Oops, did we do that?
Former Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson, who was Michele Bachmann's Iowa state campaign chair before abruptly and very publicly switching loyalties to Ron Paul, has pleaded guilty over charges that he solicited and got secret payments from the Bachmann campaign
in exchange for his support.
In the plea agreement, Sorenson admitted receiving and lying about monthly payments of roughly $8,000 from October to December 2011, when he was still named Bachmann's state chairman. [...]
His resignation came just hours after Mark Weinhardt, a special prosecutor asked to investigate whether Sorenson had broken Iowa Senate rules, released a report saying it was "manifestly clear" Sorenson negotiated payments in 2011 in exchange for his work as Bachmann's Iowa campaign chair.
Sorenson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and to "causing a campaign to falsely report expenditures."
Bachmann's then chief-of-staff stated in an affidavit that Bachman knew of and approved the payments to Sorenson, routing the money through a company run by a Bachmann fundraiser. Bachmann's former staff has been a rich source of charges of unethical and illegal behaviors by the campaign, and her looseness with campaign laws continued even after her campaign ended.
For her part, Bachmann has said that her announced retirement from her current House seat has no relation to the multiple investigations into the sketchier aspects of her failed presidential campaign, and we all believe her because she seems nice.