Charlie Crist Calls In The Feds-- To Investigate The Stench Of The Florida GOP

The recently fired Chairman of the Florida Republican Party is suing that party. Not for wrongful termination; even he can't make that claim. No, he's suing them because the party has disclosed that he was a crook and that Florida Republican politicians-- particularly teabagger darling Marco Rubio, then Speaker of the State House-- were using party constributions for their own extravagant lifestyles. Rubio was getting fancy haircuts and back waxes, buying groceries and enhancing his own beyond-dubious lobbying business. The Capitol News reports that Greer is contending that the Florida GOP "violated a severence agreement in which the Party agreed to praise its former leader and affirm that all of his financial doings were on the up and up."

But they weren't. So Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican who did not take one of the magic credit cards, has called in the Feds. "It's a mess. This thing stinks,'' he admitted as he called in federal authorities to investigate his own party, although Democrats have noted that the stink has been around for an awful long time to be just acting on it now. In fact, Crist didn't act until after Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for governor, already had asked the state Attorney General, Republican hack Bill McCollum, himself a gubernatorial candidate, to do his job in the matter. McCollum has refused to get involved or take any serious action, hoping to whitewash the whole episode, forcing Crist to go to the U.S. Attorney.

In an interview, Crist said the U.S. attorney's office needs to take over the criminal investigation of former Chairman Jim Greer and examine the use of party credit cards by top GOP lawmakers.

"A federal comprehensive investigation is... fully appropriate,'' the Republican governor said. "Particularly because of the significant IRS implications throughout this thing.''

...The prospect of a federal investigation will intensify the scrutiny of the state Republican Party, which is reeling from the discovery this week that Greer siphoned party donations to a shell company he owned and the disclosure that top officials planned to pay him a $125,000 golden parachute if he resigned.

At the same time, new records obtained by the Times/Herald expose how another top GOP lawmaker-- incoming Speaker Dean Cannon-- used a party credit card to charge $200,000 in a two-and-a-half-year period ending in early 2009.

The charges include more than $3,000 in personal expenses, some of which he didn't reimburse until just weeks ago as controversy swirled around the use of party credit cards... The requests for a more thorough accounting of Republican Party dollars are only likely to increase as the previously undisclosed party credit card statements continue to become public.

Cannon, who becomes leader of the Florida House after the November election, used his party American Express for a variety of expenses, ranging from a $24.90 baby toy for a donor and a $47.47 Hooters charge to $945 for dining at a popular sushi restaurant in Tallahassee and a $1,786.43 dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, according to itemized records.

The reports, though incomplete, show Cannon spent the most in a single month in December 2006, when he swiped $41,245.48 in charges. About half-- $19,151-- came from a single expense: a chartered jet service to New York for a party fundraiser. The same month he also racked up more than $26,000 in limousines, taxis and rental cars.

A birthday dinner at Hot Olives in Winter Park cost $2,530-- a charge he later reimbursed to the party because it was a personal expenditure, party officials said.

But Cannon didn't reimburse another nearly $500 of personal expenses until just recently when party officials found the questionable tabs.

Entitlement and a corporate ethos of corruption, greed and selfishness is ingrained in the conservative mind, as we've been pointing out. The Florida Republican Party may be stinking with guilt, as Crist says, but that is hardly at varience with the national Republican Party, which has been using donor contributions for parties at strip clubs, alcohol, expensive meals and personal items purposely disguised as office supplies and legitimate party functions. Let's see how the Dick Armey brigades rewrite this one!