Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus was, until tonight, a contender to replace Michael Steele as chairman for the Republican National Committee. But Priebus’s evident involvement in soliciting federal stimulus funds for his law firm’s clients emerged Tuesday as a scandal that will likely destroy whatever chance he had, as Dan Riehl explains at Big Government:
Reince Priebus is currently being touted as a front-runner to replace current RNC Chair Michael Steele. But Priebus’ leading role among a select group of high-powered Wisconsin attorneys targeting clients to assist them in maximizing stimulus dollars, at the same time the anti-stimulus RNC employed him as interim general counsel, raises some troubling questions, not just for Preibus, but for the Republican Party as a whole.
Go read the whole thing, including Dan’s links indicating that Priebus attempted to flush the evidence down the Internet memory hole. In fact, when contacted by Tim Mak of Frum Forum, Priebus denied working on the “Stimulus Legislation Team” at his Milwaukee firm, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP — but Mak produces abundant evidence contradicting that denial.
In a year when the Tea Party movement has made opposition to the Obama administration’s stimulus spending a key issue for Republicans, Priebus would obviously be hurt by this revelation. But the apparent effort to to hide the contradictory online evidence raises even more serious issues.
Exactly how this story was made public the same day both by a conservative like Dan Riehl and by the “centrist” GOP site Frum Forum . . . well, I don’t know the answer to that question. At a minimum, we can conclude that some Republicans aren’t members of the Reince Priebus Fan Club.
UPDATE: “I Did Not Have Sex With That Stimulus Package.”
Man, that’s cold. Maybe you see why I always say I’d never want Dan Reihl mad at me. Maybe you don’t want Dan as your friend, but you sure don’t want him to be your enemy. He’s from Jersey, you know.
UPDATE II: Now a Memeorandum thread.
UPDATE III: “Is it just me, or does ‘Reince Priebus’ sound like a character in the Star Wars prequels?“
