'Scandals' Web site angers Schaffer campaign
By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published September 5, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
A liberal activist group has launched a new Web site titled "Bob Schaffer's Many Scandals," drawing a rebuke from the Republican U.S. Senate candidate's campaign.
The SchafferScandals.com Web site was unveiled Thursday, within minutes of a judge's sentencing disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to four years in federal prison.
"SchafferScandals.com details the web of scandals that Schaffer has developed with Abramoff and others," said Michael Huttner, executive director of Denver-based ProgressNowAction. "Schaffer should be ashamed of his history of scandals with Abramoff and his colleagues."
The Web site drew the scorn of Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams who, in a phone interview from the floor of the Republican National Convention, suggested ProgressNow change its name to "ScandalNow.org."
"ProgressNow certainly knows a lot about convictions because the man who funds ProgressNow is George Soros and he is a convicted insider trader," Wadhams said. "He has spent billions trying to affect the political process, and every dollar he spends is tainted by the fact he is a convicted insider trader."
Billionaire investor Soros, who reportedly denied any wrongdoing, was convicted by a French court in an insider trading case dating to the late 1980s and was fined, a 2006 news report said.
Schaffer's alleged links to Abramoff stem from what critics have called a free "junket" in 1999 to the Marianas Islands arranged by an organization with ties to the former lobbyist.
Schaffer has said he visited the islands to see if reports of poor working conditions there were true.
Wadhams repeated Thursday what he has asserted before: Schaffer has no connection to Abramoff.
"Bob Schaffer never met Jack Abramoff, did not know who he was until he became a public figure, never met him, never talked to him, didn't know anything about him," Wadhams said.
Staff writer Lynn Bartels contributed to this report.
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September 5, 2008
6:28 a.m.
Suggest removal
SheikYurBooty writes:
Soros was "convicted" by a FRENCH court???
And the FRENCH said that Saddam had WMD??
Hey Deeeeeck - (or as the French would say - "Hé Bite!") why don't you move to France and $uck on a Perrier and scorn the Americans with the rest of these people that you seem so in awe of???
September 9, 2008
2:25 p.m.
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HopiMedicineMan writes:
RMN gives free publicity to liberal websites continually. There's nothing Republican about the Republican newspaper. Republicans need their own publications.