Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Minnesota Independent, sister site to the Michigan Messenger, has an expose` about Rep. Michelle Bachmann and her attempts to have a campaign contributor pardoned.
Bachmann wrote a letter of recommendation in December 2007 for a presidential pardon of Vennes for federal money laundering, cocaine distribution and illegal firearms sales convictions. Vennes pleaded guilty and no contest to the charges in 1987 and was sentenced to five years in prison, which he served in Sandstone Federal Correctional Facility in Sandstone, MN.Six months after Bachmann recommended Vennes for a pardon, Vennes and his wife, Kimberly, who are not constituents of Bachmann's, dumped $9,200 into Bachmann's re-election campaign. The Venneses already were among Bachmann's top individual campaign contributors when Bachmann solicited the pardon, having contributed $18,200 to her campaign committees between 2005-2007. Vennes' brother and his wife, Greg and Stephanie Vennes, have contributed an additional $8,400 to Bachmann since 2005. And Vennes' personal attorney, C. Craig Howse, has donated $5,000 to Bachmann's campaign funds since 2007.
The language of the letter she sent requesting a pardon was rather interesting:
"As a U.S. Representative, I am confident of Mr. Vennes' successful rehabilitation and that a pardon will be good for the neediest of society," Bachmann wrote to the U.S. Office of Pardon Attorney. "Mr. Vennes is seeking a pardon so that he may be further used to help others. As I know from personal experience, Mr. Vennes has used his business position and success to fund hundreds of nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping the neediest in our society."In addition, Bachmann noted that Vennes needed a pardon because he "still encounters the barriers of his past and especially in the area of finance loan documents."
I bet there are lots of convicted felons out there who find their criminal past a problem in getting loans or jobs. Of course, most of them don't donate to political campaigns.
Bachmann is the Minnesota equivalent of Katherine Harris, a bubbleheaded looney who is in way over her head in Washington. You may have seen her calls lately for an investigation into "anti-American" legislators. She ought to be on the top of the list.
Politics
Comments
Harris, Bachmann, and Palin, the three bimbos.
Posted by: SLC | October 24, 2008 9:57 AM
P.Z. has done a good job of covering Rep. Bachmann well before her current infamy blipped onto the national stage.
While it's obvious Bachmann shares many of the same thinking and character flaws that Gov. Palin possesses; I was not aware she also was unable to construct coherent thoughts until I read the above excerpt.
I have and remain concerned about social conservatives desire to mutate our liberal democracy into a more theocratic authoritarian state; only recently have I learned that they also desire their leaders supplant the GOP plutocracy with their personal brand of idiocracy rather than merely joining them.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 24, 2008 10:03 AM
I wonder...if Bachmann were less well-known, outside of Minnesota anyway, would she have been in contention for McCain's last-minute veep pick alongside Palin? They seem pretty similar on issues, they both appeal to the crazies, and neither can keep their feet out of their mouths for more than two minutes per interview. I'm not sure Bachmann would have been much worse for McCain's numbers either.
Posted by: schism | October 24, 2008 10:18 AM
I have and remain concerned about social conservatives desire to mutate our liberal democracy into a more theocratic authoritarian state; only recently have I learned that they also desire their leaders supplant the GOP plutocracy with their personal brand of idiocracy rather than merely joining them.
Yep she's definitely one of those.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0rUBomKvY0
The Lord gives her "visions" and "callings" and tells her what to do and stuff.
Posted by: 386sx | October 24, 2008 10:24 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0rUBomKvY0
The Lord gives her "visions" and "callings" and tells her what to do and stuff.
I wonder how much of that is just flat out lying so that gullible people will think she's "blessed" or something. She couldn't possibly believe all the baloney she said in that video, could she? Who knows.
Posted by: 386sx | October 24, 2008 10:30 AM
I'm glad to see that there is finally a broader level of attention being paid to our little problem. After all, I You So.
Posted by: Greg Laden | October 24, 2008 10:33 AM
Ed, so what? This isn't new news and not out of line with anyone else in the House.
Bachmanns an idiot. She always has been. The only reason she was elected is the democrats ran someone who was a bigger idiot then she was in a red district. At least until her idiotic anti-american "answer" she was well liked in her district (my brothers and my father voted for her) and was a shoe-in for re-election. What perplexes me is why she went on the speaking circuit to begin with. She is awful at these things and her antics (like hiding in the bushes during a GLBT rally) would of been exposed more widely eventually.
Well - whatever - I am not sure all this is enough to get her booted but I will be cheering if she does get thrown out of office.
Posted by: yoshi | October 24, 2008 10:47 AM
Wow, serious crime figures just dropped through the floor!
I'd not considered how drug and illegal firearm distribution was actually "dedicated to helping the neediest in our society".
Posted by: Andrew | October 24, 2008 11:02 AM
This is just rank stupidity, I wonder if her legislative staff were even involved, or if the campaign managed everything themselves (as I suspect).
When I was a legislative staffer, we only had one pardon request in four years. And the first thing I had to do was get the FEC filings for each of my bosses' campaigns and make sure neither the felon nor any of his family or key employees were on the lists. (If they had been contributors, I would have to go to a Republican Rep's office and try to get them to take the case). Then I went to a couple of Judiciary Committee staffers and got them to sign off that there was no conflict of interest and that the clemency request was reasonable. Then we sent letters to the Justice Department, IRS (it was a tax case) and the White House legislative liaison to see if they had objections. Only then did we get around to drafting the request for a pardon. After about six months of process, his prison time was cut to time served and he served the rest of it in an ankle bracelet.
If you follow the process properly, everything works out and there is no possibility of this kind of screwup. These guys are amateur hour all the way.
Posted by: kehrsam | October 24, 2008 11:37 AM
That Bachmann attempted to have a criminal pardoned who was NOT IN HER DISTRICT, and accepted money from him, means she is nothing less than despicable. A few choice words come to mind. To put it mildly, she has proven herself for sale.
May the news of this be the nail in her political coffin.
Rod
p.s. I searched for Bachmann on Google news but this story did not come up.
Posted by: Rod | October 24, 2008 12:10 PM
The facts presented here don't warrant the conclusion that a quid pro quo happened.
All politicians need money (lots of it) to finance their campaigns. And the best potential donors are the candidate's friends and acquaintances.
Politicians are asked all the time to do things for their friends. Truly, that is their stock-in-trade.
Unless there is a conversation that said "If you make a donation, I'll request a pardon" I don't see anything out of the ordinary.
The facts presented do not warrant the conclusion that a crime occurred. That is not to say that the facts wouldn't be consistent with a crime. But there needs to be something else showing there was an explicit agreement.
Posted by: David C. Brayton | October 24, 2008 1:33 PM
David C. Brayton:
I think a conviction is too much to expect; for Michelle to return to the private citizenry would be nice.
Posted by: democommie | October 24, 2008 3:15 PM
If I remember correctly, the maximum amount an individual can contribute to a campaign is $5,00o per election cycle (someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm too lazy to look it up). Looking at the figures above, Vennes and his wife have been giving the maximum to Bachmann for several years. Not too surprising, except that they're not her constituents. But his brother and sister-in-law have also given substantial sums, as has his lawyer. That indeed is suspicious.
It is, again if I remember correctly, a crime to pass contributions through a third party in order to bypass the contribution limits. So Vennes may have committed a crime in his effort to be pardoned for a former crime.
(Of course I think the contribution limits are unconstitutional, so perhaps I ought to applaud what appears to be a flouting of the egregious campaign finance laws.)
Posted by: James Hanley | October 24, 2008 7:36 PM
Bachmanns an idiot. She always has been. The only reason she was elected is the democrats ran someone who was a bigger idiot then she was in a red district.
Just curious Yoshi, how was Patty Wetterling a "bigger idiot?" She is listed as a moderate progressive who advocated for increasing the federal funding for no child left behind up to the level promised in the legislation. Said that education means more global competitiveness. Also looks to me like she beat the current Democratic candidate out to win the chance to run for the seat.
Posted by: dogmeatib | October 24, 2008 11:24 PM
"As a U.S. Representative, I am confident of..."
Geez, I didn't realize that being elected to a guvmunt post automatically endowed one with omnipotent powers. How does her being in the House make her any more able to judge what being "rehabilitated" is than any other person on the street?
Besides that, how is a pardon for this creature Vennes going to be of help to the neediest in society? Will he then be able to prey on them, rather than the religious and gullible that he has preyed on in the past?
"...has used his business position and success to fund hundreds of nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping the neediest in our society." oh, sure. Right. Yeah.
Whatever, Bachmann. You moron.
Posted by: bonefish | October 25, 2008 4:03 PM