Do you remember Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas?
In a red state where former President Barack Obama was never very popular, Mr. Stockman stood out for being intensely anti-Obama.
In 2014, Mr. Stockman walked out of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address in protest. He invited Missouri rodeo clowns who mocked Mr. Obama in a controversial skit to perform in his district. He also sold Obama “barf bags” as a campaign fund-raiser. And in 2013, he took the conservative rocker Ted Nugent, no fan of Mr. Obama, to the president’s State of the Union address as his guest.
Well, he’s going to jail.
A former United States representative from Texas and one of his aides were indicted on Tuesday on charges that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for charity, some of which was used to illegally finance his campaigns.
The former representative, Steve Stockman, 60, and the former director of special projects in his congressional office, Jason Posey, 46, were charged in a 28-count indictment related to the alleged yearslong fraud scheme. The charges included mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and money laundering, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Because this isn’t legal:
In 2010, Mr. Stockman redirected a sizable share of $285,000 intended for charity to cover personal expenses for himself and Thomas Dodd, another aide, and to further his “own interests,” the Justice Department said, citing the indictment. He used much of $165,000 in charitable donations raised in 2011 and 2012 to pay for his congressional campaign, the department said.
After taking office in 2013, Mr. Stockman and Mr. Dodd used the name of a nonprofit to raise an additional $350,000, which he spent on personal and campaign expenses, including campaign contributions, opposition research and payments related to his failed Senate campaign, according to the Justice Department.
Mr. Posey used the name of a nonprofit to raise approximately $450,000, which was later spent on mailers attacking an opponent of Mr. Stockman and campaign and personal expenses, the Justice Department said.
I knew Stockman was crazy when he said that President Obama actually wanted to get impeached before the 2014 midterms in order to help the Democrats do better in the elections. I also suspected he was a crook because, whether Democratic or Republican, the guys who love stunts and throwing bombs usually wind up being shady in their personal dealings.
It’s not so much that it takes a crook to know a crook as it is that crooks think everyone else is crooked, too.
Anyway, Steve Stockman is going to jail. Barack Obama is writing his memoirs on a South Pacific island formerly owned by Marlon Brando.
Mic drop.
