More Details On The John Richardson Controversy

By Matthew Gagnon
April 24, 2010

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This afternoon, I spoke at length with a person who is close to and has spoken about this issue (the Richardson investigation) with Attorney General Janet Mills, and here is the breakdown of what has taken place.

The Ethics Commission has found that John Richardson is ineligible to receive clean election funding due to fraud in the qualifying checks. An unspecified number of the checks were in actuality fake – seemingly from people who do not actually exist.

On Thursday, the Attorney General’s office dispatched two investigators to dig into the irregularities, and identify any potential criminal activity.

What they found was that four specific indivuals (out of roughly 170 total people) who had been charged by the Richardson campaign with collecting signatures are responsible for the fraud.

The investigation did not find any evidence of illegal, criminal, or improper behavior from Richardson himself. In other words, they could not find any evidence that he orchestrated this attempted fraud, and as of right now they are operating under the presumption that these four individuals were themselves singularly responsible for the fraud.

This does seem entirely possible – when signature/check collectors are paid on a “per signature” or “per check” basis (as they basically all are), there always exists the possibility of an overzealous collector padding their totals to earn more. Given the reported difficulty Richardson was having with getting the requisite checks, there also exists the possibility that the collectors were trying to drag the campaign across the finish line by defrauding the system, in addition to padding their own collection totals.

In other words, this didn’t have to be directed by Richardson for it to happen.

At this point, I am told that Richardson still has the option to appeal the ruling that he is now ineligible, but that sources close to the committee and the Attorney General’s office believe “he should probably just drop it – he won’t get anywhere”.

So, while none of this has been directly confirmed “from the horses mouth” and is from sources with direct contact with the Attorney General, I am more than confident in the sources of this information to run with it at this time.

If true (which I am certain it is), this appears to be the effective end of the John Richardson for Governor campaign. Expect some kind of announcement soon that the campaign is over.

And while I have your attention…

I recently heard tale of a sneering political reporter from one of Maine’s largest daily newspapers complaining about blogs, and how “blogs never break news, they are worthless”. Putting aside the roughly ten or so rather significant stories that I have personally broken in the last year or so (not to mention the stories broken from other quality blogs like Maine Politics and Augusta Insider), I just want to point out that none of the traditional media are really chasing down this story.

Well, I have been for the last two days, and broke my previous Richardson story on my blackberry while playing golf with my three year old son here in Washington, DC.

So, this one is for you, Mr. smug political reporter who complains about the death of “real news sources” while allowing yourself to be scooped by a volunteer reporter/commentator who is 700 miles away from this story.

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Tags: 2010 Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, 2010 Gubernatorial Race, Clean Elections, John Richardson

15 Responses to “More Details On The John Richardson Controversy”

Derrick

24. Apr, 2010

Most of Maine’s large newspapers, with the exception of the Bangor Daily, have horrible reporting. They don’t dig into stories. The Village Soup is decent considering its limited size.
Joe Six-pack

24. Apr, 2010

Three is about the right age to get your son into the great game of golf… Good job, Matt! (But drop the CrackBerry while on the course with him, of course!)
Surf Girl

25. Apr, 2010

Matt, thanks for reporting on this story. You may want to change the title of the article from “More Details On The John Richardson Controversy” to “More Speculation (or Rumors) On The John Richardson Controversy” until you can actually verify the story. Thanks for keeping every one up to date.
Cascokid

25. Apr, 2010

Basic reporrting answers the who-what-when-where-how-and-how much questions. Your post is missing a lot of who. Only Richardson is named and he is largely exonerated. Everyone else — the alleged perps, Mr. Smug — is not really there. Hmmm.

I agree with your comment that basic reportage is sorely lacking in the major news outlets. And also in the blogs.
Mike Violette

25. Apr, 2010

Nice work boys and girls. Interesting how the best political reporting being done in Maine these days is being done out of Maine these days. I use your site daily to prep so keep up the good work.., you’re making me look good!
Stephanie

25. Apr, 2010

There is good political reporting in Maine as well – eg:
http://pinetreewatchdog.org/
Bob

25. Apr, 2010

Fear not of ever “looking good” Mike Violette. All those sucking sounds emanating from your mouth every time Ethan Strimling walks into your studio, effectively renders you the problem.
Matthew Gagnon

25. Apr, 2010

Surf girl – none of this is speculation or rumors. This is sourced reporting. I spoke with people who have actually directly talked to the Attorney General on this matter (and which she said, “this is all a matter of open record, so there is no need to keep it under wraps”). That is no more a “rumor” than when reporters use the old “sources close to the subject” chestnut when they report anonymous sources. This is not fluff, nor is it speculation.

Cascokid – who do you want me to identify? First off, the reports were about the situation and what was happening – I don’t have the names of the four individuals responsible for the fraud yet, but I did uncover the story surrounding how it happened. If your beef is not naming sources, I will not reveal the names of my sources, any more than a REPORTER would reveal the names of their sources (need I point you in the direction of Watergate and Deep Throat, for instance?). As for “Mr. Smug” – my point wasn’t to personally embarrass him (which is why I didn’t use his name), but to make a point that traditional reporters are snarking about blogs, while blogs are running circles around the rags in readership and yes, even many times, in actual reporting.

And Stephanie, my point wasn’t that there isn’t ANY good reporting, it is that the hostility of traditional media outlets to blogs is wildly misplaced, and rather than adapting to the market to respond to the changing ways that people consume news and information, they complain about those who are adapting.
Surf Girl

25. Apr, 2010

No problem, Matt, it just wasn’t clear in how you couched it. Maybe I’m just more used to traditional reporting with, “a source in the Attorney General’s office who requested to remain anonymous” or something like those lines. Keep up the great work and get your boy on a board and ditch the golf sticks!
Mike

25. Apr, 2010

GIven that the Bath Times-Record has practically been a member of the Richardson campaign team, you’re right to be a little snarky. I wonder how they’ll report this.
Matthew Gagnon

25. Apr, 2010

Thanks Surf Girl. I should mention that I never claim to be a hard news journalism site, nor do I want to be held to that standard. When I do want a story taken seriously for journalistic merit, however, I do tend to say so – and this is one of those instances.

The point of PTP is not to be a news aggregation site or hard news outlet, but rather a place to talk about politics and tell the story of what goes on across Maine’s political landscape in a conversational, understandable, “story telling” type of way. That means I do not typically operate like a news outlet would (you read my personal take on a lot of things interjected among facts) – and I try to take pains to make it clear this is not masquerading as a news source.

But from time to time, I do try to break some stuff that the traditional media is for one reason or another, unwilling or uninterested in covering.

From what I am told about this story, several reporters were very close to cracking it, but I just beat them to the punch with many of these details. I’m glad they were at least looking into it, and in reality I was just giving that one reporter a hard time for discounting the power of sites like this to make some news.

Given my traffic through the weekend and the sources that traffic is coming from, that is obviously what has happened.
Jim Cyr

26. Apr, 2010

Good work, Matt. I am tired of pretending that I still have faith in the lamestream Maine media when it comes to politics (or much else). They’re just so biased that I don’t trust them anymore, really.
winston

04. May, 2010

I wonder where Matt is getting his info ? I know of a Guy in Maine who broke the story about Richardson three weeks ago, The Kennebec Journal does an oustanding Job with Stories. In regards to the Richardson Campaign .I urge everyone to visit the Ethic’s commission web Site and Look at the ‘Obscene’ ammount of Money that was payed to Ms Monica Castellanos’ she earned nearly 25 thousand dollars in about four months Great Money if you can get it. Talk about the Majority party’s Greed. Also Monica came from the ‘Mike Michaud ‘organization. ‘They all work from a limited pool. also Just what was ‘Dana’ Graham’ doing for the Richards’on campaign? he was also paid well.

These are the kinds of examples that everyone should read about. I thank ‘Pine Tree Politics’ for breaking the ‘Otten’ story.Finally how ‘Pathetic’ is Bruce Poliquin’s attack on Otten. It is clear that ‘Poliquin’ is a ‘Cheap Shot Artist’and not a ‘Gentelmen’

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