Short version: Eric Holder got to be testifying before the Senate on a day where the big news was that the NSA was having Verizon pull its phone logs and hand them over to the federal government. Mark Kirk had an opportunity to ask questions.
Hi-jinks, as they say, ensued.
For those of you who don’t have video, here’s a rough translation/summary of what Holder and Kirk said: Continue reading Mark Kirk backhands Eric Holder over the executive branch’s spying on Congress.
Mark Kirk? The video at this link? It’s your next campaign ad.
“If I knew then what I know now, these are not the kind of people that we’d do business with,” he added, “but that’s not how banks work.” Asked again if he knew that criminal figures were the recipients of some of those loans, Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL) said again, “I didn’t know the extent of their activity.”
Yes. This was Alexi Giannoulias’s answer to the question of whether Alexi Giannoulias and his fellow bankers knew about the entire pimp, bookie, and mobster thing before they lent all that money to all those pimps, bookies, and mobsters. He didn’t know the extent of their activity. He said this. Twice.
In case you were wondering: this is not a good answer.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Mark Kirk for Senate. He’s not a doofus.
OK, this is a free piece of advice for the Giannoulias campaign: clearly their critical decision path process with regard to accepting assistance needs to be updated. From now on, they need to absolutely make sure that at some point during the process the question By the way: are you associated in any way with organized crime? be asked of potential assistants – and if the answer is Why, yes, I am! then the assistance needs to be gently rebuffed.
I’m not saying that it would eliminate all the times that Giannoulias attended a fundraiser thrown by a former female associate of the Lucchese family – but it’d certainly cut the frequency of those embarrassing social moments way down.
[H/T NRO’s Battle ’10]
Moe Lane
PS: Mark Kirk for Senate. Much thinner FBI file, presumably.
Crossposted to RedState.
Before we go any further, let us never forget: Alexi Giannoulias (D CAND, IL-SEN) made his political career all about his experience in working in his family’s bank.
So it’s kind of fascinating to hear the state treasurer of Illinois claim he knows nothing, nothing! about the almost twenty-three million dollars that his family bank lent a notorious Blagojevich crony who was under federal investigation at the time.
Through a spokeswoman, Giannoulias says he knew nothing about the $22.75 million loan to Riverside District Development until reporters contacted him.
“Alexi left daily operations of the bank in September of 2005, months before this loan was made,” says Kathleen Strand of his campaign staff. “He had no knowledge of it, and his name is not on any documents related to the loan…
He wants only free-range dirty lobbyist money, apparently. None of this factory-grown, federal dirty lobbyist money for him:
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias says he’s swearing off campaign contributions from lobbyists, but not all lobbyists.
Giannoulias, the state treasurer, promised at the start of his Senate campaign a year ago that he wouldn’t take contributions from corporate lobbyists or political action committees. But that proscription applies only to federal lobbyists and PACs. He has taken money from state-registered lobbyists. He says there’s a difference: Since he’s running for a federal office, a state lobbyist can’t try to influence him if he wins.
Riiiiiiiiight. So, the following scenario? Continue reading Alexi Giannoulias watching his dirty lobbyist money diet.
I understand that the man is desperate to escape to Washington, DC – but the bills are piling up. And I am not being figurative in the slightest:
Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.
He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.
“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university – and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office.
Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”
A pleasant beginning to the week, no?
First it was President Barack Obama, then White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, now U.S. Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias is joining the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial subpoena list.
Giannoulias is in the middle of a hard fought campaign against Congressman Mark Kirk for the right to fill the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Obama.
So there’s no doubt that being dragged into the Blagojevich trial is not welcome news for the Democratic candidate’s campaign.
The title will make sense in a minute.
[UPDATE] More from Politico and Big Government. And if you’re ever on the other end of this, the NRSC wants you to remember: don’t be like Alexi Giannoulias’ staffers. No touchies.
Alexi Giannoulias (D CAND, IL-SEN) needs to hire a better class of goon.
Not so much for the specific details here – interesting how quickly the Left goes vigilante over cameramen, isn’t it? You’d think that the first thing that they’d do would be to call in security; but nope, give a Democratic campaign guy five-to-one odds in his favor and suddenly he’s a tough guy – but because right now the last thing Giannoulias needs is for any excuse for people like me to mention Giannoulias’ latest lie about his family’s mob bank:
Continue reading Giannoulias staffer sells cameraman. Excuse me, ‘seizes.’
On why Alexi Giannoulias (D CAND, IL-SEN) still hasn’t managed to release his income tax statements for 2009:
The Giannoulias camp notes that the candidates finances have become increasingly complex because of the failure of Broadway Bank, owned by his family.
I imagine that they would be. After all: obviously, taking a hit of $20M on bad loans to pimps and bookies would be a loss; but what kind of loss? I’m not a tax attorney, so I’m not up on that kind of arcana.
Moe Lane
PS: Mark Kirk for Senate. Because Republicans aren’t allowed to muck about with their tax returns.
At some time, the Giannoulias campaign may realize that if you can reference your family history to get elected State Treasurer, then your opponents can reference your family history to keep you from being elected Senator:
More accurately, the campaign might admit the futility of trying to squash the opposition’s ability to point out that said family relationship involves bad $20 million loans given to pimps and bookies. Which is what they’re trying to do here, and instead making the story relevant.
Yet again.
Moe Lane
PS: Mark Kirk for Senate. He’s already grasped King Canute’s point.
Crossposted to RedState.
