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You are here: Home / Politics / Bob Ney’s Legal Woes

Bob Ney’s Legal Woes

by John Cole|  July 11, 20069:11 am| 15 Comments

This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity

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Another member of Ney’s staff has been subpoenaed:

A second member of embattled Republican Rep. Bob Ney’s staff has been subpoenaed to testify in the Justice Department’s investigation of influence-peddling in Congress.

John Bennett, who works in Ney’s eastern Ohio district office, notified House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., of the subpoena with a letter read Monday into the Congressional Record.

Ney has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but federal prosecutors have described him in court documents as having received gifts, trips and other things of value from disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Abramoff’s associates.

At my sister’s wedding reception, I spoke with a good friend of the family while having an extravagant (and not just by West Virginia standards) post-wedding meal. This person is a retired political science teacher, and he was friends with people within the political machinery of Ohio and who had worked for the GOP in general and Ney specifically, and he discussed how many of the former true believers in the GOP were just sick to their stomach aboutthe Ney affair. Many of Ney’s staffers (including the big three) have stepped down, and the general impression was that they were sick of defending the indefensible, and that they were disgusted with the current tactics- attacking and smearing anyone who might even question Ney’s behavior.

In short, this is just another area in which the attack-dog politics of Karl Rove and his ilk have soured people who were once unquestioning Republican supporters and voters.

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15Comments

  1. 1.

    The Other Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 9:16 am

    If you don’t support Ney, you aren’t a true American!

    BTW, going back to the previous article… Was listening to the radio, and those guys accused of the rape of that girl, and the two guys who were beheaded and rigged…

    They were from the same platoon. Not just division, batallion, etc… but from the same platoon. It sounds like the claim that it was not random is accurate.

  2. 2.

    Mr Furious

    July 11, 2006 at 9:23 am

    In short, this is just another area in which the attack-dog politics of Karl Rove and his ilk have soured people who were once unquestioning Republican supporters and voters.

    Yeah, but will they still pull the lever in the fall?

  3. 3.

    The Other Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 9:37 am

    Oh yeah, gotta tell my story of Ohio politics.

    An ancestor of mine is a man by the name of Thomas Dow Jones, actually he was a cousin of a direct ancestor. My mother has letters he had written back in the mid 1800’s, which are interesting to read.

    Thomas Dow Jones was an artist in Ohio. Pretty famous actually at the time. He was commissioned by the Republican party in 1860 to make a bust of Abraham Lincoln, the new President to put in the Ohio state house. So he traveled to Springfield that winter to sit with the President-elect and make sketches.

    Small world note: Thomas Dow Jones was friends with Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes. They’d acted together on the same stage.

    Anyway, long story short. He made the bust out of clay, and the GOP back home was so happy they paid him to carve it in Marble.

    In the meantime however, while he was in Springfield, he had been expecting additional funds to help pay for his room and board and such. they never arrived.

    In his letters he writes home a bit later that apparently what happened…

    The guy who was in charge of fundraising back in Ohio took the money he raised and went to Washington DC and threw a big party for his friends.

  4. 4.

    mrmobi

    July 11, 2006 at 10:26 am

    Mr. Furious:

    Yeah, but will they still pull the lever in the fall?

    A very good question, which leads me to ask several more

    Will the lever that Democrats pull register a Democratic vote? Will there be enormous purges of the voter rolls, which will be challenged too late to make a difference? Will voting machines be distributed so that primarily Democratic districts have too few? Will there be flyers distributed in primarily poor areas announcing that the voting dates have been changed to the next day, or that if you have had any past run-ins with the law and try to vote you could be arrested?

    The lever is losing its meaning in some states (thank God, not here in Illinois). How many more times do you think voters will go to the polls and wait 8 or 9 hours (god bless them!) to vote before they just give up in disgust?

    I’m hoping that people are so pissed off about what is happening that the races won’t even be close, but that is what I thought would happen in 2004. Tom DeLay might just get re-elected! Let’s remember that 40% of Americans, according to several polls, believe the End Times are near.

    Let’s hope it’s not the End Times for Democracy.
    Meanwhile, I’m voting for a Democrat for President in 2008, even if he or she wears a red suit, has horns, and looks like John Lovitz.

    Yeaah, that’s the ticket!

  5. 5.

    Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 10:38 am

    I’m a big fan of Illinois because they cheat for the good guys.

    Will voting machines be distributed so that primarily Democratic districts have too few?

    I have a friend who’s a prominent election law expert. I keep trying to get her to explain to me why it’s not a denial of equal protection to have fewer voting machines per capita in poor/minority/Democratic areas. I haven’t gotten a good answer yet.

  6. 6.

    Pb

    July 11, 2006 at 10:39 am

    mrmobi,

    Yeah, I was thinking much the same thing… the Karl Roves of the world have gotten where they are by playing politics with *everything*, especially elections. The most important political office in a given state may well turn out to be ‘Secretary of State’–it was in 2000, and in 2004.

  7. 7.

    mrmobi

    July 11, 2006 at 10:57 am

    Steve:

    I’m a big fan of Illinois because they cheat for the good guys.

    Yep, let’s be honest here. Machine politics is still alive in Illinois, but thanks to Pat Fitzgerald and other prosecutors, things are beginning to change.
    Pb, I think Ohio is headed down the same road as in 2004, with Mr. Blackwell in charge we should expect to see massive voter disenfranchisement, as well as some of the other dirty tricks I mentioned above.

    He will try a bunch of stuff, some of which will be turned back, but the net effect will be that honest working people will be prevented from voting. I’m beginning to understand where MrFurious got his name.

  8. 8.

    Darrell

    July 11, 2006 at 11:09 am

    Many of Ney’s staffers (including the big three) have stepped down, and the general impression was that they were sick of defending the indefensible

    Just curious as to who all these Republicans are/were who were defending Bob Ney. I haven’t seen or read of one. Is that a strawman I smell?

    And linking Bob Ney with “attack dog” Karl Rove is such a nice touch too. Can we now link William Jefferson with ‘attack dog’ Harry Reid?

  9. 9.

    craigie

    July 11, 2006 at 11:20 am

    Honor and Dignity, baby. Honor and Dignity.

  10. 10.

    Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 11:53 am

    Just curious as to who all these Republicans are/were who were defending Bob Ney. I haven’t seen or read of one. Is that a strawman I smell?

    Yes, Darrell hasn’t read about Republicans defending Bob Ney on his right-wing blogs, so it must not be true. Smell this strawman:

    House Republicans gave Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) a standing ovation after he told them yesterday that he has no plans to resign and will vigorously fend off a likely federal indictment.

    Unlike Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who announced his retirement after a former top aide pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff investigation, Ney is vowing to remain in Congress despite the recent plea deal of a high-level ex-aide, former Chief of Staff Neil Volz.

    …

    Upon finishing his remarks, an overwhelming majority of the members present, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), gave Ney a standing ovation.

    A standing ovation. I can’t wait to see how Darrell spins that away.

  11. 11.

    John S.

    July 11, 2006 at 12:00 pm

    A standing ovation. I can’t wait to see how Darrell spins that away.

    Easy. The Hill, being part of the MSM, clearly exhibits liberal bias.

  12. 12.

    Perry Como

    July 11, 2006 at 12:26 pm

    Steve Says:

    A standing ovation. I can’t wait to see how Darrell spins that away.

    Like Andrew said in the other thread:

    This seems to be the modus operandi of the right wing blogosphere: demanding proof of some fairly obvious thing, being presented with proof, and then denying that said proof is really proof, usually with a personal attack.

  13. 13.

    The Other Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 1:18 pm

    Darrell will now completely ignore you’re point Steve, and ask you to instead define what ‘standing ovation’ means, and what it means that in 1997 the House gave William jefferson a standing ovation.

  14. 14.

    Steve

    July 11, 2006 at 1:41 pm

    You’re almost right. What he’s really going to do is lurk in this thread waiting for someone to make an irrelevant side point he can quibble with, or use as a springboard to babble about the kooky Left. 5 or 10 posts from now, someone will stick a toe over the line, and there he’ll be to pounce upon it and change the subject. That’s how it always works.

  15. 15.

    Darrell

    July 11, 2006 at 2:17 pm

    Steve Says:

    You’re almost right. What he’s really going to do is lurk in this thread waiting for someone to make an irrelevant side point he can quibble with, or use as a springboard to babble about the kooky Left.

    Well, most of the lefty posters are kooky, but you made a valid point above with the standing ovation. I hadn’t heard that. I don’t believe any (or almost none) conservative blogs have defended or excused Ney, but that doesn’t discount the fact that some (many?) Repubs gave him a standing ovation.

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