DeWeese has maintained his innocence and has not been charged, but this case has so many parallels to the Watergate scandal that the No. 1 question remains, "What did Bill DeWeese know and when did he know it?"
Is it possible that the No. 2 man in the House Democratic Caucus, former state Rep. Mike Veon, and DeWeese's former chief of staff, Mike Manzo, handed out millions in taxpayer dollars to state workers for doing political work without DeWeese's knowledge and/or consent?
In his latest column, Bumsted ponders DeWeese's involvement in what is shaping up as the biggest corruption case in Pennsylvania political history.
From Busted's column:
Will DeWeese be charged?Read the full column at the newspaper's Web site.
Among 25,000 e-mails that Corbett provided to defendants through the discovery process, numerous e-mails have emerged that cast serious doubt on DeWeese's claim that he knew nothing about the bonus scheme. Brett Cott, a former Veon aide charged in the scheme, provided the e-mails.
"U R Welcome," DeWeese told Democrat staffer Karen Steiner in December 2004 after Steiner wrote to thank DeWeese for the bonus she received "for campaigning." DeWeese did not recall the e-mail and other staffers sometimes respond to the huge volume of e-mail he receives, aide Tom Andrews said. Moreover, given the proximity to Christmas, this might have been mistaken as a thank you for a routine Christmas bonus, Andrews said.
The e-mail clearly said "campaigning."
No comments:
Post a Comment