As Florida's presidential recount raged in December 2000, a newly created political group spent $150,000 attacking three pro-Democratic state Supreme Court justices who threatened George W. Bush's hopes for victory.
The Florida Elections Commission now says the "Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary" was a front group for unidentified donors trying to ensure Bush's election. The panel is weighing a possible $450,000 fine against the committee's chairwoman, Republican Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner.
But the committee's real organizer, the election commission said, was veteran GOP political consultant Roger Stone, who has been involved in major campaigns dating to Richard M. Nixon's administration. The election commission wanted to question Stone, who owns a home in Florida, but it couldn't locate him to serve a subpoena.
The letter to 350,000 people, Hooper's report said, was prepared "at the direction of Mr. Stone" and was paid for with $150,000, the source of which Hooper could not trace. Unique Graphics and Design of Alexandria produced and mailed the letter, but the company owner could remember only that she was paid $150,000 by wire transfer, according to the report. The money could not have come from the Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary, Hooper said, because the committee had not opened a bank account at that time.
Hmmm... I wonder if there were any other mysterious wire transfers in Florida 2000? Say, for the "spontaneous demonstrations"?