The radioactive cash burning a hole in Gordon Smith's finely-tailored pocket

Kari Chisholm

Still no word from Gordon Smith about whether he's going to give up the cash that he personally pocketed from indicted Senator Ted Stevens in 2005 and 2006.

To recap: He's donating to charity the $10,000 his campaign received in 2007. But there's another $10,000 that went to "pay down" his "campaign debt" from 1996 - and since that debt was owed to himself personally, it went directly into Gordon's pocket.

Now, why would Ted Stevens give Gordon Smith $10,000 to pay down a decades-old campaign debt that would just go into Smith's golfing and nice-suits fund?

Let's dig into the details.

On March 2, 2005, Stevens gave Smith $5000 for his 1996 campaign fund.

On October 20, 2005, Smith voted for the Bridge to Nowhere, a Stevens pet project - $200+ million to build a bridge that would serve the fifty people on Gravina Island.

On March 16, 2006, Smith cast the tiebreaking vote to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - a major priority for Stevens. As I noted on BlueOregon at the time, Smith was hardly just a random Senator in the 51-49 vote. He was a critical player. In the National Journal:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said his panel ... is deeply divided over reconciliation, and he cautioned that moderate Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., hold all the cards. Reconciliation will be decided by "the extent to which I get Snowe and Smith to agree to it," Grassley said.

And then less than two weeks later - on March 28, 2006 - Stevens gave Smith another $5000 for his 1996 campaign fund.

And then, on May 4, 2006, Smith's 1996 campaign fund disbursed $75,000 to Gordon Smith personally - completing the cycle that landed the dirty money fro Stevens in our Senator's pocket.

And of course, predictably, the Oregonian is pretending that all of this didn't really happen. In today's editorial, they even credit Gordon Smith with giving up the $10,000 in campaign cash - but completely fail to mention the $10,000 in personal cash.

If Stevens is "politically radioactive", as the O wrote today, then Gordon Smith is getting radiation poisoning from the nuclear waste in his pocket.

By Kari Chisholm July 31, 2008