So, this 70 year-old guy named Bob Heghmann filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court yesterday against “the Republican National Committe and Virginia’s two national GOP committee members, Morton Blackwell and Cynthia Dunbar, as well as the Republican Party of Virginia and state party Chairman John Whitbeck.” He accused them all of engaging in a fraudulent pattern of racketeering for the purpose of duping Republican voters out of their hard-earned cash with false promises. His complaint estimates that “the national GOP raised more than $735 million and Virginia’s party more than $20 million from 2009 to 2016 in large part by promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act.” But, he claims, they knew damn well from at least 2012 that it would never happen:
Heghmann’s suit contends that Republicans knew the GOP wouldn’t be able to repeal the health care law after President Barack Obama’s re-election in November 2012, but continued to raise money on the promise it would.
As evidence, he pointed to comments by then-House Speaker John Boehner just after Obama’s re-election.
“It’s pretty clear that the president was re-elected. Obamacare is the law of the land,” the Ohio Republican said when asked if the GOP-controlled House would push again for a repeal of the 2010 health care law. “There certainly may be parts of it we believe need to be changed. Maybe we’ll do that. No decisions at this point.”
Heghmann’s suit states: “In making this statement Speaker Boehner was sending a message to House Republicans and others that Repeal was not going to happen. He was trying to put the issue to rest. … Nevertheless, the Republican Party continued to use the mails, wires and interstate commerce to solicit donations and votes to secure House and Senate majorities and ultimately the Presidency.
“Now that the Republican Party has won the House, the Senate and the Presidency the effort it is making to Repeal and Replace Obamacare is itself a Fraud upon Republican Voters and Donors.”
The “pattern of racketeering” extended to the party’s response to Trump’s candidacy, his suit states. The GOP units raised money to push the health care repeal or Trump’s promises but “never intended to implement the Trump Agenda or fulfill the promises of the Republican Platform.”
The guy most definitely has a point. I think this suit is hilarious. He knows that he’s holding a bill of goods and he’s got some decent ideas about who might be held responsible. Unfortunately for him and so many like him, he’ll soon become familiar with the term caveat emptor.
I’d like to think there are more like him out there, people who bought the GOP line and now feel cheated and defrauded, lots and lots of them, and that they’ll all just throw up their hands in disgust and stop voting for more GOP fraudsters. Oh, not that they’d ever vote for a DEMONrat, no; but just stay home from the polls, that would be fine.
I’d like to think that….
He has a point, but at the end of the day this is a case of “buyer beware.” These people sent the GOP money when any reasonable person could have figured out most of what they were saying about the ACA, from how bad it was to what they would do about it, was crap. Problem is, many if not most of these die hard GOP supporters are not reasonable.
That is the funniest lawsuit ever! They’re suing a political party over not fulfilling it’s promises? If such a suit could sustain a motion to dismiss for failure to state an allowable claim, no political party in history would exist!
But as a publicity stunt, it’s admirable! If I were the judge I’d delay hearing on the Motion for Summary Judgement until after preliminary discovery, just so the Plaintiff could subpoena leaders of the Republican Party to testify under oath about their intent about Obamacare. That would be hilarious!
This guy is probably a Republican but I think this is something the Democrats should do more broadly. especially since the Democrats, unlike the GOP have no public media outlet like the many the GOP have (Fox, hate radio, Breitbart, etc.). Outside of Congress, the Democrats’ voices are non-existent (excluding blogs and Twitter, of course).