[Former CT Governor] Rowland Guilty Of Violating Federal Campaign Laws

NEW HAVEN — Former Gov. John G. Rowland, a political rising star who crashed a decade ago in a corruption scandal, fell again Friday when a jury in federal court found him guilty in a low-rent scheme to collect secret paychecks from rich Republican congressional candidates.

After deliberating for seven hours over two days, the jury convicted the 57-year-old, three-term governor of conspiracy, two counts of falsifying records in order to obstruct an investigation, two counts of causing false reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission and two counts of exceeding campaign contribution limits.

I was a Republican Town Chairman in Connecticut when Rowland was launching his first campaign for Governor. He was a slimeball then and he has never changed. All criminal laws are written and enacted with "prosecutorial discretion" in mind. That is, not everyone caught with his hand in the cookie jar is prosecuted.

"Fair" is a four-letter word in the criminal courts where I was a defense attorney for decades.

Suppose that Dannell (his parents were too illiterate to spell Daniel) Malloy has been guilty of crimes as governor. Those crimes would probably be felonies. If the GOP wins the 2016 POTUS election with any kind of candidate other than the usual brain dead establishment greedhead type, Malloy can be federally prosecuted as well. It is not as though statutes are written so that only Republicans may be prosecuted or so that Demonrats are exempt. It is simply that the GOP continues to nominate pampered privileged perfumed princes whose wallets are infinitely larger and stronger than their gonads whereas the Demonrats know how the game is played and play it. As the Demonrats are busy indicting and convicting the stupid wing of the GOP, the Republicans are busy crafting new laws to give themselves and their contributors new guaranteed levels of income and special tax breaks for special interests.

You paid a personal income tax in Connecticut from 1991 to 2006 when you left to relieve, courtesy of privileged Lowell Weicker, the unconscionable burden of investment taxes on the megazillionaires of Fairfield County and shift that burden to the poor teenaged schlep flipping burgers at Mickey Ds.

Additionally, there IS the golden rule: He who has the gold rules. If the megawealthy Senator Richard Blumenthal (Plutocrat-CT) were caught with his hand criminally in the cookie jar, it would be assumed that he did not have the usual motive of greed for OPM. Not necessarily true but so what? Blumenthal and others of his class are just not to be subjected to the same laws that they enact to control the peasants. By comparison, Rowland is and always has been a peasant and he is giving recidivist crime a bad name. Worse still, he is embarrassing his fellow crooks, errr, office holders.

Congresscritters Elizabeth (?) Esty (D-CT5) and John Larson (D-CT1) and US Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) are all Demonrats but they are also peasants compared to a Blumenthal. If any of them gets caught as Rowland did, you may rely on the fact that, sooner or later (after Eric Holder is gone) that peasant will be experiencing a lengthy vacation in the federal hoosegow. The peasant politician's scalp, Demonrat or Republican, will be a trophy on the US Attorney's office wall.

Another example: there is reasonable suspicion that, as governor, Lowell Weicker (Plutocrat-CT) bribed legislators with jobs and other considerations to vote his class interests, reduce investment taxes and enact a broad-based personal income tax for the very first time in Connecticut. He had been elected governor as an independent and had been a "Republican" US Senator. He was also a major trust fund baby. No one even investigated him much less prosecuted him.

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