February 24, 2009

Is nobody squeaky clean?

President Obama is rumored to be ready to nominate former Washington governor Gary Locke as his Commerce Secretary. After a couple of misfires, it looks like the Obama administration has gotten better at it's vetting process. Well, somewhat better.

According to the Associated Press he's not entirely without some questionable activity in his past.

Locke was briefly linked to the scandal over foreign contributions to President Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign. In July 1998, he gave a deposition to the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight about his relationships with questioned Clinton donors. But the committee subsequently said the deposition produced no evidence that Locke knowingly accepted illegal campaign donations.

Locke denied any wrongdoing, and he subsequently returned some checks tied to people implicated in the fundraising scandal, including $750 from John Huang. The former Commerce Department official was the Democratic Party's chief fund raiser for the Asian-American population in the 1996 elections, and he became one of the central figures in the national Democratic Party fundraising scandal.

Also, in December 1997, Locke's political committee was fined a maximum $2,500 by state regulators after it admitted breaking campaign finance laws during two out-of-state fundraisers in 1996.

And in March 1998, state investigators cleared Locke of wrongdoing following complaints that he unlawfully took $10,000 in campaign contributions from members of a Buddhist church.



While it's likely not enough to disrupt his nomination, it begs the question, can't the Democrats find anybody who is actually free of issues to run the Commerce Department?

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