Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Antigay Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson, at the center of exploding Michele Bachmann campaign scandal


Iowa Republican
As Iowa authorities drag their feet in investigating the Michele Bachmann / Kent Sorenson scandal, the FEC and FBI are looking are looking harder at possible criminal activity by the two.
     Sorenson accepted concealed monthly payments of $7,500, trying to dodge a state ethics rule prohibiting that. The Iowa Senate still has not disciplined him and has now passed responsibility to a special prosecutor (see video).
    Three months ago, Sorenson helped sponsor another constitutional amendment to kill marriage equality, as well as any prospect of civil unions and domestic partnerships in Iowa, even though Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has vowed never to let such legislation come to a vote.
    Sorenson is also alleged to have either stolen or orchestrated and abetted the theft of an emailed list of Iowa Home Schooler supporters. The Urbandale Police Department has been "investigating" that for months.
The three-count complaint against Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson, who sits on the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee, was filed by former Michele Bachmann presidential campaign staffer Peter Waldron.
     The Senate Ethics Committee, a bipartisan group of six that deliberated for 30 minutes, dismissed the money laundering charge for lack of evidence and said it wasn't "appropriate for the Senate Ethics Committee to insert themselves into ongoing litigation" in the alleged theft charge of a homeschooling database still being investigated by the Urbandale PD. Said alleged theft is the subject of a lawsuit by Barb Heki, who has accused Sorenson of complicity in the data's unauthorized duplication.
     Only Sen. Joe Seng, D-Davenport voted against delaying action on the two and dismissing the one complaint.
He said a better option would have been to ask the Iowa Supreme Court to open an investigation into the allegations.
     “It wasn’t a presumption of innocence or guilt,” Seng said. “The (investigation) seemed a more, better alternative where a Supreme Court justice could give us a reason to see if there was a probable cause for this to go forward.”
Actually, Sorenson may be getting smarter about committing crimes than he was when he was busted for delivering drugs:
Eric Woolsen, the former manager of Bachmann's Iowa campaign, filed an affidavit in February claiming that Sorenson admitted he had "stood watch" while Heki's email list was stolen. In May, Chris Dorr, Sorenson's legislative clerk, filed an affidavit in which he admitted to downloading an email list from Heki's computer that may have been the list of home-school advocates.

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