Cordray should heed his own words

Well, the questions I first started asking of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray back in April are starting to get addressed. When I first noticed some strange campaign finance movements in the Cordray camp, I was wondering what kind of redistribution was really going on behind the scenes.

Now the Dayton Daily News, and its sister papers, are taking notice.

Attorney General Richard Cordray, a Democrat running for re-election, is shuffling money in and out of his campaign account in a way that looks like he is complying with the letter of the law but not the spirit, according to a government watchdog group.

Cordray gave away $765,000 from his campaign account, sending $254,000 to the Ohio Democratic Party, $261,000 to the Franklin County Democratic Party and $250,000 to the Summit County Democratic Party, all within six days in February.

[...]

Catherine Turcer of Ohio Citizen Action’s money and politics project, said the money shuffle doesn’t pass the smell test.

“I’m sure he’s following the letter of the law. It’s certainly not following the spirit of the law,” she said.

Indeed. Without more evidence, the law very well may have been followed.

But what's interesting in this case, is what Cordray had to say about similar deals back in 1998.

Richard Cordray, the Democrats' attorney general nominee, accused incumbent Betty Montgomery of attempting to launder the contribution through the Ohio Republican Party "and trying to conceal the true source of money." The Montgomery and Deters campaigns denied the charge.

"I will tell you this is outrageous conduct by the person who is Ohio's top law enforcement officer," Cordray said. "For the top law enforcement officer to put together a scheme like this to evade Ohio's elections law is not only inappropriate and improper, it is clearly illegal."

Illegal, eh?

Well, if you say so.

So who's going to head over to the AG building and make a citizen's arrest today?