TheIowaRepublican.com is reporting on some serious allegations that Jesse Benton, current campaign manager for Mitch McConnell, may have been involved in payments to a key Iowa state senator before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, when Benton was the campaign manager for Ron Paul's 2102 presidential run. The allegations are being made by Dennis Fusaro, former National Field Director, Ron Paul for President 2008. TIR reports:
Documents obtained by TheIowaRepublican.com suggest that State Senator Kent Sorenson sought and likely received financial compensation from Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign before he ditched Michele Bachmann just days before the Iowa caucuses.
To date, only Sorenson’s dealings with the Bachmann campaign have been made public. New information has been provided to TheIowaRepublican.com that details the courting of Sorenson by the Paul campaign, which began in October 2011, long before his public endorsement of Congressman Ron Paul on December 28, 2011. The documents also show that Sorenson was negotiating with Ron Paul’s national campaign chairman, Jesse Benton, who is now running Mitch McConnell’s 2014 re-election campaign in Kentucky, and John Tate, Paul’s 2012 campaign manager.
The lengthy TIR report includes this:
For months, TheIowaRepublican.com has had on and off conversations with the source of this material, but only recently has this source provided actual emails between all the parties involved. Not only has Dennis Fusaro provided TheIowaRepublican.com with the Dorr memo and emails that he was included in, but he has also provided us with email conversations between himself and Jesse Benton, using the same email address that Benton used to reestablish communications with Aaron Dorr in mid-November of 2011.
July 21, 2013 Email from Fusaro to Benton
Fusaro sent Benton an email with the subject line, “You were involved…” at 9:44 p.m. The body of the email simply stated, “In the Sorenson deal.” Benton responded within 20 minutes writing, “You are an insane and delusional person, Dennis. I hope you get help. I’ll pray for you.”
Twelve days later, Fusaro responded to Benton with a snarky email that also included a plea for Benton to come clean and own responsibility for his actions. Fusaro also indicated that he had shared the information evidencing the Paul campaign paying for Sorenson’s endorsement to a member of the media.
Then TIR provides this email from Fusaro to Benton:
Jesse,
The subject line of my original email to you in this exchange was “You were involved…
As a second response to your insult of me, let me quote you with your typos, you lying fraud:
“…, I though now might be a good time to revisit Kent and your brother joining our team.” Communication of Nov. 14, 2011 to one if the negotiators. (Check your records, or ask the NSA.)
I have strong evidence of the illegal $30k payment provided to benefit Kent Sorenson by your deputy campaign manager as an inducement for him to switch from MB to RP. Or it was simply the final act to seal the deal right before the Iowa caucuses? If you can show me how the offer of money to benefit Kent was not done illegally, I would like to know. (Does Mitch McConnell know about any of this this? Or Ron Paul?)
As you told me in our phone conversation earlier this year, you bear responsibility for the campaigns [sic] actions in this matter.
You need to come clean, fix it and own the consequences, whatever they may be.
It’s jerks like you who make the system corrupt, demoralize the grassroots and enable the very enemies of your grandfather-in-law. If you claim you didn’t know what your deputy campaign manager was doing to seduce Kent Sorenson, you should have known.
Feel free to forward this to John Tate and Dimitri Kesari. I’m sure you’ll be burning up the text, email or cell phones tonight. It’s not embargoed
Sincerely,
Dennis Fusaro
P.S. Stiff letter to follow.
TIR continued:
TheIowaRepublican.com reached out to Sen. Sorenson for comment on this story. Sorenson stated that entire story was fabricated by Fusaro. He also flat out denied that he or his wife received a $30,000 check from Dimitri Kesari in advance of joining the Paul campaign in December of 2011. TheIowaRepublican.com also sought comment from Jesse Benton, John Tate, and Dimitri Kesari. At the time of publication, none of them have responded to our request.
TheIowaRepublican.com is not the only entity that was provided the information released in this article. Fusaro also released the same information to a nationally syndicated radio host who is close to Sorenson, but that individual chose not to break the story.
Note: These are extremely serious allegations. There is no indication that Ron Paul was aware of any of this. As for Jesse, there is certainly not enough in the TIR report to bring any charges against him, however, if the FBI is investigating, they can certainly dig much deeper. If there is anything to find, they have the ability to find it.
File under: Getting very interesting.
