosecution in an effort to benefit his political allies – many of whom are far more corrupt than the handful of politicians he’s prosecuted,” we wrote earlier this month.
We’re not alone in that view, either …
Despite failing to make good on his promises to root out the rampant corruption in Columbia, S.C., Wilson is being groomed as Quinn’s gubernatorial candidate of choice for 2018. In fact Wilson and Quinn held a strategy session recently which included wealthy Columbia, S.C. businessman Bill Stern and S.C. Manufacturers Alliance president Lewis Gossett – two prominent political insiders likely to take leadership roles in his upcoming race.
Can he overcome his growing baggage and mount a credible campaign? Or will Quinn toss him overboard in favor of a politician who is making much smarter moves at the moment?
We shall see …
75 comments
I thought James Smith represented Alan Wilson in the proceedings with the SC Ethics Commission, and his “inadverdent mistakes” in regard to fundraising, reporting, etc. As I recall, the Ethics Commission investigation was resolved with allowing Wilson to amend his reports, return some money, etc. I remember thinking it was funny Wilson hired a Democrat to get him out of hot water from his previous election, against the Democrat running for AG.
That only seems funny to those who remain blind to the way deep-seated corruption works in SC.
Look turd, I thought it was funny as in hilarious, as they all pretend to be partisan warriors, when the truth is that they’re all in this together. I don’t read this blog often, but often enough to know you’re full of shit, and claim to be some all knowing Pee Dee political savant, though more like idiot savant in personalized and meaningless drama inspired trivia.
I am in awe of your trenchant mastery of principled political discourse and human courtesy.
OH MY! ‘Henty Mac Sucks’ just defined you!
Being an idiot savant is not a bad thing. The shit they know, they know better than anyone else. I get a hell of a lot of stuff wrong, but what I stated to “Henry Mac Sucks” really is the template for corruption in this state. Not saying it doesn’t work the same way in other states, but the fact is that here it’s a basic political reality that’s inescapable. That’s why I’m so confronting to your agenda. You are dedicated, for whatever reason, to trying to hide that reality, at all cost. Too bad for you that you suck at doing that.
And as usual, your crudely-expressed disdain and the ad hominem opprobrium you obsessively heap on me only serve to raise my profile. Thanks again. I really can’t say that enough.
We still friends?
Not even close.
Ben Carson is an idiot savant. He can do things in his field few others can, highly respected doctor. Goes into politics, looks like a retard. Still have to give him credit for being an incredible doctor.
It seemed like a reasonable fee to pay a lawyer whose representation may have saved a politician’s political career.
Screw their damned political careers! If they are guilty they are guilty. Regardless of party, regardless of ideology. It should be regardless of “who they know and who they blow”, but we all know that’s not the case.
Why do they make them “careers”, anyway? Crazy as Jesse Ventura was in many ways, he was right on when he talked about the need for citizens to be true public servants for a time, and then make way for others.
Making a “career” of it is what creates a dependency on finding ways to profit far greater than they should have a right to by their service. The service should be to the people, and not their cronies and special interests that help to make them richer.
Rep James Smith has been a master of hiding the corruption of his friends. He has been working to hide Jean Toal’s corruption for years. “She was my mommie’s childhood friend,” he has said innumerable times.
And there you have it.
I can’t get over the irony behind Wilson, who is a self-proclaimed pro-life conservative, paying that kind of money to Planned Parenthood’s biggest ally in SC.
Now that PISSES me off.Is that true?
That Planned Parenthood bait gets you every time, Flip.
Have you run out of Disqus names and had to resort to your “guest” strategy?
Hey PUSSY stalker.Just for you fetuseater:
AUDIO: Ky. Governor claims Planned Parenthood performs ‘illegal, unlicensed’ abortions
WDRB? – 17 hours ago
“Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky applied for an abortion facility license and …
http://www.wdrb.com/story/31085761/audio-ky-governor-claims-planned-parenthood-performs-illegal-unlicensed-abortions
Thanks for the link, which clearly states that PPINK is in full compliance with the law.
For someone who posts with a different name nearly every time to call me a “PUSSY stalker” is obliviously hilarious, Flip.
Not a bad deal. 30 years ago it cost me $30 to bribe the Terminix man not to kill the cockroaches in a fella’s house, dude owed me a lot of money
$28,000 not to kill a Fuckin’ Cockroach Legislator or two sounds about right
Smith is dirty. Hides it well. But if you’re a liberal idealist he’ll help you hide anything.
It’s not about idealism, and he is no idealist. He’s just another manipulative pol who is in it for himself. Party label, ultimately, doesn’t mean a thing to these people.
America’s future lies in the traditional vales of hard work and self-reliance in a free market – and in the nuclear family with mothers and fathers raising kids and teaching them how to be productive members of society. America had better wake up. Conservatives are not perfect. But unlike Democrats, they are not taking us down a path of total destruction.
That’s what Democrats are doing. And that’s what makes them evil.Party ‘labels’ do matter.Wake up Boz.
You suck up to the chamber of commerce every way you can. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a free market. That body, on every level, works real hard to make sure that the market is not free in any way. They even work against their own members who own small businesses. They, more than any other institution in America, have been responsible for the near death of the great middle class.
In 2010, The US Chamber and Bank of America hired hackers and dirty tricksters to go after anyone and everyone opposing their total domination of American business and politics. A rivalry between hacking groups brought this out, and eventually Anonymous revealed their scheme through leaked emails.
That’s “free market?” Hell no! It’s criminal conspiracy.
Now the US Chamber is spending 100 million bucks this election cycle to attack Trump and the Tea Party.
They hate Trump because they can’t control him. They hate the Tea Party because — when they are lost in the wilderness of religious fanaticism and rampant racism — they’re resistant to the extreme crony corporatism and coercive tactics of the Chamber.
That’s reality. My talking about this stuff is why you are so obsessed with me.
Local chamber of commerce serve their businesses and communities very well.The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is a shining example of how one is supposed to operate.One of the best in the nation in serving its members.
US Chamber? They just want cheap labor and support Amnesty-why they are after Trump.He has defeated them.
Obsessed? Only obsession I see is the one you have with Tom Rice.Still waiting on you to list the crimes you allege he has committed.
The MB Area Chamber runs rough-shod over many of its own member businesses, by total support of a handful of elite members such as B&C and Brittain Resort Management. Everyone else sucks a hind teat. Even worse, the chamber works against them. Businesses not aligned with the chamber are even more targeted as “fair game”, just as with Scientology. That includes using the media outlets they control to falsely accuse certain businessmen of wrongdoing, and even getting one of them arrested for a “road rage” incident that never occured. (He sued, they settled.) They have used the courts to go after those who criticize them, at every level.
You cannot seperate the MB Area Chamber from the US Chamber. They are a FIVE STAR AFFILIATE. When Brad Dean goes to DC he meets with Donahue. They love him.
You sure love to twist things your way, and to deflect the argument every chance you get.
HOW did you delete a comment when you are posting a guest?
Don’t ask.
He hates free market capitalism. He’s all for people in control of things, just like he is for increasing taxes. He’s a liberal just like me! LMAO!!
Here’s how much the chamber supports the values you claim to hold, and the politicians who advance them:
Chamber’s Donohue: ‘Loud Voices’ in 2016 ‘Politically Stupid’
By Kate Ackley
Roll Call Staff
Jan. 14, 2016, 3:30 p.m.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue took swipes Thursday at the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda and the GOP’s leading White House contenders, as he outlined the 2016 mission for Washington’s biggest lobbying organization.
Though he didn’t mention Donald Trump or others by name, Donohue assailed the “sometimes very loud voices who talk about walling off America from talent, from trade ” and proposals that target specific ethnic and religious groups — an obvious reference to Trump’s call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States amid terrorism concerns.
“This is morally wrong and politically stupid,” said Donohue, whose $300 million group doesn’t endorse presidential candidates but will weigh in on their policy proposals.
In congressional races, Donohue said, the chamber’s priority is to “protect the gains we made” in 2014 when Republicans took control of the Senate and added seats for the largest House majority since the Truman administration. Donohue also unveiled during his annual state of American business speech a legislative agenda that reflects the group’s expectation that election-year politics will consume much of Capitol Hill’s attention.
Many of the business community’s top policy priorities — passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and overhauls to immigration and tax laws — are unlikely to move on Capitol Hill before the November elections. But, he said, the chamber would use “all of our tools” to challenge new Obama administration labor, health, financial and environmental regulations, including using the congressional appropriations process and the courts.
“Some may ask whether the business community can expect to see any progress in Washington this year. The honest answer is not as much as we would like — but more than you may expect,” he said. He also noted, “You can be sure our litigation center will be busier than ever.”
Read more at http://www.rollcall.com/news/chambers_donohue_loud_voices_in_2016_politically_stupid-245455-1.html
All about US Chamber wanting cheap labor.Trump has defeated them.No Amnesty.No path to citizenship.The American people have spoken.
You ready to stop sucking up to the chamber’s chosen ones in SC, then?
I think the MBACC have done a great job in promoting MB and tourism.
Note the full support for Obama’s god-awful trans-Pacific agreement, and for unlimited immigration.
Can’t compare US Chamber and local chambers.They don’t have the same goals or agenda.
Wilson and Quinn represent the establishment. The establishment is in trouble.
Look what Trump is doing to the Establishment. Like Trump or not, his movement shows how vapid, self-interested and tenuous the establishment’s hold on power is.
The media and commentators don’t understand what is happening in the electorate. If they did, they would understand that neither Wilson not McMaster will be the next governor.
Watch closely over the next 6 months and watch as SC is turned on its head. All the signs are there, just no one has stopped to see them.
Alvin Greene was sold out short. He could do any of these bofoons job.
Yet the damn fools will continue to re-elect Pappa Joe Wilson and his boy every time they run.
“The powerful Democratic lawyer was probably hired to talk to the Democratic solicitor,” one source close to Pascoe’s office told us.”
But-but-but-but … we are told CONSTANTLY that there are no powerful Democrats in South Carolina.
For the last seven years I’ve been called a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist for insisting that there are a great many of them, and that they are every bit as corrupt as their GOP counterparts.
I’m half crazy, but I’m not stupid. This stuff has been obvious to anyone who truly paid attention, all along, and who was willing to take off the partisan and ideological blinders long enough to see it.
The public at large thinks there is a difference between the parties that is ideologically driven. but there is very little genuine difference. It is just a matter of which ‘team’ has the predominant amount of power. They do collude together so that when one is in the minority, they still have some power left.
The majority party, particularly when they are very dominant, is the more corrupt simply as a factor of having more power to weld.
Anyone who paid attention and saw the list of ‘no’, then ‘yes’ voting legislators in the Amazon tax deal knows that the Legislative Black Caucus controlled both outcomes.
So, clearly, in any legislative body where you have to compromise – as they did in order to produce the US Constitution – you will have ‘powerful’ legislators of both parties.
But, unless they get together to show their power, like the Legislative Black Caucus did, any individual Democrat’s power is more limited to their own district than power within the chambers.
Ain’t this sweet.Floundering,wacko,false conspiratorial creating nutjobs Buzzed( Curley),nitNUT(Shemp) and vicUPchuck(Moe) spewing more unfounded bull shit for the masses of idiots visiting FitsNews.
All 3 of you are clueless.
You care to enlighten us on how you know the real truth?
Jesus appeared to him in a bowl of grits, and revealed ALL.
Boz is right.God revealed it to me.
He knows what he sucks, dick.
Flippy Pogo Sandy Moral-less, you are a special kind of troll. Nothing gets you worked up like the bare-faced truth.
Boz the parties are different.Get your head out of your ass and get off the fence.
The Democrats’ takeover of healthcare is a disaster and their social policies will eventually create a nation of misery. Abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, and open borders are recipes for national failure. Democrats promote every type of perversion known to man – and a country can only take so much.
You like to pretend to believe that every Republican feels as you do about all of those issues. That’s why nobody on here trusts you or takes you seriously.
We only have three TRUE conservative Republicans on FitsNews and I get along with them very well.
And please get off that thing that you are a Republican.NO Republican would have supported Gloria Tinabu.
No person with any principles whatsoever would have supported a crook like Tom Rice.
What crimes are Rice guilty of?
Too numerous to list.
Why don’t you call him and tell him to sue? I’ve been wanting him to do that for several years now.
List em.You can’t.Are none.’Just your imagination running away’….you know the song…. :)
When Tom Rice met with his constituents for coffee at the Trestle Bakery in Conway on 20 January, he again was bragging about how much he had done to get funding for I-73. I pointed out that the recent $200,000 study for SCDOT on potential receipts from I-73 tolls was flawed because the same person that screwed up the original I-73 study for NESA in 2011 had screwed up this new toll study in the same way.
Rice responded by acknowledging that he had read my critique of the NESA study by explaining to the others that “Tom here is an engineer, detail-oriented and passionate about issues” then declared that despite the bogus studies promising jobs from I-73, he still believed it was a good idea.
Now, if someone like Bernie Madoff makes phony statements about potential investments, they go to jail. When people like Tom Rice, Brad Dean or Alan Clemmons make phony statements about the return on investment of $2.4 billion for I-73, what happens to them?
Here is Rice schmoozing before the exchange above: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAxCAicsgQ5/
Hey PUSSY stalker-what crimes are you alleging Rice has committed PUSSY stalker.
Name them please.
The Democratic ‘takeover of healthcare’ was based on the Heritage Foundation/Romneycare Republican plan to counter Bill and Hillary’s plan of the ’90s.
If it were a ‘takeover’, we would not still have the private insurance companies selling the insurance.
And, Jim DeMint supported going nationwide with Romneycare after Mitt implemented it. But, whoa, bubba, just let that half-black guy sign on and it becomes Satan produced.
The rest of your stuff is just the usual craziness. Although, I do believe in a moratorium on all immigration until we can determine if we have enough potable water going forward into the coming decades to produce enough food to adequately feed Americans. And, since people breed, the influx needs to stop now.
The nation’s largest health insurer warned Thursday that it may pull out of the Obamacare exchanges after 2016 – forcing more than a half million people to find other coverage – after low enrollment and high usage cost the company millions of dollars.
The possible move by UnitedHealth Group raises new questions about the viability of President Obama’s signature health law and follows the departure of more than half of the non-profit insurance cooperatives this year. If UnitedHealth drops out, consumers would lose one of the lowest-cost plans available in much of the country, and some wonder how smaller insurers could fill the void.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/11/19/unitedhealth-group-earnings-downgrade-obamacare-affordable-care-act/76040322/
How is it working out for those private insurance companies?
Hopefully we put the private insurance out of business and have Berniecare!
I worked for em, complete crooks.
Buz has more smarts in the cuticle of his left pinky than you do in your entire body! Oh my!
That’s only true if you discount the backroom deals. Also the way certain Repubs that used to be Dems rely on their own expertise in cyphoning fed $$$ for their pork projects — as well as on their own connections to current Dems with power. Jim Clyburn remains a power broker, and the selection of the eminently unqualified and out-of-his-depth Tom Rice to congress is a perfect example of how it works in national politics. The same holds true statewide and locally. It’s all in the dealmaking that goes on OFF the State House legislative chamber floors.
You were talking specifically about the Statehouse. Give some examples of ‘Jim Clyburns’ there.
BTW, using the example of the production of the Constitution, making deals, on the floor or off, is how the Framers expected our government to work.
I believe the assumption was that deals would be made more for the good of the republic and the people in it than to line the pockets of greed-heads like Hugh Leatherman.
There does not need to be a specific Jim Clyburn in the State House for the corrupt deal-making to be rampant there. It’s institutional, and has been in place ever since the “Southern Strategy” made bigoted Southern Dems turn Repub, but not give up the old ways of taxing the hell out everyone and spending money profligately. Not to mention, pork, pork, pork, and did I mention pork?
The corrupt collaborations between the parties is not about bipartisanship for the good of the people. It’s about finding new and better ways to screw the people over. This is especially true of those what are closely tied to the chamber of commerce and dependent on their hidden PAC money.
What a photo Nimrata and Nitwit in one photo.
Jose Wales (pogo) posted this an hour ago. When I tried to respond, I was told it was an inactive comment. Odd. If he’s posting as a “guest”, how could he delete a comment? Hmmm …
It’s easy to see why he deleted it. Much of it supported my argument. lol
///
Jose Wales • an hour ago
The US Chamber functions like a beltway consulting firm, hired out by big corporations–it spent $132,000,000 on lobbying and electoral battles in 2010.
The US Chamber is anti-science: of the $32,000,000 the Chamber spent on the 2010 midterm elections, 94% went to climate change deniers.
The Chamber is consistently on the wrong side of history, lobbying against engagement in WWII, against the Civil Rights Act, against the Americans with Disabilities Act and and against the Clean Air Act.
The US Chamber has a crisis of legitimacy. While it claims to represent 3,000,000 businesses, only 200,000 are involved in the Chamber in any significant way, and 16 multinational corporations provide the vast majority of its funding.
This is why over 6200 businesses, many of them small, and 53 local chambers of commerce, have signed on to the “US Chamber Doesn’t Speak for me” campaign. While the US Chamber of Commerce teams up with Big Oil over an export pipeline that would bisect our country, these businesses are committed to a planet safe from catastrophic climate change.
http://chamber.350.org/
Wrong again Boz. ///
The US Chamber has a crisis of legitimacy. While it claims to represent 3,000,000 businesses, only 200,000 are involved in the Chamber in any significant way…
This supports your argument that the US Chamber and local chambers are one in the same?
I like ya Boz however you sure are stupid.
Once again, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is a FIVE-STAR AFFILIATE of the United States Chamber of Commerce. This list of all the ways they work together is an extensive one. The local affiliates get many of its training methods, templates for new member packages, and other materials from the national/international organization. This is a fact known to most everyone. Except you, in pretend mode.
That’s a huge leap in logic which almost always means not true. Your “source” probably has an axe to grind? If you aren’t going to name sources you have to at least give people a reason to fucking give a shit.
I asked the homeless guy outside my office how if Will Folks liked to tickle little boys in special places and he said according to his sources the answer was certainly yes.
he needs to do that so he can buy a judge ..maybe he has champagne fund dementia like good old boy jake knotts …
Alan rebutted on Friday…well at least my pappy Joe was in the know and wasn’t found to be lying
You know—he didn’t stab SC conservatives by sticking his head up RINOs Boehner and Paul Ryan
And at least he said Hell no we won’t rip down the flag of patriots by NOT letting YOU get to vote
And he didn’t give the most incompetent presiDENT in history fast-track and try to make you a goat
Yep…he and mammy refused that taxpayer-PAID vacation to Hawaii—their most modest move to date
And of course we KNOW you’ll be slow and reelect Joe and me the next chance you get…NO…WAIT !!!
Wilson is a hypocritical dope. Its a sad reflection of the SC republican party if he is a top governor candidate.
Trump gets elected, I guarantee you that SC will be cleaned up like never seen before.
“The website” meaning…..you
Pot meet your friend, Kettle. Thad Viers.
Kettle, Todd Kincannon.
So now you’re posing as the good guy?
Very South Carolina. TR would be proud.