Zoeller Throws GOP Under The Bus Again

Attorney General Greg Zoeller is more interested in snuggling up to crooked Democrats in Indiana instead of the Republicans who put him in office. When the chief judge of the St. Joseph County Superior Court decided to name a highly partisan Democratic Party activist with ties to the man accused of running a petition forging scandal during the 2008 Indiana Democratic presidential primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Republicans in St. Joseph County rightfully cried foul. Who would run to the scene to undercut the St. Joseph County Republicans who have been victimized by the local Democratic machine in South Bend for years? Why yes, it would be our Republican Attorney General Greg Zoeller. The South Bend Tribune reports on Zoeller's efforts to aid and abet the Democrats in limiting the fallout of the 2008 petition-forging scandal that help put the nation's Forger In Chief in the White House.

Zoeller said he knows Levco well and has worked closely with him.

“He’s the go-to guy when you’ve got a tough case,” Zoeller said. “I’d say he’s above reproach when it comes to credibility. … I can vouch for the fact that Stan Levco is way above politics.” . . . “

We live in such a hyperpartisan day and age. A lot of it comes out of the tensions in Washington and the legislative branch, even in Indianapolis,” he said. “Prosecutors, the judicial branch, judges — they get elected, but the public ought to have some confidence it’s not the same kind of partisanship you see in the legislature.

“All of this is being done correctly,” Zoeller said of the petition case, “and people ought to have confidence in the system.”

We had to have two special prosecutors, one Democrat and one Republican, to assuage Democratic partisans engaged in a witch hunt against Secretary of State Charlie White, but no need for that approach in this case. Yeah, this comes from the guy who put Tim Durham's son on his payroll in a sensitive investigator position and gave one of the top jobs in his office to the wife of Bart Peterson's hatchet man, Mike O'Connor. Zoeller was one of the last holdouts in paying back the dirty campaign contributions he received from Durham, and he only did so after he faced a lawsuit against his campaign committee by the bankruptcy trustee trying to recover the more than $200 million his buddy Durham bilked from small-time rural Ohio investors. When Democrats staged their walkout during last year's legislative session, which was illegally funded by the labor unions, Zoeller refused to enforce state laws that prohibited lawmakers from being paid for their out-of-state travel and soliciting campaign contributions to fund their month-long stay in an Urbana, Illinois hotel while the legislature was in session.  He blatantly turned Indiana's residency law and the U.S. Constitution on their head to provide a favorable advisory opinion to Sen. Richard Lugar claiming that he was no longer required to have a physical presence in Indiana after his first election to the Senate in 1976 because Zoeller's wife had served on Lugar's Senate staff for years. And this is the same guy who interpreted the state's liquor laws to carve out a special exemption so one of his prosecutor buddies could own an interest in a liquor license that was clearly prohibited under Indiana law.

Quite simply, Republicans can no longer trust Zoeller. He's time after time gone out of his way to stab in the back the people who worked to nominate him at the state GOP convention four years ago in a tough contest against Gov. Mitch Daniels' personal choice for the job, Valparaiso attorney Jon Costas. I can't begin to tell you how many Republican activists I've heard say how they regret lifting a finger to help Zoeller get elected. He's a turncoat who has a very poor grasp of the law and is more interested in cutting backroom deals that stink to high heaven. If the GOP nominates this empty suit for another four years in office, the party deserves to lose the general election to the Democratic candidate.

It's worth noting that Levco contributed about $1,750 to Brad Ellsworth's Democratic Senate campaign against Dan Coats in 2010 and served on Obama's 2008 Indiana campaign committee. Levco also contributed to Linda Pence's campaign when she ran against Zoeller for Attorney General four years ago. I'm sure the fact that Democrats are rumored to be looking at a woman from Levco's part of the state as their Attorney General candidate this year has nothing to do with Zoeller having Levco's back on this one.