CBS Digs Deeper Into Wall Street's Callow, Mediocre Pick For A Florida Senate Seat: The Making Of Patrick Murphy

Jim DeFede continues the unmasking of phony little nonentity Patrick Murphy who has lied his way into power. Watch the devastating CBS report above. Wall Street, the DSCC and a powerful Saudi family are furiously pushing to get Murphy into the Senate and spending millions of dollars to do so.

For Murphy, the newfound role as the Democrat’s most eligible candidate is extraordinary; and not just because he’s only been a Democrat since 2011.

Murphy’s rise is extraordinary because of how little he seems to have accomplished to get here.

Just six years ago, in the spring of 2010, Murphy was struggling to find his footing in the world.

A child of divorce, Murphy spent his formative years living with his father, Thomas P. Murphy Jr., who built a multi-million dollar construction empire from scratch.

Thomas Murphy made sure his son attended private schools including an elite prep academy in the Northeast, The Lawrenceville School. The school’s alumni include five Governors, three Congressmen, a Senator, two Pulitzer Prize winners and a Nobel Laureate. The school has also produced an array of business titans in its storied history.

Patrick Erin Murphy circa 2010, however, did not seem destined to join their ranks.

A star athlete in high school and college, injuries kept him from pursuing that further, opting instead for a more functional degree in business administration from the University of Miami. His time at UM was marred by a drunken brawl at a South Beach night club that left him with a mugshot and a black eye.

After graduating in 2006, he joined Deloitte & Touche as an audit assistant. He did not meet the minimum requirements to become a Certified Public Accountant in Florida, opting instead to apply for a license in Colorado, even though he did not live or work there. He applied in Colorado because the requirements were lower.

Before gaining approval in Colorado, Murphy took the licensing exam nine times before passing it. Even with a CPA license in Colorado, his opportunities in Florida were limited because his license was not valid in the Sunshine State.

He was 27 years old. Living in a high-rise condo on Miami Beach. And seemingly going nowhere.

Thomas Murphy, no doubt, had bigger plans for his son. Patrick’s two older brothers were already entrenched in the family business, graduating with degrees in construction management and well on their way to becoming co-presidents of their father’s firm, Coastal Construction.

Patrick was less interested in the family business. For him, politics seemed a perfect expansion for the Murphy brand. His father already held a long fascination with politics and was a major contributor to both parties. A review of Federal Election Commission records shows that by 2010 Thomas Murphy had donated more than $130,000 to races across the country. And his donations weren’t partisan, but seemingly strategic. In 2008, he gave $25,000 to John McCain and $23,500 to Barack Obama.

If Patrick were to enter the world of politics, his father’s money was only going to get him so far. He would need to give the appearance he was more than some rich kid. He would need something of his own to stand on.

And that’s when it happened. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded off the southern shores of Louisiana. The rig, operated on behalf of BP, burned for nearly two days before finally sinking more than 5,000 feet into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died in the blast. During the 87 days that followed, 200 million gallons of crude oil spewed from the busted wellhead on the ocean floor.

President Obama declared it “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”

And in that calamity arose, in hindsight, the opportunity Murphy needed.

“When that spilled happened I was working at Deloitte & Touche,” Murphy recalled for CBS4 News during an interview last year after he announced he was running for the United States Senate. “They talked about the oil coming down the loop current, coming down Florida’s west coast, through the Florida Keys and then up the Gulfstream. And I’m from the Florida Keys, born down there. Nobody was talking about what they were going to do to really clean up or be prepared. So this was a real opportunity to say, `Wow, I’ll be the guy to get the oil skimmers ready, protect our shores.’ I was ready to move on and start my own business anyway, so this was a great opportunity to not only protect Florida but do my own thing.”

After two and a half years at Deloitte & Touche, Murphy resigned and less than three months later started Coastal Environmental Services. Coastal would be one of the hundreds of companies and businesses that would take part in the cleanup.

“So I was able to get some oil skimmers together, move to New Orleans for several months,” he explained. “We were prepared, we actually redesigned the oil skimmers to put them on a trailer bring them down to the Keys. Thankfully that oil didn’t make it in the loop current [for Florida] so I stayed in New Orleans cleaning up up there.”

In his two runs for Congress and his current campaign for the Senate, Patrick Murphy has repeatedly pointed to his experience as a Certified Public Accountant and a small business owner as reasons why voters should support him.

“I believe that my background as a CPA and a small business owner is exactly what we need to put our country back on track,” he said in 2012 during his first House race against the incumbent Republican, Tea Party darling Allen West.

In 2014, when he ran for re-election, he was asked in a debate to detail the professional and life experiences which qualify him to serve in Congress.

“I would say my background as a CPA,” he said. “Also being a small business owner, you know someone that can relate to those concerns of small business owners I think is particularly important.”

Last year, shortly after announcing his desire to replace Marco Rubio, Murphy once again touted his experience as a CPA saying: “One of the biggest problems we have in our country is our debt, is unemployment, you need to understand numbers to do that. I believe I bring that experience to the table. Having a small business background, understanding the issues, the problems small businesses are dealing with on a day to day basis, I think I bring that experience to the table.”

Portraying himself as an experienced CPA and small business owner has always been critical to the political persona created for his campaigns. They conveyed a sense of seriousness and stability which he otherwise lacked.

A CBS4 News investigation into Murphy’s history as both a CPA and a self-described small business owner, however, shows Murphy has in some cases exaggerated his experience and in other instances made claims that were misleading or outright false.

For instance, he has never worked a day in his life as a Certified Public Accountant.

And he was never a small business owner.

PATRICK MURPHY: C.P.A.

In a televised debate during his 2012 run for Congress, Patrick Murphy provided the following description of his work as a CPA: “Well, first of all when I graduated college I went to work at Deloitte & Touche, I got my CPA license and I spent years going to numerous Fortune 500 companies, looking for inefficiencies, waste and fraud.”

That statement gives a decidedly misleading impression of Murphy’s time after he was licensed as a CPA.

Murphy joined Deloitte & Touche on September 16, 2007 working in the firm’s Miami office located at 200 South Biscayne Boulevard.

Yet despite working in Miami, Murphy has never held a CPA license in the state of Florida.

Instead, he obtained a license in Colorado. And because the requirements are lower in Colorado, Florida does not accept the license as valid in Florida. As a result, none of the work Murphy did in Florida for Deloitte & Touche was as a CPA.

Through a public records request of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, which oversees CPA licensing, CBS4 News obtained a copy of Murphy’s Colorado application. In the application, dated June 26, 2009, Murphy listed his position with Deloitte & Touche as “Audit Assistant.”

Experts in the accounting industry said it seems unlikely that someone, fresh out of college and without a CPA license in the State of Florida, and holding the entry level title of “Audit Assistant” was tasked with “looking for inefficiencies, waste and fraud.”

“The entry level audit assistant is kind of like a gopher,” said Charles Lee a professor at the Graduate School of Business as Stanford University and a former senior manager with the accounting firm KPMG. “He would be given a green pencil and told to check a series of numbers. That’s a very junior position.”

Moritz Hiemann, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Business and a former senior auditor with Ernst and Young, said an auditor merely examines a company’s financial records to determine if they have been following accepted accounting practices.

“That is fairly mechanical work,” Professor Hiemann explained. “You don’t look for inefficiencies. An audit doesn’t really look for fraud either. That is not the role of an audit.”

Professor Lee agreed saying “it’s definitely an exaggeration” for an audit assistant to claim their job was to look for inefficiencies, waste and fraud.

Both professors said in a few rare instances an auditor might stumble onto something that might seem suspicious, but they would then just pass the information along to someone else in the firm.

And Professor Hiemann noted that since he was not licensed as a CPA in Florida he could not be the signatory on any of the work he performed. “You need a CPA license if you want to sign an audit opinion,” he said.

CBS4 News contacted John Gordon, a partner at Deloitte & Touche in Miami, who oversaw Murphy’s work and signed an affidavit on his application for a CPA license in Colorado stating that between 2007 and 2009 Murphy had completed the necessary number of hours of work to qualify for a CPA license under the rules in Colorado.

“Yeah, I think so,” Gordon said when asked if he remembered Murphy. “I’m not really familiar with him.”

He then declined to answer any other questions saying the firm does not comment on former employees.

Documents obtained by CBS4 News reveal Murphy took the CPA licensing exam nine times before passing the four required sections. The records show, Murphy took the exam on those nine separate occasions by signing up for the test through the State of Vermont’s Board of Public Accountancy.

The reason: Murphy did not meet Florida’s requirements to sign up for the exam. He did meet the requirements in Vermont. (Murphy did not have to physically travel to Vermont each time to take the test. There are testing centers around the country he could have gone to. And no matter where you take the test, all CPA exams are the same.)

Colorado accepted the Vermont test results and issued a CPA license to Murphy on September 4, 2009. Murphy left Deloitte & Touche in May 2010.

So when Murphy said in 2012, “I got my CPA license and I spent years going to numerous Fortune 500 companies,” the truth is he only spent at most eight months-- and not years-- with Deloitte & Touche holding a CPA license valid only in Colorado, a state where Murphy has never lived or worked.

A campaign spokesman acknowledged Murphy did not meet Florida’s educational requirements to become a CPA, nevertheless he sought a license in Colorado because “Patrick was excited to start his career.”

The campaign then added: “As a fully-licensed CPA, Patrick is a member of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants.”

...This is not the first time Murphy has been accused of exaggerating or embellishing his professional record. In May, the Miami Herald pointed out Murphy claimed for years to hold dual degrees from UM in Accounting and Finance. He even listed it as part of his official biography for the House of Representatives. In fact, he holds a single undergraduate degree in Business Administration.

PATRICK MURPHY: SMALL BUSINESS OWNER

His record as a “small business owner” also reveals troubling apparent falsehoods.

During his interview with CBS4 News last year, Murphy was asked about the cleanup efforts Coastal Environmental undertook in the Gulf following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil disaster.

CBS4 NEWS: So how many contracts did you end up getting?

MURPHY: Several, it’s been five years.

CBS4 NEWS: How much did you make during that period of time?

MURPHY: We did okay, yeah. (laughs) We did okay.

DEFEDE: I’m just curious how many contracts there were? What the nature of the contracts were?

MURPHY: Be happy to get you those documents. It’s been five years, though. We did, we did well.

Despite Murphy’s claim that he would “be happy” to provide the documents, he failed to do so in the weeks and months following the interview. On March 2, CBS4 News made a request of the campaign in writing to release the records. What followed were months of negotiations with campaign staffers. (Because the records are the property of a private business, Coastal Environmental Services, they are not subject to the State’s Public Records Law and the company was under no legal obligation to provide anything.)

Ultimately, the campaign agreed to allow CBS4 News to review copies of the contracts but only if we agreed not to name the companies who hired Coastal or the dollar amounts of the contracts.

The campaign said it would also provide financial records to support the claim the company was profitable. Once again, they refused to allow CBS4 News to cite any specific numbers.

On May 17, a CBS4 News reporter, producer, and a CPA certified in financial forensics hired by the station, spent an hour reviewing the records and taking notes. We were not allowed to make copies of the records.

Nevertheless, a review of the material, as well as additional documents obtained by CBS4 News, and interviews with those involved, revealed several new details that directly counter the impression Murphy has given over the years about his experience in the Gulf.

It’s worth noting, at the outset, Murphy’s involvement with Coastal Environmental was brief, no more than two to five months. And while it did operate, according to state records, Murphy wasn’t the president of the company. He was vice president.

The most significant revelation, however, is that neither Patrick Murphy nor Coastal Environmental Services were awarded a single contract to clean up oil in the Gulf.

The Murphy campaign provided two documents related to the cleanup.

The first contract was dated June 28, 2010. And since the Murphy campaign will not allow CBS4 News to release the name of the firm that issued the contract, we’ll refer to them as “Company One.”

Under this contract, “Company One” hired an oil skimming company called Crescent SR, a Louisiana-based firm owned by Kenneth Taylor Beery. Nowhere in this agreement is Coastal Environmental or Patrick Murphy mentioned. The contract is for no more than 90 days with Crescent being paid an undisclosed daily rate.

The second contract is dated July 30, 2010 with “Company Two,” and it is also with Crescent SR, to perform oil skimming work in the Gulf as needed. Once again, neither Coastal Environmental nor Patrick Murphy’s name appears anywhere in the agreement. The only name listed is Crescent’s owner, Kenneth Taylor Beery.

The Murphy campaign then provided a third document, showing that on August 9, 2010, Coastal Environmental Services bought Crescent SR for an undisclosed amount of money. Signing the transfer agreement on behalf of Coastal Environmental wasn’t Patrick Murphy, but rather Daniel Whiteman.

Who is Daniel Whiteman?

Whiteman is the President of Coastal Environmental.

In public, Murphy always said his business was “affiliated” with his father’s business Coastal Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the country.

In fact, it is now apparent, Coastal Environmental was controlled and operated by Coastal Construction.

Incorporation papers show the depths to which Coastal Environmental and Coastal Construction are intertwined.

Patrick Murphy’s father, Thomas Murphy Jr., is the chairman and CEO of Coastal Construction and a director of Coastal Environmental.

Daniel Whiteman is not just President of Coastal Environmental; his primary role is vice chairman of Coastal Construction.

The corporate address for Coastal Environmental is the same as Coastal Construction.

It would appear that rather than start a small business that did work in the Gulf, Murphy, with the support of his father and Coastal Construction, acquired a business that was already doing the work. (Thomas Murphy did not return calls seeking his comment for this story.)

The Murphy campaign, however, says Patrick Murphy was involved with Crescent SR through, what it termed “an informal partnership” that started in June. The campaign maintains it was Murphy who developed the plans for the Crescent oil skimming operation.

Reached by phone, Beery said he cannot remember when he first met Patrick Murphy but he was certain of one thing. “I started the concept before I met Patrick,” Beery said.

Beery said he launched Crescent SR immediately after the oil spill began. A lifelong resident of Louisiana, Beery said he helped in the cleanup following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and wanted to get involved again. He said he started with one boat, a naval skimmer built in the Seventies which he dubbed Crescent 1.

“The naval skimmer was old but it did do a good job,” Beery recalled.

Beery was looking to add a second boat and was looking to buy a new vessel from a shipyard in Connecticut. Beery said he was introduced to Murphy through a boat builder.

“We were connected to each other by the shipyard,” he said.

Beery said there was a “team” of engineers from Coastal that worked with the Derecktor designers on coming up with a new line of oil skimmers. He said he wasn’t sure if the engineers were employed by Coastal Environmental or Coastal Construction.

“I definitely laid down a deposit on a boat,” Beery recalled. He was not certain of the date, but likely sometime around June.

The campaign said Murphy’s contributions were integral to Coastal and Crescent’s success because he helped design a new type of oil skimmer that could collect oil three feet below the surface. Also, the new skimmers were being specially made so they could be placed on trailers and transported quickly to Florida in case the oil spread into the loop current.

By mid-Summer it became clear Florida was not in jeopardy, so Murphy, who had two of the new oil skimmers under construction for himself, turned his attention to the clean-up in Louisiana.

Rather than develop his own deal, Murphy offered to buy Crescent.

Beery said he agreed to sell Crescent to Coastal Environmental Services because he wanted to see his company grow and have a permanent presence in the Gulf in case another disaster occurred.

“They had the resources I couldn’t provide,” Beery said. “I was really happy because I was selling to a group that would take what I started and take it to the next level.”

Murphy would not reveal whether he financed Coastal Environmental himself, placing his own money at risk, or if his father financed the business, including the purchase of Crescent as well as design and construction of the new boats.

(As CBS4 News was preparing this story, Murphy gave the Miami Herald a completely new explanation for his work with Coastal Environmental. He no longer described himself as a “small business owner,” and said he was an employee of Coastal Construction assigned responsibility for Coastal Environmental which he now described as a subsidiary of Coastal Construction. “My job was looking for more contracts and building these boats,” he told the Herald.)

Beery, who keeps in touch with Murphy through the campaign, said he enjoyed working with Murphy and said he was very capable.

“Having dealt with him and worked with him,” Beery said, “I have a lot of respect for him.”

Seven weeks after Coastal Environmental Services bought Crescent, the Coast Guard called off oil skimming operations in the Gulf. As a result, Coastal Environmental was soon out of work.

MURPHY: “WE DID OKAY. WE DID WELL.”

The Murphy campaign said they would provide documents showing the profitability of Coastal Environmental. However, what they provided to CBS4 News was a single sheet of paper with three numbers on it-- Revenue, Operating Costs, Operating Profit.

“It’s not a financial statement, it really doesn’t give you any picture of the financial health or operations of the company,” said Jesse Singer, a CPA certified in financial forensics and who was hired by CBS4 News to review the documents provided by the campaign.

The document from the campaign claims a profit for the company in 2010. Singer said there was no way to verify that claim given the material provided.

The Murphy campaign said Coastal Environmental has not generated any revenue since oil skimming operations ceased in late September and early October. The campaign said Coastal Environmental Services has not generated a dollar in revenue since the end of 2010.

Coastal Environmental has the four oil skimmers in storage in Louisiana and Alabama in case another disaster strikes. The campaign provided invoices to show the boats are in storage. Ironically, reviewing the invoices, the cost of storing the vessels for the last five years is more than the company claims to have made in profit during 2010.

In other words, it appears Coastal was not profitable. It likely lost money. And it continues to lose money to this day.

Once oil skimming operations ceased, Murphy returned to South Florida.

Within a matter of weeks, in January 2011, Murphy hired a political consultant to map out his run for Congress and soon began stressing his credentials: “As a small business owner, as a CPA, I’ve actually created jobs.”

That same year, his father, Thomas Murphy, gave more than $100,000 to key Democrats, including $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee and $16,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which soon rallied around Patrick Murphy’s bid for Congress.

Thomas Murphy ended up contributing more than $550,000 to PACs and committees supporting Patrick’s 2012 congressional campaign.

And federal records reveal he has given close to $300,000 for this year’s Senate race.

Wednesday afternoon, Thomas Murphy issued a statement: “Like any father, I’ve always supported my three sons and their endeavors. When Patrick told me he wanted to run for Congress, I was surprised. However I admire his drive and determination and I am extremely proud of all the good he has done. He will make a fine senator and I will be there to support him in any way possible.”

What makes Patrick Murphy unfit for public service-- the mediocrity, the mendaciousness, the comfort with corruption is exactly what makes him attractive to the Wall Street banksters, to the Saudis and, most of all, to the Democratic Party bosses like Schumer and Reid who are eager for a mindless puppet and who fear an independent-minded leader like Alan Grayson. There's no one better than Grayson running for the U.S. Senate anywhere-- and there's no one worse than Murphy. Rubio would eat him for lunch without taking a sip of water. Let's make sure Florida elects a real Democrat to the Senate in November:

Once Again: The Democrats' Very Worst Senate Candidate-- Erin Patrick Murphy, AKA- Privileged Patrick

There are 5 Senate races that are really close and that will determine which party controls that body for the next two years-- but neither swingy Ohio nor Florida, where Chuck Schumer picked his own candidates, Ted Strickland and Patrick Murphy, and rammed them through the primary process-- are among them. Both Schumer's candidates were seen as duds before Schumer insisted on them and both have proven the point after they were given the Democratic nominations on silver platters.

Way back in May, months before Obama put his finger (and toes and whole torso) on the scale for Murphy, we warned that Murphy would eventually face prison for a series of illegal straw donor conspiracies like the one that landed Ami Bera's father behind bars, in particular for one involving one of Saudi Arabia's richest and most powerful families, the notorious al-Rashids. Now the FBI is actively investigating the links between the al-Rashid family and Murphy, the shadiest member of the House Intelligence Committee. Murphy has a long and sordid history with straw donors and the al-Rashids involvement is just the latest to come to light. The story in The Hill barely brushes the surface-- literally... they reveal but a small fraction of the facts on the ground.

Tuesday, Alan Grayson, the progressive icon who was smeared by Schumer and Reid and then crushed and left for dead by Obama, spoke up about what really happened in the Florida Democratic primary that is virtually handing Marco Rubio back his Senate seat. As we;ve been saying here at DWT regularly and as Florida reporter Marc Caputo parroted on WPLG 2 weeks ago, "Washington, DC wanted to defeat Alan Grayson as the Democratic candidate for the Senate, and now they’re happy to allow Marco Rubio to resuscitate his political career." Grayson:

As many readers of this missive may be aware, I ran against Patrick Murphy in the August 30 Florida Senate Democratic Primary. A few months earlier, a Murphy political operative had an interesting conversation with someone working on my campaign. The operative said that Murphy’s father, Tom Murphy, had promised to give the Democrats’ Super PAC (Senate Majority PAC) and Patrick Murphy’s captive Super PAC (Floridians for a Strong Middle Class) $5 million if Patrick won the nomination, and that Tom Murphy would round up another $5 million from his friends and colleagues. So the Democratic Party could expect to see $10 million if it delivered the nomination to Murphy.

Very interesting, I thought. This explained to me why Sen. Harry Reid, head of the Senate Democrats, had been interfering in my primary and belligerently attacking me personally for months, and why the DSCC had been trying to plant “hit pieces” against me with its inside-the-Beltway pet reporters in the media.

I can’t say that I was surprised by this. Patrick Murphy’s father Tom, a Republican, already had passed around more than $1.5 million to Democratic candidates and organizations to grease the skids for Patrick, including the purchase of several key endorsements by elected officials. I asked one of them why he had endorsed Patrick. He told me, “Alan, if you gave me $20,000, then I’d be your best friend for life, too.”

In fact, without Daddy’s promise of $10 million, it would be very hard to explain why Senate Democrats would give a fig for Patrick Murphy. Murphy won his seat by less than one-half of one percent of the vote, while the Democrat running four years earlier in the same district had won by ten points. Murphy is a second-term Congressman who has accomplished so little that he was named the least effective Member of the House. Completely bereft of any legislative accomplishments, he is forced to point to a GOP bill for which he takes credit, because the GOP author said something nice about him on the Floor of the House. Murphy’s main goal in Congress seems to have been to try to set some kind of record for party disloyalty, by voting for more than 60 times for bills that were so odious than President Obama threatened in advance to veto them, voting seven times to force the President to license the Keystone Pipeline, voting to “condemn” the President over the Bowe Bergdahl swap, and voting (with only six other House Democrats) in favor of the GOP’s Benghazi witch-hunt committee. Murphy also voted (alone among 188 House Democrats) to vote to kill high-speed rail in Florida, even though it passes through his district, after his father’s construction company withdrew its effort to win the bid on the project. And Salon magazine points out that Patrick Murphy was a lifelong Republican who switched parties the month he declared for Congress and then, after election as a Democrat, asked Speaker John Boehner if he could switch back. (Boehner wasn’t interested.)

And me? I’m the only House Democrat to represent downtown Orlando in the past 42 years. I won my 2008 race by just four points. I lost in both 2006 and in 2010. House Democrats have a system for Member of Congress in shaky districts like mine, called “the pass.” If such a Member wants to vote against the party for political reasons, you are supposed to tell the Democratic Leadership ahead of time, “I need to take a pass.”

I have never taken a pass. Ne-ver. And I’ve passed 100 bills and amendments through the House in the last four years, all solid progressive legislation. And I won my last two House campaigns by double digits.

So, if the question is why the Democratic Party would endorse Patrick Murphy in a contested Senate primary, the answer has got to be Daddy’s $10 million. What else could it be?

Now, some might say, “OK, I’m not too thrilled with the idea that $10 million buys a Senate nomination, complete with full support from the party bosses, but we have to fight back against the Koch Brothers’ billions somehow, right?” I’m sorry, but that’s not what that $10 million is really all about. Media commissions are 15%. When the party’s Super PAC spends $10 million, then someone who is on very friendly terms with the party bosses makes a quick and easy (and legal!) $1.5 million.

That’s what that $10 million is really all about. Payola.

Still, that conversation that was conveyed to me is just a story, right? Just one politico talking to another.

No. Because when the Democrat’s Senate Majority PAC actually reserved TV time for that ten-week period between the primary and the general election, the amount of Florida TV time that it reserved was... $10 million. Precisely the amount that Tom Murphy promised to deliver.

It’s worth considering how utterly implausible it is that the Senate Majority PAC and the DSCC each would reserve $10 million for the last ten weeks of the Florida Senate race, without Tom Murphy’s promised cash. Last time I looked, the Senate Majority PAC had a grand total of $6 million in the bank. So it reserved almost twice the amount of TV time-- in just one race-- as it had cash on hand.

What is wrong with this picture?

And the DSCC? It had $31 million in the bank-- for 34 different Senate races, ten of which have been characterized as competitive. And in the polls for the Democrat in those ten races, Patrick Murphy is... tenth. Why would the DSCC plan to spend one-third of all of its cash on hand on its weakest competitive candidate?

In mid-July, I was up by eight points in my primary. On July 15, the Senate Majority PAC announced a $1 million buy for a TV spot endorsing Patrick Murphy-- almost unprecedented Democratic Party interference in a Senate Primary. By August 1, the TV spot had had its intended effect, with Murphy support zooming upward. The average Tampa voter saw that spot almost thirty times, in barely two weeks.

What happened next? Did Tom Murphy deliver on his $10 million to Senate Majority PAC? Did the DSCC then match Tom’s $10 million, buying young Patrick a Senate seat?

No and no. Tom Murphy kicked in a rather pitiful $250,000 to the Murphy Super PAC “Floridians for a Strong Middle Class” on Sept. 27, which has been dutifully trundling its cash over to the Senate Majority PAC. And after that earlier $1 million purchase of the party endorsement ad on Aug. 13, Tom Murphy has given nothing to the Senate Majority PAC directly. Zilch.

So the Senate Majority PAC pulled the last of its $10 million Florida Senate TV reservations three weeks ago, and the DSCC followed suit a week later.

FWIW, at that time, Patrick Murphy had trailed Marco Rubio in 28 out of the last 28 Florida Senate polls posted at Real Clear Politics. Apparently, Florida voters are not as stupid as the Murphy clan thinks they are.

Did Tom Murphy ever intend to come up with $10 million for Patrick’s campaign? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Did the Democratic Party ever intend to match Tom Murphy’s $10 million? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

l All I know is that just getting a whiff of $10 million of Tom Murphy’s money, just a glance at that mirage, was enough to turn my party against me-- in favor of someone contemptuous of my party and its principles.

I once told a national TV audience, “you have only three friends in life: God, your mama, and the Democratic Party.”

Cross that last one off the list.

The topic of a thoroughly corrupted right-wing, out-of-control FBI interfering in elections by announcing investigations is a separate topic that will have to be dealt with. But last night Hillary had some great news out of Florida. Early voting is way up and 28% of Republicans who have already voted, have voted for her, not for Trump! Overwhelmingly, though, those Republicans didn't then cast their ballots for Murphy but for Marco Rubio, an atrocious Republican every bit as undeserving of a place in the Senate as Murphy. The RealCleatPolitics polling average gives Rubio a healthy 5.6 point lead. The most recent poll, from the NY Times by Siena, shows Rubio beating Murphy 51-42%. Thank Chuck Schumer and, if you get a chance, tell him to stop interfering with Democratic primaries.

Yes, Rubio Is A Dangerous Little Worm, But Supporting Patrick Murphy Is Just As Damaging To The Country-- There Is No Lesser Evil In This Race

Obama was in Miami Thursday, lying to low-info Democratic voters in order to paint Patrick Murphy-- a Republican masquerading as a quasi-Democrat-- as some kind of a progressive. Murphy doesn't have a progressive bone in his body and when he got to Congress, he immediately joined the New Dems and ran up one of the worst voting records of any Democrat in the House, voting with the GOP countless times, even once to remove Obama from the Keystone XL Pipeline decision-making, once to condemn Obama for the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap and once to set up the witch hunt against Hillary Clinton via the so-called Benghazi Committee. But Murphy's slimy financial backers are promising big bucks to Obama's Presidential Library Committee if he can get the hapless and undeserving Murphy into the Senate. Pretty scummy, huh? That's establishment politics.

As you may recall, that last May we started looking into the family of Saudi billionaire Nasser Al-Rashid, one of the most powerful advisors to the Saudi royal family. Nasser gave between a million and 5 million dollars to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library Fund. His 4 sons have been very strategically funding the career of Patrick Murphy and the careers of sleazy congressmembers like Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Ami Bera, Joe Garcia, Alcee Hastings and other members with notoriously corrupt reputations, willing to sign on to Team Murphy.

Yesterday Brent Scher, writing for right-wing mouthpiece, the Washington Free Beacon, brought up Murphy's Saudi connections. "Florida Democrat Patrick Murphy’s political coordination," he wrote, "with a wealthy Saudi Arabian who has been accused of orchestrating an illegal straw donor scheme to support Murphy began prior to Murphy’s official entrance into politics." Abraham Al-Rashid went to a private prep school in New Jersey, the Lawrenceville School, and the Saudi family worked hard for years to get the simpleminded and drunken Murphy into Congress and onto the House Intelligence Committee. And the Saudis started before Murphy even ran for office.

Campaign finance records indicate that Murphy and al-Rashid made political donations in tandem as part of an effort to gain favor with prominent Florida Democrats whose support Murphy needed to launch his political career.

The large donations to Florida Democrats occurred early in 2011 after Murphy hired a political consultant to map out a congressional run.

On January 20 and January 21, 2011, Murphy and his father each contributed $2,400 to Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.). Budman, al-Rashid’s wife, made an identical $2,400 contribution to Nelson on January 20, with “homemaker” listed as her occupation on the report.

A week later, on January 27, Murphy and his father each contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Ted Deutch (D.). Al-Rashid and Budman made identical $4,800 contributions to Deutch that day.

The following week, on February 2, Murphy contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.). Al-Rashid and Budman also donated the maximum to Wasserman Schultz that day.

Wasserman Schultz benefited from additional $2,400 contributions from al-Rashid’s two brothers, Mohammed al-Rashid [who uses the fake name "Moose" when he makes many contributions] of Los Angeles, California, and Salman al-Rashid of Austin, Texas.

In a single week in February, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee received $30,000 from Ibraham al-Rashid, $3,500 from Mohammed al-Rashid [Moose], $2,500 from Salmon al-Rashid, and $2,000 from Murphy.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which filed the straw donor complaint that is now being reviewed by the Federal Election Committee, said in a statement to the Free Beacon that the coordinated donations are further evidence that Murphy was aware of al-Rashid’s straw donor operation.

“Patrick Murphy may try and separate himself from the apparent straw donor scheme that helped launch his political career, but this new revelation seems to show he was 100 percent involved with that political money laundering scam,” said Ian Prior, a spokesman for the group.

The complaint laid out evidence that a network of donors was contributing the maximum allowed amount of money to both Murphy and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D.) on behalf of al-Rashid.

Al-Rashid is the son of a Saudi Arabian billionaire who has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The complaint identified a number of donors in Pennsylvania who were related to al-Rashid through Budman who made large contributions to Murphy and Crist on nearly identical dates as al-Rashid himself.

The complaint also pointed out large contributions to Murphy and Crist from a woman who was listed as a “property manager” but has since been identified as Ibrahim al-Rashid’s “cleaning lady.”

Murphy’s spending to law firms that specialize in congressional investigations spiked following the FEC complaint, though the exact reason for the increase remains unclear.

Budman left al-Rashid in February 2014 after she told police that he “grabbed her by the wrist, struck her about the head and face with a closed fist then threw her to the ground” during an altercation at their Miami home.

The Murphy campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the donations. Attempts to reach Budman and members of her family were unsuccessful.

Murphy has attempted to distance himself from al-Rashid since his assault on Budman.

“There is no excuse for domestic violence,” Murphy said earlier this year. “Both Morgan and Ibrahim have been long time friends and supporters of mine. Morgan even worked on my first campaign.”

“This incident is personal for me,” Murphy said. “I was heartbroken when I found out, and I condemn Ibrahim’s inexcusable actions. Over the past year I have prayed for Morgan and her family to find healing.”

Republicans have called on Murphy to donate $100,000 to charities that address domestic violence to offset the money that al-Rashid gave to liberal super PACs that support him.

Nancy Smith did a very similar piece about the Murphy-Saudi connection for Florida's Sunshine State News.

We've reported on al-Rashid's connection to Patrick Murphy before. But this is the first we've seen of the donation scheme that started as long ago as five-plus years to keep Murphy climbing the ladder to candidacy.

   ...Here's how the contributions flowed to prominent Dems:

• Jan. 20 and Jan. 21, 2011: Murphy and his father each contributed $2,400 to Democratic Sen. Nelson. Budman, al-Rashid’s wife, made an identical $2,400 contribution to Nelson on Jan. 20, with “homemaker” listed as her occupation on the report.
• Jan. 27, one week later: Murphy and his father each contributed $4,800 to Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, D. Al-Rashid and Budman made identical $4,800 contributions to Deutch that same day.
• Feb.2, the very next week: Murphy contributed $4,800 to Wasserman Schultz, D. Al-Rashid and Budman also donated the maximum to Wasserman Schultz that day.
• Wasserman Schultz benefited from additional $2,400 contributions from al-Rashid’s two brothers, Mohammed al-Rashid of Los Angeles, Calif. and Salman al-Rashid of Austin, Texas.

In a single week in February, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said "thank you very much" to $30,000 from Ibraham al-Rashid, $3,500 from Mohammed al-Rashid, $2,500 from Salmon al-Rashid, and $2,000 from Murphy.

Both pieces left out that the al-Rashids illegally provided thousands of dollars to their servants and in-laws to also contribute to Murphy's campaigns and SuperPACs, something that could land them and Murphy in prison. I've taken out formal complaints against Murphy and his financiers with the Department of Justice and we'll let you know as they wend their way slowly through the judicial system.

Moose al-Rashid has never been photographed 

A Sewer Is Open In Florida And Endless Dark Money Is Flowing Out Of It, Corrupting Politics

Chuck Schumer has picked this garbage as the Florida Democratic Party's Senate nominee

It was almost 4 months ago that we started writing about the corrupt relationship between Patrick Murphy and Nicholas Mastroianni, II. At the time we wrote that a deceptive right-wing PAC, "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class," is funneling the corrupt money Murphy falsely claims to oppose, into his election bid. An entity run by Schumer/Wasserman Schultz related sleaze-ball Nicholas Mastroianni, II, called the "230 East 63rd-6 Trust LLC" just gave them $50,000 for Murphy's campaign. Mastroianni, who gives immense sums to corrupt right-wing Democrats and has personally maxed out to Murphy, was profiled by Fortune a year and a half ago. He's a super-rich mini-Trumpf from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements."

In recent years, the EB-5 visa program, which essentially allows wealthy foreigners to buy U.S. citizenship by investing $500,000 in a project that creates U.S. jobs, has exploded: The number of visas granted under the program has more than doubled since 2009. As that has happened, the program has taken on more and more glamorous, big-budget projects and the controversy surrounding it has increased.


It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.


All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

Mastroianni is an associate of Murphy's corrupt father, a crooked Florida builder and Trump partner, and Mastroianni has been incredibly generous to Papa Murphy's ethics-free son, Patrick, who was one of only 7 co-sponsors of GOP crook Aaron Schock's EB-5 Regional Center Extension Act of 2014, a bill that would ease restrictions on EB-5 regional centers like the one Mastroianni runs, directly benefitting Mastroianni's business, a highly illegal and unethical quid pro quo if I ever heard of one.

Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Times' DC bureau chief, Alex Leary, introduced Florida newspaper readers to Papa Murphy, who is destined to share a prison cell with the father of another crooked conservative New Dem, Ami Bera. He describes rich Republican Trump partner Thomas Murphy as the financial muscle behind Patrick Murphy's Senate bid. That's partially true; Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and the Wall Street bankster cabal are funneling even more money into Patrick's sleazy campaign than Thomas is. Leary wrote that Thomas "has given more than $1 million to super PACs supporting his son's campaigns and used donations to help create allies in Florida and Washington. His Coastal Construction Group has been the source for more than $180,000 given directly to the candidate's House and Senate campaigns." But that's just the beginning of the money trail.

A month before Patrick Murphy launched his first campaign, his father gave $10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Last August, Tom Murphy contributed $33,400 to the committee, which a few months earlier endorsed his son.

The financial muscle gave the younger Murphy standing in the party and he's been able to build on that, drawing financial support from across Florida and the country. He is Democrats' best chance for taking the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. No other Florida Senate candidate has raised more.

But the family advantage has provoked criticism from Democrats and Republicans who cast him as a rich kid and a hypocrite because he laments the influence of money in politics while benefitting from his father's largess.

"It's not unlawful. But it's just a way of playing the inside game of politics that I find distasteful and I think a lot of voters would find distasteful, too," said Pam Keith, a longshot Democratic candidate who volunteered for Murphy's first House campaign.

"This is about politics by the wealthy for the wealthy," she said.

Also rising are questions from his rivals about a potential overlap between Murphy's work in Congress and the family business. His father's company has partnered with developers who have an interest in visas given to foreign investors, a program Murphy has supported on Capitol Hill.

Currently, Coastal Construction is the general contractor for the $1.7 billion Miami Worldcenter project, which has actively sought Chinese investors.

Developers on that project and other businessmen with interests in the visa program, known as EB-5, have given to Murphy's campaign or the super PAC backing him.

The candidate, who holds between $1 million and $5 million in Coastal stock, said contributors get no special treatment. He said he gives the same commitment to any size donor: "I'm going to be the hardest-working congressman I can be and hopefully the best senator this state has ever seen."

Leary forgot to mention that in the history of the known universe, no politician has ever admitted that the bribes he was paid resulted in special treatment for the people bribing him. And bribery and quid pro quos come into questions Murphy has had to deal with again and again, since bribery and quid pro quos define his entire political career. Apparently Patrick a chip off the old block, even before he met the Senate's most corrupt Democrat, his sponsor, Chuck Schumer.

A Republican, Tom Murphy has long been politically active and has given money to Charlie Crist, Alex Sink, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. (Patrick Murphy also donated to Romney and was a registered Republican until shortly before launching his first campaign.)

The builder has given at least $1.7 million since 2000, according to Federal Election Commission records.

That does not include money Murphy's wife or employees of Coastal Construction, which include Patrick Murphy's two older brothers, have given the candidate. All told, people affiliated with the firm have given Murphy at least $182,000 since 2011.

Current donors can give a maximum $5,400 covering the primary and general elections. But no such limits apply to super PACs.

In 2012, Tom Murphy sank $550,000 into two super PACs helping his son, one of which produced a controversial ad showing West, the Republican incumbent, in a boxing ring punching women. Now he has given $500,000 to Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, the committee set up to aid Murphy's Senate bid. More than half the money collected has come from Mr. Murphy.

...Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country's immigration system.

Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower.

Coastal Construction was a partner in that project but no longer is, according to Murphy campaign spokesman Joshua Karp. Company officials could not be reached. A registered lobbyist for SkyRise, Brian May, is part of the team working for the super PAC, records show.

Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website.

Murphy said the EB-5 program has enjoyed bipartisan support and that it brings investment and creates jobs.

"I'm a member of Congress and I'm not actively involved in the family business ... so feel free to reach out to them and learn more about what they do," he told reporters on a conference call his campaign arranged last month to blast Grayson over alleged ethics issues. "But as far as I know, they have not done any projects to do with EB-5."

In February, Coastal, in a partnership with Tishman Construction, was named general contractor for the Miami Worldcenter, a $1.7 billion shopping, entertainment and housing project planned for 27 acres in the city's downtown. Financing will come in part from EB-5 investors.

Project developers and family have given Patrick Murphy more than $30,000 plus $25,000 to the super PAC.

Murphy's campaign said Friday it was unaware Coastal was involved in the project.

I'm outraged by the role Patrick Murphy and his parents-- yes, his mother is in on it too-- are playing in the corruption of the EB-5 visa program and, let me guarantee you, this isn't the last you'll be hearing about it here at DWT. Meanwhile, please consider helping Alan Grayson fight back this overflowing sewer of money propping up less-than-zero congressman Patrick Murphy.