Say Anything Blog

I got an interesting email from a reader in response to NDGOP Chairman Gary Emineth’s op/ed posted here yesterday:

Your estimate of “well over $100K” from asbestos lawyers is an understatement.  I am not even including lawyers groups like ATLA, which these guys are of course in....Just individuals Here’s my tabulation:

Angelos (4) - Total $60,000 (Peter and family members)
Budd - $10,000
Cooney/Conway - $25,000
Leblanc Waddell - $10,000
Naumes - $5000
Paul Hanley Harley - $15,000
Scruggs*** - $10,000—of course his original wealth was from asbestos, then tobacco, and now under indictment for conspiring to bribe a judge in Mississippi.
Silber Pearlman $10,000 - this one’s interesting; as far as I know, this is not really a fully operating law firm any more, but it was a spinoff from Baron & Budd (see above) which bought back its ‘inventory’.
Iola - $10,000
Thornton - $10,000
Waters & Krause - $15,000

Of course, I don’t know who else may be an “asbestos lawyer” or a friend/relative/colleague of one.  But this totals $180,000 if my math is right.  And still $170,000 even if you delete Dickie Scruggs.

And from a subsequent email from the same reader:

What in the heck are they doing putting all of this money in North Dakota?  I’d guess that their money goes farther in ND than it does elsewhere.  They basically own the Democratic National Committee—remember, Budd’s partner Fred Baron was Finance Chair for John Edwards’ campaign in 2004, and then co-finance chair for Gore-Edwards.

Fred Baron’s connection is particularly interesting given how many prominent members of the North Dakota Democrat-NPL party have endorsed Edwards for President.

There are some fishy links here, made doubly so by the fact that the North Dakota Democrats refuse to talk about this issue.  Since December 3rd I’ve been emailing and calling Dem-NPL Director Jamie Selzler trying to ask him if his party will give back the money one of these trial lawyers, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs who is currently under indictment for attempting to bribe a federal judge, and for the last month I’ve gotten nothing but a stonewalling from him.

Meaning that not only are North Dakota’s Democrats funded by mountains of political contributions from out of state trial lawyers, they’re not even willing to be transparent about it with North Dakota’s citizens.