A former White House intern for President Barack Obama who is supporting his re-election uncovered evidence that Obama's 2008 presidential campaign in Indiana forged signatures in Indiana's 2nd congressional district in order to get his name on the Indiana presidential primary ballot. Ryan Nees, now a student at Yale University, joined Howey Politics and the South Bend Tribune in a joint investigative effort that uncovered hundreds of forged signatures on both Obama's and Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential Indiana campaign petitions. The damning disclosures led Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker to force the resignation of St. Joseph Co. Democratic Party Chairman and 2nd District Chairman, Butch Morgan, despite the lack of evidence Morgan was personally responsible for the forgeries and Morgan's insistence of his innocence. Hey, he needed a fall guy. Now, Indiana Democrats have launched an effort aimed at retaliating against Indiana Republicans and the 2008 campaign of Sen. John McCain, neither of which had anything to do with the joint investigative report by Howey Politics and the South Bend Tribune. Indiana State GOP Chairman Eric Holcomb has, however, called for a Justice Department investigation based on the findings of the investigative report and Parker's own admission that fraud occurred. WISH-TV's Jim Shella, who is pretty much a shill for the Indiana Democratic Party, reports on the Democrats' retaliatory efforts:
Boxes from 2008 were unsealed at the state Election Division. Democrats are sifting through petitions required to place John McCain's name on the ballot. They say they found irregularities including what looks like a forgery of the clerk's signature in Boone County. They're not done researching signatures.
"But based on what we've seen today," says State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker, "if you looked at them one by one, he did not have enough to qualify in the 4th Congressional District."
That means he didn't have enough to qualify statewide.
Back in 2008 there were questions about McCain making the ballot deadline and he addressed them during a February 2008 campaign visit.
"I will rely on the governor heavily to make sure I am on the ballot," said McCain at the time, "and knowing his efficiency I'm sure that he can do that."
It's a matter that was dropped until a South Bend newspaper found problems with Obama petitions in St. Joseph County. That sparked a scandal that caused Democratic Party leader Butch Morgan to resign. The state GOP Chairman called for a federal investigation. Now Eric Holcomb questions the Democratic motives.
"I get the feeling though this might be a fishing expedition on their part," he says. "They're trying to deflect attention away from the crime that's occurred."
But Holcomb doesn't rule out Republican crimes. "If there's fraud it needs to be exposed," he says. Suddenly, the search is on.
Leaders in both parties say this is not about undoing the 2008 election but rather about catching those who committed fraud and fixing the system for 2012. There is no desire to eliminate the requirement for 500 petition signatures in each Congressional district, only a desire to tighten enforcement and make sure the signatures are real.News flash to Shella: John McCain wasn't facing a contest in the Indiana primary and he lost the general election. What his 2008 campaign did or didn't do to make the Indiana ballot is irrelevant now because he already had the nomination wrapped up before the Indiana primary. The delegates won by Obama in Indiana helped him secure a narrow victory at the Democratic National Convention over Clinton. Shella's disingenuous report, while acknowledging McCain's petitions were challenged in 2008, makes no mention of the fact that Thomas Cook, a paid staffer for the Indiana Democratic Party at the time, filed a formal complaint with the Elections Division against the McCain campaign arguing that it failed to file a sufficient number of signatures on its petitions to make the Indiana Republican primary ballot. Shella's report gives the impression the Democrats dropped their complaint against McCain, which is not true. The state Election Commission actually heard two complaints Cook filed against McCain and dismissed both after determining they were without merit. A Democratic clerk in Monroe County had miscounted the number of petition signatures contained on McCain's petitions. The Commission unanimously rejected Cook's challenge to McCain's petitions. Here's what the Star reported then, which also neglected to point out that Cook was a paid staffer for the Indiana Democratic Party, instead characterizing him as a student blogger:
Arizona Sen. John McCain is set to appear on Indiana's May 6 primary ballot after the Indiana Election Commission on Wednesday unanimously denied a challenge to the GOP presidential candidate's status.
Indiana University student Thomas Cook, who runs the political blog www.BlueIndiana.net, filed a challenge with the commission last month. He alleged that McCain's campaign fell a few signatures short of the 500 needed in Indiana's 4th Congressional District to place McCain on the primary ballot.
State law requires presidential candidates submit 500 signatures of registered voters from each of the state's nine congressional districts.
After questioning by the bipartisan commission, Republican officials said they tallied 514 signatures in the 4th Congressional District; Democrat officials came up with a total of 511. The discrepancy came because the Democratic official did not count three signatures from Monroe County because the form did not list the congressional district.
The commission also denied a separate challenge from Cook. McCain's campaign filed two requests for placement on the May 6 primary ballot -- one on Feb. 12 and another Feb. 22. Cook argued that each request should be handled separately, requiring McCain to submit the required signatures for each filing.
The commission denied that challenge and agreed to lump the two filings together.The fact that the Democrats have chosen to reopen the boxes containing the McCain petitions comes as no surprise. Barack Obama's 2008 campaign chairman in Indiana, Kip Tew, threatened to retaliate against the Republicans in a message he posted on his Twitter account after Holcomb called on the Justice Department to investigate the findings of the 2008 presidential campaign. Cook is now employed as a public spokesman for U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett, a highly-partisan Democrat who formerly served as Secretary of State and as Indiana Democratic Party Chairman, along with a string of unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Congress and Attorney General, before his appointment by Obama. Tew is very close to Hogsett and has worked with him in previous Democratic administrations. Cook poked fun at Ryan Nees' involvement in the investigative report when the first news reports were aired, a move that would seem at odds with someone employed by the U.S. Justice Department. But this is a Chicago-run Justice Department so what more should we expect? "Fast and Furious?" Hell, yes.
UPDATE: Forget about a Justice Department investigation. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana received orders from Washington not to investigate the crimes committed by Obama's 2008 presidential campaign in Indiana. Instead, he has asked the Democratic county prosecutor, Mike Dvorak, to conduct the investigation:
A northern Indiana county prosecutor says he will oversee the investigation into apparently forged signatures on Democratic presidential candidate petitions after federal officials declined to take the case.
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak says the U.S. attorney's office for northern Indiana told him it wouldn't investigate allegations of fraudulent petitions to place a candidate on the primary ballot but would review instances of voter fraud or vote tabulation misconduct.
Dvorak says he has asked Indiana State Police to investigate what the South Bend Tribune reports are pages from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton petitions for the 2008 primary with names and signatures that appear to have been copied by hand from another candidate's petition.No surprises here. I told you the Justice Department wouldn't investigate any crimes committed by the Obama campaign. The entire Obama presidency is based on a series of forgeries, including Obama's forged birth certificate, his forged Selective Service registration, and his forged social security number. Why should the Justice Department care about a few forged petitions from his 2008 presidential campaign, if it doesn't care about the forgeries committed by The Usurper In Chief?
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