Tom Hauser is the chief political reporter for KSTP-TV in the Twin Cities. In a close encounter of the X kind this past February, Hauser instructed me in political civility. Maybe he should concentrate on reporting.
In his most recent story on the Ellison tape in the Feeding Our Future case, he simply reports: “Ellison denies soliciting or accepting donations from people in the meeting.” Hauser leaves it at that, yet it is extremely misleading.
Victor Nava’s New York Post story draws on Bill Glahn’s work identifying meeting participants linked with the Feeding Our Future case and tracking down their political contributions. See Bill’s careful Center of the American Experiment post identifying “who’s who on the Ellison/FOF tape.” Bill’s post provides the source material for Nava’s story.
In her April 15 Star Tribune story on the Ellison recording, Deena Winter identifies four of those whom we know attended the meeting with Ellison and separately lists 20 parties involved with Feeding Our Future who contributed to “the Ellisons” (Ellison or his son Jeremiah of the Minneapolis City Council) in the 10 days following the meeting.
Eight of Winter’s 20 have been charged or convicted in the Feeding Our Future case and contributed to Jeremiah Ellison. Two of the four identified by Winter from the tape as attending the meting (one charged, one convicted) contributed to Jeremiah Ellison. One defendant charged in the case contributed $2500 to Keith Ellison (which Ellison’s spokesman says he has donated to charity), but did not attend the meeting. His sister (also charged in the case) attended the meeting and contributed to Jeremiah Ellison.
I have linked to the online version of Hauser’s story above. I have embedded the video below.
Michael Isikoff titled his excellent 1999 memoir Uncovering Clinton. The title punned on a striking theme of the book. Isikoff uncovered the Lewinsky story while everyone in the press knew about Bill Clinton’s frolics and detours — everyone including Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry — but the press chose not to cover the story. As to the Lewinsky story, Matt Drudge forced their hand. We have a related phenomenon in Minnesota in the local press “uncovering” Tim Walz and Keith Ellison.
All that having been said, campaign contributions are the least of the Ellison story in the Feeding Our Future case. Taking Ellison’s latest account at face value, Ellison’s gross negligence in office is the story “uncovered” here.
