Documents: Cochran Listed Aide's DC House As Address

Breitbart ^ | 4 May 2014 | Matthew Boyle

[SoConPubbie]

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) repeatedly listed a Washington, D.C. house owned by his executive assistant as his address on a series of official documents in recent years, including several of his statements of candidacy to the Federal Election Commission.

Cochran owns a house he has described in documents as a “cabin” in Oxford, Mississippi, which his campaign said is his primary residence. But his opponent, state senator Chris McDaniel, said the documents listing a D.C. address illustrate the six-term incumbent has grown apart from the state he represents in Congress.

Additionally, documents signed by Cochran in 2006 and 2010 indicate the cabin is under a “second home rider,” a legal designation that it is his second home. Cochran owns only the Oxford cabin, and the president of the bank that issued the mortgage, which shares connections to Cochran's family, said in an April 30 letter the designation was an error on the part of the bank.

Beginning in 2002, Cochran listed his address on official forms as being in Washington, D.C.

In an amended statement of candidacy to the FEC in 2002, Cochran listed an Alexandria house he sold in 2003 as his address.

In two amended filings of his statement of candidacy in 2008, Cochran listed his address as a basement apartment in the stately, Captiol Hill rowhouse his executive assistant, Kay Webber, owns and lives in.

Cochran's campaign said he pays Webber, pictured above at with Cochran at a black-tie dinner at the Kennedy Center in 2010, rent at market rates to live in the apartment, which has its own separate entrance.

In other documents, like a “certificate of trust” filed in Mississippi in 2008, Cochran listed the house itself as his address.

[SoConPubbie]

	"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton "We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792 "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

[sickoflibs]

3 more arrests in Miss. Sen. Cochran photo probe( May 22, 2014 Wash Times ) /

[pepsionice]

So you add it up....Thad has been around in DC since 1978 as a Senator. Miss Kay Webber appears to have been for the vast majority of this time as his personal assistant and on the fed payroll as such a position. At some point in 2000, Thad’s wife was assessed to requiring full-time nursing home attention. As far as I can see on housing....Thad dumped the family house shortly after that (in DC), pretended a cabin in Mississippi was his state residence, and has resided in the basement apartment of Miss Kay Webber’s for almost a decade.

In Mississippi....this would all be viewed as peculiar in nature, and a guy prioritized his business to just dump the wife into a home....maybe visit once or twice a year, and stay at the girlfriend’s home. Maybe it’s the wrong view and not accurate at all....but you just look at the scenario and shake your head...something about this just isn’t right.

I’d say at the very least...Thad ought to just leave DC, the Senate, and go home. Whether home is the basement apartment of Kay’s or actually in Mississippi....would be a good question to ask.

This all brings me to this odd standard that we ought to expect....making Senators and Representatives actually live in their state of residence for at least ninety days out of the year, as a minimum. The idea that they become lifetime DC residents is screwed-up, and really gives them amnesia over who elected them and why they came to DC. As for living out of some basement apartment in Alexandria? Well...I shouldn’t really care how a guy lives while in DC....but if it’s the personal assistant’s house....maybe it’d invite too much speculation over relations.

[glyptol]

His assistant is a woman, that’s the problem.......

[Principled]

Popular election of senators doomed the states. Repeal the 17th and return the function of senators to representing states via state legislature appointment.

I gaurandamntee you that person would live in Miss.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Agreed, good points.

I would add that the Founding Fathers never envisioned that we would have a full time legislature. It has evolved so that Congress is in session most of the year, so members live in DC full time, and only visit their home state part time. It should be the reverse, where they spend most of their time at home.

I heard somwonesea that, with modern technology, we could have Congress have video conferences, and meet that way most often, with members not having to be in DC most of the tiime. That would cure the problem of going to DC and forgetting who sent you there.

[Jabba the Nutt]

Sen. Pat Roberts lives in DC with no Kansas residency. Now. Thad Cochran also lives in DC with no Mississippi residency.

Time to repeal the 17th Amendment and turn Senators into representatives of their States again. Now, they are just individual political operatives representing nothing but themselves and their own re-election.

[Verginius Rufus]

Actually, there is a loophole in the Constitution.

Article I, Sec. 3 says that "No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen."

Cochran was a resident of Mississippi when he was first elected senator. It doesn't say anything about re-elected senators having to maintain their residence in their state.

[Jabba the Nutt]

I’m not talking about the legal issue. Since the popular election of Senators started, its thrown the structure of the Constitution off balance. The States created the US government and now they have no voice in the Federal Government. They’ve become just administrative divisions of the Federal Government carrying out the edicts. Just think of Common Core, Medi-Caid expansion, highway trust funds, Head Start, Food Stamps and a zillion other actions legal and illegal.

[Verginius Rufus]

I was being facetious about Cochran not having to observe the residency requirement--a re-election counts the same as an election.

What was not foreseen in 1787 was the rise of the two-party system (which Madison himself did a lot to cause, but probably it would have happened anyway). Members of the Senate and House act as adherents of their party first rather than as upholders of their branch of the federal government, so Obama can get away with almost anything with his party controlling the Senate.

Another thing that is different from earlier periods when there was intense partisanship is that only one party has a voice in the media. In earlier times there were multiple papers in each city and both parties had a way to get their message out. With the media acting as cheerleaders for one party and suppressing any news harmful to that party, the public remains ignorant and the President can get away with more.

[Jabba the Nutt]

You too subtle for me.

The GOP has had essentially zero voice in the media for decades and they have done nothing about it. If the GOP could bottle their stupidity and lassitude, they'd make ... well ... they'd make nothing, because no one would buy it. Which is pretty much their situation for half of the population.