http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/09/19/christine-odonnell-abruptly-cancels-fox-appearance-in-wake-of-embezzlement-complaint/Why would a media savvy candidate like Christine O’Donnell blow off a coveted opportunity to appear on the Sunday political shows? Could it be because her lawyers warned her against risking incriminating herself by discussing on-air an ethics watchdog group’s charge that she embezzled campaign funds?
Christine O'Donnell speaking a Christian political rally after filing of embezzlement complaint was announced
Christine O'Donnell speaking a Christian political rally after filing of embezzlement complaint was announced
On CNN Friday night, CREW, the nonpartisan Washington ethics watchdog group, announced it will file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission on Monday charging that Delaware’s new Republican U.S. Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell lied on forms she filed when she launched her candidacy and misappropriated $20,000 in campaign funds from two prior failed runs for the Senate.
O’Donnell became the right wing’s latest overnight celebrity when she defeated Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware’s Republican primary on Sept. 14. She once claimed to be so honest that, had she been living in Europe during World War II, she would have informed Nazis had she known where Jewish families were hiding to avoid being killed in concentration camps.
The funds in question were donated to her Senate campaigns in 2006, when she came in third out of three in the Republican primary, and in 2008, when she won the GOP nomination but was soundly defeated in the general election by Vice Pres. Joe Biden.
On AC360 Friday night, CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan told Anderson Cooper that witnesses had come forward who had firsthand knowledge that O’Donnell had illegally put donated funds to personal use in 2009 and early 2010 when she was not an active candidate for any office:
“It turns out Ms. O’Donnell has treated her campaign funds like they are her very own personal piggy bank. She’s used that money to pay for things like her rent, for gas, meals and even a bowling outing. And that’s just flat-out illegal,” said [Sloan]…
“For example, in 2009, Ms. O’Donnell wasn’t a candidate for anything, yet she had numerous campaign expenses, things like travel and gas, and yet she had no actual campaign,” Sloan said.
Earlier on Friday, CREW had issued a news alert in which the group added O’Donnell to its list of 2010’s most crooked candidates:
“Ms. O’Donnell has had no discernable job for several years, and instead has lived the life of a professional candidate, using the generosity of her campaign donors for her support,” said [Sloan]. “That may just be freeloading to most people, but it’s embezzlement for a federal candidate.”
Ms. O’Donnell has demonstrated a disturbing pattern of fraud, lies and fiscal irresponsibility. On her campaign website she claimed to have graduated from a university years before she actually received her diploma — a mere two weeks ago. The IRS slapped liens against her to the tune of over $11,000, and records show that she has been essentially unemployed. Rather, she has lived in her campaign office and makes a profit by renting out rooms – in clear violation of campaign finance law. Ms. O’Donnell also lied when claimed she had won two counties in her 2008 Senate race against Senator Biden and when caught, lied again claiming the two had tied. In essences, Ms. O’Donnell has demonstrated a total disregard of ethics and integrity.
CREW is a nonpartisan ethics watchdog group that has recently targeted Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois and others, as well as Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Rep. Don Young of Alaska.
On CNN Friday night, Sloan said CREW would be filing the embezzlement and other complaints against O’Donnell on Monday, Sept. 20.
Around the same time Sloan was appearing on CNN, on HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher played a clip from a 1999 appearance by O’Donnell on Maher’s former show, “Politically Correct,” in which O’Donnell — who is now a Christian radical — claimed to have participated in witchcraft:
“I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. . . .
“One of my first dates with a witch was on a Satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. … We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a Satanic altar.”
On Saturday, O’Donnell appeared as a last minute addition to the line up for the “Values Voter” conference, an annual right-wing Christian political event sponsored by the Family Research Council. During her 17-minute rambling, buzzword-laden but nonetheless well-received speech she also appeared to be putting advance spin on the coming embezzlement charges:
“Will they attack us? Yes. Will they smear our backgrounds and distort our records? Undoubtedly. Will they lie about us, harass our families, namecall to try to intimidate us? They will. There’s nothing safe about it…”
Not long after her FRC appearance on Saturday, word circulated on Twitter and elsewhere that she had canceled an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” the next morning, citing a prior commitment to attend a picnic in Delaware.
Until Kentucky’s tea bagger Senate candidate Ron Rand Paul canceled on “Meet the Press” this summer, it was unheard of for candidates — especially first-timers — to bail on Sunday morning political chat shows. (In fact, Paul was only the third guest to cancel in MTP’s 62-year history.)
But then came the astounding news that O’Donnell had also canceled an appearance the Fox channel’s GOP-friendly Sunday morning show — where, under normal conditions, she would have been guaranteed a free ride, with softball questions carefully selected not to cause controversy for her campaign.
The cancellation was also remarkable because earlier in the week O’Donnell’s mentor, Sarah Palin, had publicly advised her, on the Fox channel, to “speak through Fox…”But while Chris Wallace, the ersatz journalist who hosts the GOP-Fox Sunday show, would likely have helped O’Donnell by ignoring her dabble in witchcraft, he could not have avoided asking her to explain the embezzlement charges without revealing himself as merely just another Republican mouthpiece on Fox’s propaganda team.
If the embezzlement charges are serious — and there are disgruntled former campaign staffers and volunteers who say they have direct knowledge that they are — then it’s a dead cinch O’Donnell’s lawyers are advising her not to submit to interviews in which she might say something incriminating, including even on Fox.
