Michele Bachmann has been reappointed to her seat on the House Intelligence Committee despite the fact that she continues to make crazy charges of Obama administration plans to impose Sharia law on the United States. (Link below.)
And there's more law trouble on the horizon for Michele Bachmann's campaign:
Last year the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators (NICHE) alleged that its contact list for thousands of home-school families had been obtained by the Bachmann campaign and improperly used for their campaign fundraising.
NICHE policy forbid the use of its contact list for political purposes. Barb Heki, a former Michele Bachmann presidential campaign staffer and Bachmann’s homeschool coalition director, filed a lawsuit against Bachmann, Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson, and other members of Bachmann’s senior campaign staff. Heki claimed that she and her husband lost their seats on the NICHE board after they were unjustly blamed for leaking the contact list.
But if use of the NICHE contact list for political purposes was forbidden and NICHE didn't give the Bachmann campaign access to it: how did Bachmann's presidential campaign obtain it?
On Friday NBC News obtained a copy of a September 4th affidavit written by Bachmann presidential Iowa campaign chair Eric Woolson. (Woolson was also named in Heki lawsuit against the Bachmann campaign.) Woolson accuses former Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson "of stealing the list from another Bachmann staffer:"
...in his affidavit, Woolson says he approached Sorenson on the same day the fundraising emails were sent, and was told the list had been stolen.
(CONTINUED)
According to Woolson:
"Kent smiled at me and said, 'Do you want to know how it happened?'"...
I said, "No," and tried to back out of his office.
Kent said, "We took it." Kent said they weren't getting anything from Barb (Heki), so when she stepped out of the office they took it.
Kent said, "We stood watch."
According to NBC News, Woolson's version "appears to corroborate the account of the alleged victim, Barb Heki...Heki alleged senior (Bachmann) staff was aware of what Sorenson had done but allowed her reputation to suffer."
So far there's no "smoking gun" evidence indicating that Michele any advance knowledge of the alleged theft of the NICHE contact list. But if Woolson's account is true: Michele Bachmann employed senior campaign staffers who 1) engaged in wrongdoing, and 2) kept quiet about the wrongdoing even after it damaged other people's positions and reputations.
A question remains; one that goes directly to Michele Bachmann's integrity. Once it became clear that the Hekis' positions and reputations were damaged by the Bachmann campaign's abuse of the NICHE list--why didn't Bachmann herself conduct a full inquiry into how her campaign obtained that list, and clear Heki's name?
From the Iowa Republican:
Shortly after the NICHE list was illegally used, President Justin LaVan sent an email to the group’s members that said, “We have been assured by the Bachmann Campaign that it was inadvertent.”
Barb Heki says she found out on January 4...that the campaign’s use of the list was deliberate. The news came from a surprising source.
“Michele (Bachmann) told me,” Heki said. “We had a private staff luncheon right after she left the race and she came up to me then and told me that she was told that Kent did it. I was flabbergasted. When Michele and I got done talking, I walked straight over to Eric Woolson and asked him if it was true. He said, “Yes.”
The NBC story filed this weekend suggests that Woolson's affidavit confirms Heki's account:
In his affidavit, Woolson says Heki ultimately learned details of the alleged theft from Bachmann herself, during a staff party the day after Bachmann quit the presidential race.
"Barb approached me and said Michele Bachmann told her Kent Sorenson had taken the NICHE list and asked me if it was true," Woolson says. "I nodded yes."
Barb Heki was a Bachmann campaign staffer. Michele Bachmann learned that the NICHE list had been improperly obtained and misused. Once it became clear that Heki didn't leak the list to the Bachmann campaign--why did Michele Bachmann find it acceptable to allow a supporter and fellow Christian home schooling advocate to take the fall for something she didn't do?
(The MN Progressive Project already ran an item on other Bachmann "law trouble" stemming from a separate matter: an alleged misuse of donor funds contributed to her MichelePac...)
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/...
Hat tip to Dan Burns of the MN Progressive Project for some of these links:
Story about the lawsuit against the Bachmann campaign filed by Barb Heki:
http://theiowarepublican.com/...
NBC News story about the allegations in the Woolson affadavit:
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/...
Bachmann reappointed to House Intelligence Committee:
http://thinkprogress.org/...