Off topic, but there’s an interesting bit at tpmmuckraker.com about the ninety second deliberation before firing Nevada’s Daniel Bogden. This is weird, but it supposedly hinged on the fact that he was a fifty year-old single man without a family to support. I couldn’t help thinking this is conservative code for the possibility he was gay.

Akin Gump (any relation to Forrest Gump?) is going to have to start hiring for their new public corruption defense division.

John Casper — try this: go to http://query.nictusa.com/fecimg/norindsea.html, then enter Troha, Dennis in the fields.

I note, however, at least using OpenSecrets.org, that Troha gave 25K on two separate occasions during the last election cycle alone to the NRCC. (Hardly bi-partisan, that.) Want to bet there were subsequent donations to key WI candidates from the NRCC? In my experience looking through PAC and party campaign finance reporting, this is often how the money is â€launderedâ€; believe that’s what DeLay and Abramoff both did with monies, asked donors to contribute to PACs/Party then asked the PAC/Party to redonate money to the intended campaign or issue.

Joan is the sister of Steve.

qui should have been quid. Think I need a nap…

Don Lhp is right about this.

Here’s the description of the indictment as found in The Capital Times on Monday, March 19, 2007:

>Troha was indicted March 1 on charges of illegally funneling more than $100,000 in campaign donations to Doyle and the federal account of the state Democratic Party.

>The indictment alleges Troha concealed the nature of the transactions in his attempt to obtain approval for a casino in Kenosha and lied to the FBI about it.

>Troha, the former owner of a major trucking firm now at the center of a multistate tax dispute, has pleaded not guilty.

>The FBI is investigating help Troha received from the state Department of Transportation while his trucking firms were attempting to resolve more than $1 million in disputed fuel tax payments owed to other states.â€

My comment: So Troha’s contributions were â€illegally funneled†(other stories say that he violated state campaign donation limits) to the Dems — were they made legally to the Republicans? Emptywheel seems to indicate that the answer is no.

There was also a good article on the Bush donations in the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday, March 22, 2007, where they point out that Doyle had to approve the Kenosha casino, but Bush did too. Was Biskupic investigating the Bush donations?

>â€Michelle Jacobs, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic in Milwaukee, wouldn’t comment on whether authorities are looking at the Bush donations.
â€We’ve tried to make clear that the investigation from our end continues, but we are not going to comment on each and every specific thing that’s raised with us,†she said.â€

My comment: Indeed, after Thompson was freed, he might suddenly choose to pursue cases against Republicans! But for all those people that wondered if Biskupic was simply fooled (and the liberal Capital Times has been careful not to assume too much), if it is true that Republican contributions were also illegally funneled through family members, and Biskupic chose just to talk about the Democrats, then they can stop wondering.

First Rule

All Politicians are dirty.

Second and other Rules

Refer in all matters to First Rule

On Bogden, â€fifty year-old single man without a family to support†might also be an allusion to his having no additional loyalties or responsibilities which would keep him in line, maybe he was about to go after some RNCers.

There Casper, now yer gettin it!

FBI raids Doolittle’s home. I guess they should’ve fired the VA USA too.

EW — yeah, I hear you about the entire family; we’ve seen it numerous times in other races. A certain family in IN, for example, each gave Lieberman their legal limit in the last minutes before CT’s primary, for example; if memory serves, 4 or 5 kids under the age of 25 all decided simultaneously to make limit-out donations at the same time as mom and dad. Hmm. In this case, though, all the family member shared the same last name and address of report. In the Troha Tribe situation, there will be multiple names and likely numerous addresses.

But my scan of the donations on Dennis Troha alone told me there needs to be a check by date of NRCC donations outbound to WI candidates within days of Troha’s donations; how did he just happen to hit near or on end of quarter twice with his 25K donations? Did he have a good quarter himself at JTC, or did he get instructions to make his donations at a particular time? The next question is whether the family members also made donations in sync with his — not unlike the ones that family from IN made to Lieberman that are now part of the 300K of iffy campaign funds that FEC and DOJ should now be looking through carefully.

I won’t get to the family members until after I get through the NRCC donations; the size of the file I’m trying to pull down has choked and crashed my desktop 5 times today, working on pulling it down now on my laptop. Will use the file to look for the trends in donations from NRCC to WI and then backtrack NRCC contributors from WI to see if I have a match.

As for the donations to Dem candidates/incumbents: they look pretty innocuous. Enough to get attention but not much considering Troha by himself has dumped 50K to Repubs in one election cycle alone. He either couldn’t game the system and stuck to traditional campaign donations, or he didn’t have peeps in place to support what he wanted to do, all a matter of timing. What I don’t understand is why this guy simply didn’t go the route of becoming a Bush Pioneer and ask the Bushies to railroad what he needed through the system; goodness knows it’s worked reliably for a lot of other Pioneers. Democratic governor? Feh. Change legislation as a work around. You know they probably tried it in neighboring states with Repub majorities in state legislature.

From opensecrets.org:

TROHA, DENNIS M MR
KENOSHA,WI 53144
J H T TRUCKING/CHAIRMAN
3/24/2006
$25,000
National Republican Congressional Cmte

Milwaukee Journal Snetinel columnists Spivak and Bice have an article that shows that Congressman Ryan was in to see the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Feb. 28, 2006 to hammer them for approval of the Kenosha casino, three weeks before this donation was given: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=436051

The article also points out that Troha and his family had already maxed out to Ryan in ’05 at around $31,000, so they could not have given Ryan any more.

Congressman Ryan was in leadership, after they maxed out to him, would this have been where he would have directed the contributions? He would have had a set amount to raise.

Then their is Troha’s donation to the RNC

TROHA, DENNIS M MR
KENOSHA,WI 53144
ATC LEASING/OWNER
4/30/2004
$25,000
Republican National Cmte

Almost two weeks later, the RNC transfers $25,000.91 to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Coincidence?

If that is an earmark code, there should be other donations/transfers ending in that amount. That ought to be searchable… and interesting.

Trucking? Any connection to the NAFTA Superhighway? It has a leg from Chicago through Wisconsin, then up to Canada. â€NASCO’s lobbying efforts have helped secure more than $500 million in transportation project funding to date.â€

http://www.nascocorridor.com/

The route is designed to bring cheap goods from China to Mexico, and then run them by truck up through the heartland… avoiding unionized docks, inspections, security regulations, quarantine times… and both coasts of the US.

Trucking companies with access to that route ought to make a mint. Contractors building something 10 lanes wide and hundreds of miles long ought to make a mint, too.

Conservatives are pretty upset about it (they fear that the US will lose some sovereignty). But I would expect more liberals to be upset… if they knew about it. Like Bush’s signing statements, this agreement isn’t publicized.

This law passed for mr. troha. Was turned down by federal highway administration 3 times from 1996 to 2002. Then after donations to various congressmen began.The law was passed around the FHWA.