Wonkette, (linking to PiPress - with a you-have-to-see-it animated gif image reworking of Norm's Hofstra student radical days yearbook pic, and comment about the Palin clothing-gate situation - but w/o noting that it was Norm's landlord's credit card that was used for Palin dress-ups during the RNC in St. Paul, with the entire Norm Coleman - Jeff Larson landlord-tenant bona fides thing itself being a related but separate ethics and wrongful-gift question).
PiPress.
Strib.
Minnesota Independent.
TC Daily Planet (good luck in not getting their worthless log-in screen intercept-&-nuisance).
TPM.
AmericaBlog.
Kos.
BloggersForChange.
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NOTE: Google News is giving me a "503 server error" message, even on several retries. When you log onto Google News, do this: search = Norm Coleman Nasser Kazeminy (and that will get you a fresh list of all the hits). They probably are having a data storm on their news servers from the Twin Cities area at this point in the morning. Perhaps Norm's or Nasser's IT guru groups have instigated a denial of service flaming, or such, if sophisticated enough to do so [remember, the ones who left the donor data open to public access and then cried and whined over "hacking" into Norm's campaign site - those gurus].Finally, I got through with that Google to G-News, and it listed first 1-18 of 225 hits; with these additional sample items beyond the Google Alert posts listed above:
MinnPost.
MSNBC.
City Pages.
Have a "Google look." There's more.AND -- It was Leo Durocher who said, "Nice guys finish last." Does that mean Norm must be a nice guy? Relative to Franken, at least, and relative to the recount issues between them. (Actually, however, it was Barkley who finished last, so Norm's of the hook for at all being nice, which is more fitting to and in line with the general impression he leaves with people.)
_____UPDATE_____________
Coleman's several questionable involvements can be labeled; suitgate; DeepMarineGate; RemodelGate; and LarsonGate; the first two being the Nasser Kazeminy items - suits as gifts, $75,000 as payments - Kazeminy to Coleman; the remodel having been a press topic as in what did it cost and from where did he get the cash, (but I have seen no probing questions of whether sweetheart contracting pricing/deals, etc., were at play); and lastly the Jeff Larson connection aka "rentgate" where Coleman got discount housing in DC from GOP operative Larson while having Larson's wife on the official Coleman payroll for something, if I recall properly, like $100,000/yr (and - note: Larson's credit card reportedly was used in Palin purchasing in St. Paul during that family's RNC dress-up effort, hence, a natural but hard to pin down question is whether Larson ever fronted credit for our Norm at TC stores as Nasser K. allegedly did).
What this new batch of stories adds to what's been known is: (1)an allegation that one or more confidential sources told press members that the FBI is questioning beyond the Deep Marine payment allegations and into suitgate matters; and (2) that Coleman has now formally requested to use money people gave to further his running for Senator not for that campaigning, but instead for his [not Laurie's] various legal costs of the various "...gates" he's involved himself in with the claim that each, and consequent watchdog group complaints, touches his official Senatorial function/campaigning and is thereby a justified redirection of the loot.
That latter thread is the more interesting and informative - diverting money if the FEC will let him.
Rachel Stassen-Berger of PiPress, here, reports on the effort and links to the pdf copy online of the Coleman request for FEC blessing of the money diversion, this link:
http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/1063452.pdf
Cynthia Dizikes of MinnPost reports on the diversion effort, and after setting out what things Coleman would have FEC approve diverting money to, she states:
Coleman’s main legal argument is that these issues emerged from his role as a U.S. senator. Under Senate Ethics rules, senators can only spend campaign funds "to defend legal actions arising out of their campaign, election, or performance of their official duties."
Brett Kappel, a lawyer for Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease LLP here, told MinnPost in December, "There is a long line of FEC advisory opinions allowing members of Congress to use campaign funds to pay for legal fees.”
“I think a lot will depend on what, specifically, he asks for,” Kappel said. “I would expect they would allow him to use campaign funds associated with the [personal finance forms] investigation but will have less success with other legal fees."
At the time, Kappel referred to last year’s FEC advisory opinion for Sen. David Vitter, R-La., as an applicable precedent. In that case, the commission approved the use of campaign funds to pay for Vitter's legal fees associated with a Senate Ethics investigation into a prostitution allegation. They did not approve the use of campaign funds to pay legal fees associated with Vitter being called as a witness in a prostitution prosecution.
In Coleman’s request, his team said that his case “differs significantly” from Vitter’s case, which “had little to do with his status as a federal officeholder.”
In contrast, the Coleman team argued that the former senator “was targeted in the two lawsuits just before the 2008 election because of his position as a senator and candidate, and for no other reason whatsoever.”
Whether the Commission will accept that rationale remains to be seen.
Yeah, although each is in the GOP Vitter's case differed, and we need not imagine Coleman romping somehow in diapers with paid lady companions - something Vitter did and was allowed to move funds around to defend consequent legal difficulties, not from the activity but from its being outed [by Larry Flint apparently] to public attention. And unlike William Jefferson [a Louisianan like Vitter but in the Dem camp] Coleman was not discovered with a refigerator stuffed with unexplained amounts of cash - despite claimed Kazeminy largesse via the Houston Deep Marine firm, nobody's yet located any such refrigerator, safe deposit box, shoebox under the bed at the Larson basement in DC, etc. - at least not yet.
But, Vitter is a precedent for how loose the FEC will let politicians play with cash, once they make a request. Strib's coverage of the FEC request to divert money, reported here, sucinctly explains:
The request comes as Coleman is locked in an expensive court battle with DFLer Al Franken over the disputed U.S. Senate election. They have created committees to pay for some of the expenses of the recount and trial.
The Minnesota DFL pounced Tuesday on Coleman's request to spend campaign funds on legal fees and other costs related to the lawsuits, which were filed shortly before the Nov. 4 election. "Donors to former Senator Coleman believed that they were donating to his campaign, not to help defend him from his personal legal problems," said a statement by DFL spokesman Eric Fought.
But in the letter to the FEC seeking an advisory opinion, Ginsberg said the expenses were not personal but incurred as a direct result of Coleman's being a federal officeholder and candidate. The letter said the costs came from monitoring the lawsuits and responding to allegations and media inquiries.
"Senator Coleman was targeted in the two lawsuits just before the 2008 election because of his position as a senator and candidate, and for no other reason whatsoever," Ginsberg wrote.
Link to office at issue
While the FEC does not allow campaign funds to be used for purely personal expenses, it has allowed their use for legal expenses related to a candidate's office or campaign.
So for the detailed rationale Coleman's laywer Ginsberg argues, read the FEC pdf document that Stassen-Berger linked to, again, online here.
Additonal coverage of the will and application to divert campaign money to personal use for argaubly allowable reasons, is here, here, here, Rollcall reporting here, here, Chris Steller of MinnIndy reporting here, Steller and MinnIndy again here, the AP here, Joe Bodell of MinnProgressiveProject here, Kos here, and while the list is representative rather than exhaustive, lastly, TPM under headline, "Chutzpah" noting here:
You'll love this one. Norm Coleman has told the FEC he ought to be able to use campaign funds to pay his lawyers for answering questions from TPMmuckraker about corruption allegations involving Coleman and his wife. That's all fine and dandy, but we never got a response to our multiple inquiries, not even once.
Late Update: TPM Reader PK figures what happened: "His lawyers probably advised him not to answer the questions and charged him a whopping amount for that bit of advice."
[with TPM's related recent archive links omitted, so see the site for that follow-up]
Nothing I saw indicated whether Coleman was seeking to recoup legal fees accrued in advancing then backing back from these two uniquely-Coleman things HuffPo has reported, here and here. Saying he'd sue Franken over "defamation" and stepping aside for the GOP gentleman who would potentially sit in judgment of Norm's behavioral norms, each of those is a needless reach, and he should eat the cost of such stupid meanderings as simply and purely "his own damned fault."
Also, the independent effort to raise yet more citizen-funded challenge-the-recount-forever-and-ever bucks for general GOP purposes [their "stymie 60 Dems" Senate nose-count desires] as well as Norm's personal wannabe continued in DC motives; all as reported by CQ-Politics, (but later made unavailable) but cached here, with a link to a YouTube video, seems to be outside of the presently filed FEC juggling request.
AND all that reporting is separate from new reporting about how the FBI's been asking this-and-that, here-and-there, besides earlier asking thus-and-so elsewhere. However, the FEC's approval of fund shuffling, if given, just might be stretched toward instances of Norm talking to the lawyers about the FBI talking to folks, etc., etc.
It is not as if that would not be a concern to him, something he'd be indifferent toward, letting chips fall where they may.