Friday, March 14, 2014

John Swallow: Utah's Most Corrupt Politician Ever?

The full report is out on the misconduct of former Utah Attorney General John Swallow, and it is indeed a web of lies and deceit.

It's interesting because the web extends to former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Mike Lee.  Here's some highlights taken directly from the report:

"The Committee’s investigation revealed that, during his tenure in the Office, Mr. Swallow compromised the principles and integrity of the Office to benefit himself and his political supporters. In so doing, Mr. Swallow breached the public’s trust and demeaned the offices he held. Indeed, the Committee concludes that Mr. Swallow hung a veritable “for sale” sign on the Office door that invited moneyed interests to seek special treatment and favors."
"Mr. Swallow compromised the Office’s position in a pending wrongful mortgage foreclosure lawsuit when he, after the plaintiffs in the lawsuit hosted a fundraiser for him, helped make the lawsuit disappear in an effort to keep his embarrassing ethical conflict from coming to light. In so doing, Mr. Swallow, with the assistance of his predecessor as Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, sold out the interests of thousands of Utah homeowners who would have benefitted if the Office had continued to  pursue the case."
"Under Utah law, a PAC has to disclose its donors, and as the Committee’s report sets out in detail, an intrepid investigator could still have connected the dots to show the  payday link behind some of the PAC donations that Mr. Swallow successfully solicited. To fully obscure the link required more sophisticated machinery, so Mr. Swallow, with the assistance of his campaign consultant Jason Powers, built that machinery."
"By using these daisy chains of entities, the Swallow political machine was able to obscure Mr. Swallow’s heavy reliance on the payday lending industry for campaign support. Moreover, channeling payday money through these dark entities had the additional benefit that the money could then be spent on negative and even misleading campaign maneuvers while allowing Mr. Swallow to deny involvement in such controversial tactics and with little risk that anyone could prove the actual connection to him."
"Mr. Powers, with Mr.Swallow’s acquiescence, authorized a push-poll designed to sway voters’ views of Mr. Reyes by asking questions like, “Would it influence your vote if you knew that Sean Reyes vandalized as a teenager, or called Mexicans ‘brown people’?” The Swallow campaign denied involvement in both the ads and the push poll, and the hidden flow of undisclosed funds made it impossible for voters to assess the campaign’s denials before Election Day 2012 arrived."
"The Committee developed concerns that some of the documents that Mr. Swallow had provided to the Committee were not authentic and had been created after the events they described in order to mislead those who might inquire about those events."

And those are just from the first few pages. It's a 200-page report. It would not surprise me to see Swallow, Shurtleff and Powers get jail-time.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Leaders Who Endorsed John Swallow

Just a reminder...

From JohnSwallow.com -

Congressman Jim Hansen 
Governor Norm Bangerter 
State Senator David Hinkins 
State Senator Howard Stephenson 
State Senator Stuart Adams 
State Senator Ralph Okerlund 
State Senator John Valentine 
State Senator Kevin Van Tassell 
State Senator Peter Knudson 
State Senator Casey Anderson 
State Senator Curt Bramble 
State Senator Wayne Niederhauser 
State Senator Jerry Stephenson 
State Senator Aaron Osmond 
State Representative Mike Noel 
State Representative Ken Ivory 
State Representative Steve Eliason 
State Representative Derek Brown 
State Representative Brad Last 
State Representative Brad Dee 
State Representative Johnny Anderson 
State Representative Roger Barrus 
State Representative Jim Bird 
State Representative Derek Brown 
State Representative Mel Brown 
State Representative LaVar Christensen 
State Representative Fred Cox 
State Representative Gage Froerer 
State Representative Brad Galvez 
State Representative Francis Gibson 
State Representative Richard Greedwood 
State Representative Stephen Handy 
State Representative Greg Hughes 
State Representative Eric Hutchings 
State Representative Don Ipson 
State Representative Todd Kiser 
State Representative Michael Morley 
State Representative Merlynn Newbold 
State Representative Jim Nielson 
State Representative Curtis Oda 
State Representative Patrick Painter 
State Representative Lee Perry 
State Representative Jeremy Peterson 
State Representative Dixon Pitcher 
State Representative Paul Ray 
State Representative Doug Sagers 
State Representative Ryan Wilcox 
State Representative Brad Wilson 
State Representative Kay McIff 
State Representative Bill Wright 
State Representative Evan Vickers

Lawyers for John Swallow -

Rob McKenna, Washington, President, National Association of Attorneys General 
Mark Shurtleff, Utah 
John Suthers, Colorado 
Lawrence Wasden, Idaho 
Marty Jackley, South Dakota 
Wayne Stenehjem, North Dakota 
Alan Wilson, South Carolina 
Pam Bondi, Florida 
Jon Brunning, Nebraska 
Sam Olens, Georgia 
Greg Zoeller, Indiana 
Luther Strange, Alabama 
Buddy Caldwell, Louisiana 
J.B. Van Hollen, Wisconsin