Lies, Damn Lies, and Jean Schmidt Financial Disclosures!

With all due respect to Mark Twain, we humbly suggest that we have achieved a new pinnacle of dishonesty in Jean Schmidt’s financial disclosures and campaign reports.  Rep. Schmidt has for years proven herself to be constitutionally incapable of honesty in any meaningful sense of the word.

A quick rundown: lies about her education and endorsements; dueling positions on the death penalty; lies about illegal gifts from a company with business pending before the Ohio House; sleazy campaign tactics; plagiarizing guest editorials; attempting to intimidate newspaper publishers; accepting illegal gifts from a foreign interest group; failing to report those gifts; lying to Ethics Investigators about her knowledge of the gifts; failing to make any sort of effort to refund the illegal gifts in a timely fashion; and, we can now report – lying to the press and voters about the extent of her indebtedness to the Turkish Coalition of America.

Back in February, Brad Wenstrup asked the very pertinent question, How can Jean Schmidt sit on the Foreign Affairs subcommittee that deals with Turkey when she owes the Turkish Coalition $500,000?

Right on cue, Barrett Brunsman, missing the entire point of the question, decided to quibble with the good doctor’s math:

Barrett J. Brunsman, spokesman for Schmidt, said she actually owed $430,000 – not $500,000 – to the attorneys of the Turkish American Coalition, not to the group itself. So far, she has paid back $43,000, he said.

Barrett's response suggests that he agrees that an indebtedness to the TCA of $500,000 is unacceptable; but that somehow $430,000 is just dandy.  It brings to mind that old line “I think we’ve established what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price.”

Well, now we know that Barrett was lying back in February when he said Jean ONLY owed $430,000.  Jean's latest financial disclosure report proves that, at the time (and still today), Jean owed well over $500,000.  Dr. Wenstrup was actually underestimating Jean’s corruption!

Why would Barrett have told such an obvious lie?  Especially when he had to know the truth would come out with this report?  And really, was there anything to gain politically by quibbling over $70,000??  There is a word for people who lie even when it serves no purpose: Pathological.

We note that the Enquirer has announced an opening for a local politics writer.  We only ask one thing of Margaret Buchanan and the powers that be at Gannett.  If you want your paper to have any credibility, before you read his resume (we have no doubt that he will be applying for the job), just ask Deirdre Shesgreen how many times Barrett lied to her over the course of his year with Jean.

Barrett Brunsman, we’ve established exactly what you are, and we don’t care to know your price!