http://watchdog.org/59909/video-latest-voter-fraud-sting-nabs-son-of-long-serving-dem-congressman/
VA: Latest voter-fraud sting nabs son of long-serving Dem congressman
By Will Swaim | Watchdog.org
AS SEEN ON TV: Patrick Moran talks with an undercover reporter about
the best ways to commit voter fraud.
The son of a prominent Virginia congressman agreed to help an
undercover reporter forge documents in what he thought was an illegal
voting effort to re-elect the president, a just-published video
reveals.
After raising legal and practical concerns, Patrick Moran, son of
Virginia Democrat James Moran, encouraged the reporter to create phony
utility bills that would allow others to cast multiple votes in the
November 6 election.
Supporters of stronger voter ID laws seized on the video as evidence
of widespread corruption among liberal get-out-the-vote organizations.
�What he�s doing is soliciting fraudulent voter registrations and
fraudulent ballots, and that�s a federal crime,� said Hans von
Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation in
Washington, D.C. �Even attempting to do that is federal crime � you
don�t have to go through with it. Attempting it is a crime.�
Von Spakovsky said he would to expect the U.S. attorney in Alexandria
to investigate.
But the video shows something else: In addition to possible election
fraud, the interaction at a restaurant near the Arlington County
Democratic Committee headquarters sheds light on a federal government
in which cash and favors flow between private corporations and
powerful lawmakers � and their children.
The undercover reporter was on assignment for Project Veritas, the
James O�Keefe-led organization whose other undercover videos include a
series that led to the collapse of ACORN, a prominent liberal
community organization, and more recently one that led to the firing
of an Obama campaign worker engaged in what appeared to be a
voter-fraud effort in Houston.
Video and a transcript reviewed by Watchdog.org reveal that Moran, who
works in an office shared with other Democratic campaigns including
the president�s re-election organization, tried several times to
persuade the undercover reporter to abandon the conspiracy as too
difficult and even dangerous, before offering to help in the effort.
YouTube
Saying he respected the undercover reporter�s �initiative,� Moran went
on to offer advice on circumventing Virginia election law.
�Realistically speaking what do you need to vote for � if you were to
go in and vote for someone else in Virginia, you go to the polling
place, you need either a utility bill,� Moran says.
At that point, the undercover reporter objects that a utility bill is
�going to be kind of hard to get.�
Moran replies that the reporter might need something less than that �
just �a name and an address, which I think would probably be easy.�
Armed with phony documents, Moran tells the reporter, fraudsters could
rely on the help of well-intentioned, highly motivated Democratic poll
watchers. On the one hand, Moran says, government poll workers will
�be cracking down� on voters who can�t prove they have the right to
vote. On the other, �You�ll have somebody in house that � if they feel
that what you have is legitimate � they�ll argue for you.�
BEHIND THE PROVOCATIVE VIDEO there�s a classic Washington story: a son
who, despite his relative youth, has leveraged his father�s powerful
contacts to create an impressive-sounding professional resume.
His father Jim Moran, a long-serving Democratic congressman from
Northern Virginia, is running for his 12th term against Republican
Patrick Murray.
Patrick�s Uncle Brian Moran � that would be Rep. Jim Moran�s brother �
chairs the Virginia Democratic Party and formerly served as minority
caucus chairman in the state�s House of Delegates. Elected to the
House in 1996, Moran stepped down to run for governor in 2009, but was
defeated in the Democratic primary.
Fourteen years younger than brother Jim, Brian comes off as less
overtly partisan. But a Republican delegate said his former House
colleague is no pushover politically. �He has a job to do and, as the
Democratic Party chair, he has to be their attack dog, so some
Republicans don�t like him.�
The Morans are a close-knit political family. Three years ago, Jim�s
congressional campaign gave $175,000 to �Virginians for Brian Moran,�
his brother�s gubernatorial campaign. Patrick�s sister, Mary Elise, is
her father�s campaign manager � Patrick�s boss in the organization
where Patrick is listed as campaign field director. Documents show he
has earned just $2,526 in that position.
But Patrick Moran�s online profile suggests he�s more than just his
dad�s campaign worker. On his Linkedin profile, the younger Moran says
he�s a graduate of the Maryland prep school Chopticon and Yale
University�s class of 2012. More notably, he says he works as a staff
adviser for Deloitte, serving since May 2009 in the high-octane
management consultancy�s federal government-relations division. The
same profile lists Arlington-based BAE Systems as a previous employer.
Formerly British Aerospace Engineering, BAE is a major Pentagon
contractor.
The Deloitte and BAE connections are compelling for a number of
reasons. Both companies have contributed to his father�s congressional
campaigns, perhaps recognizing Jim Moran�s key role on the Defense
subcommittee in the House of Representatives and as a ranking member
of the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.
According to federal documents, Deloitte has contributed $41,000 to
Jim Moran�s campaigns.
Then, there�s Patrick�s youth: if his Linkedin profile is correct, he
went to work for Deloitte when he was just 20 years old and still in
college. And if, as his profile claims, he�s still working for
Deloitte today, he�s got remarkable energy even for a 23-year-old
ex-varsity football player: despite the demands of working for
Deloitte and on his father�s campaign, the same Linkedin profile
asserts that he works as a bouncer at an Arlington nightclub.
But the Deloitte gig seems unlikely to be quite the fulltime position
the younger Moran makes of it on Linkedin. In his profile on the
Arlington Young Democrats website, where Moran holds down yet another
post � he�s that group�s political director � Moran mentions his work
with Deloitte in a way that fudges the relationship, making it seem
possible that it was a series of summer internships.
Jim Moran for Congress spokesperson Austin Durrer said Patrick�s job
at Deloitte was an unpaid college internship. The BEA listing, he
says, refers to Patrick�s internship with the defense contractor while
a high school sophomore.
A spokesperson for Deloitte said the company would not comment on
employees, not even to confirm dates of employment. BEA Systems did
not respond to requests for comment.
[UPDATE: 7:04 pm Eastern: A Deloitte spokesperson emailed Watchdog:
"We can confirm that Patrick Moran does not work at Deloitte. He was
an intern at Deloitte LLP for a number of months while in college."]
Dig deeper than the Linkedin profile, and there�s the hint of a family
with radically fluctuating finances.
A ONE-TIME STOCKBROKER, Rep. Moran continued investing after his 1991
election to the House of Representatives. One of his former wives
reportedly described his trading behavior as �stock market gambling.�
In his most controversial stock market trades, Moran made more than 90
trades in 2008 after attending a secret Federal Reserve briefing
warning of an impending worldwide financial crisis. The holdings Moran
disclosed in 2008 included stock in General Dynamics and BAE Systems,
which both received earmarks requested by Moran that year, according
to financial and earmark disclosure records. The earmarks were for
$1.6 million each.
�It�s an unbelievable fabrication of the truth,� said Durrer, the
congressman�s campaign spokesperson. �The financial holdings belonged
to his wife. Her broker managed and sold off the portfolio. (Moran)
was never in the room.�
Moran�s problems are often like that, a result of mixing money and
politics followed by Moran�s claim that the charges are lies spread by
his political opponents.
In the most notorious case, the New York Times reported that MBNA bank
lent him $447,500 in 1998 to refinance his personal credit card debt �
at the same time the bank was pushing a bill on bankruptcy reform. A
year later he accepted a $25,000 line of credit from Schering-Plough
before co-sponsoring a bill involving the drug maker. Moran also
accepted a $50,000 loan from a top AOL official while the company had
legislation pending.
Despite the ambitious financial activity, a recent Washington Post
analysis calculated that Moran�s total wealth is among the lowest in
congress � just $266,507 in 2010. Last month, the Northern Virginia
website ARLnow.com noted that the 11-term congressman �recently
divorced from third wife LuAnn Bennett, lives with his son Patrick in
a two-bedroom apartment in Shirlington.�
�Jim Moran remains a popular figure in his Democratic-leaning district
despite a succession of gaffes and questions about his finances,� the
Wall Street Journal recently wrote.
The gaffes include a failed mass-transit initiative Moran sponsored.
�Moran defended in early 2009 his acquisition of $2 million in
congressional earmarks to create a fleet of electric buses to ease
congestion in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Va.,� the Journal
reported. �The city ended up with diesel buses instead, usage was half
what was expected, and taxpayers had to subsidize the service at $8 a
ride.�
�We gave it our best shot,� Moran said. �That doesn�t mean it wasn�t a
good idea.�
Then, too, there was Moran�s odd about-face on government
identification. At a town hall meeting on health care reform, a
combative Moran asked a participant to show his ID before Moran would
answer his question. Ironically, Moran was one of 15 Democrats
sponsoring a federal bill to repeal state and local voter ID laws.
Moran later apologized.
A LITTLE MORE than a week before O�Keefe released his undercover
video, James and Brian Moran, the congressman�s brother and the state
Democratic Party chair, turned up at an Obama for America office in
Mount Vernon to fire up volunteers preparing to register voters in
advance of the state deadline.
After the event, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who
joined the pair, told a reporter, �What I said in there, Northern
Virginia � Virginia overall � is unbelievably important to the
country. That�s why I said, �Send me where it�s most important for
people to vote.� They sent us here because this place is the epicenter
of the political universe now and people have to get out and vote.
They just have to because the future that they have depends on what
happens in Virginia.�
There are many such centers of the universe, of course. But Granholm�s
assertions aren�t simply hyperbole, and they may explain why a Yale
graduate with a powerful father would find himself at the center of a
widening vote-fraud scandal.
Additional reporting by Earl Glynn, Tori Richards and Kenric Ward.
Contact Will Swaim at
wsw...@watchdog.org.
The methodology of the left has always been:
1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie