New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan is returning questionable campaign contributions (again) after an investigation by the Boston Globe. A Boston Law firm gave “bonuses” to employees after they donated to political campaigns.
The investigation by the Globe Spotlight team and the Center for Responsive Politics found that three partners of Thornton Law Firm and one of the partner’s wives donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic Party fund-raising committees and politicians from 2010 to 2014.
During the same period, the partners received $1.4 million in “bonuses,” according to the report, published online Saturday and in Sunday’s newspaper. More than 280 contributions matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.
Emphasis mine.
Some will pimp the notion that this is just a coincidence. Nothing to see here, just move along. But Michael Thornton, the chairman of the firm is a longtime donor to political campaigns, primarily Democrat candidates. Of the $655,000 in personal donations I traced this morning, Thornton gave $627,000.00 of that to Democrats. So the idea that he might be using partners and wives to funnel more money to Democrats like Hassan over and above allowable campaign finance limits is not beyond the pale.
Hassan will return $51,000: $38,000 from her Senate campaign and $13,000 from the state committee from her gubernatorial campaign, Jacobs said.
Maggie has had to return large sums of illegal or questionable donations in each of her last three runs for political office. In 2012 she got busted for taking an illegal $25,000.00 contribution from the Pipefitters union. In 2014 she had to return $24,000.00 to the electrical workers union. And she’s not new to implications of corruption or pay-to-play. But she always plays dumb about it after she gets caught.
Speaking of playing dumb, there is no mention in the Globe article regarding how many other candidates got questionable money from the New Hampshire State Party Democrat Party (NHDP) care of the Thornton Law Firm. And does the NHDP plan to return the questionable funds?
And does any of this make the proposition that Hassan has ties to dirty money from Turkey more tenable?
