Trent Lott: The Doo Doo Is Getting Deeper (I hope you drown in it)

B’Man: I have written about this crook for quite some time (here, here, here and here) and have an obvious opinion about him. ThinkProgress has a post up in which recent testimony shows he has been intimidating witnesses with his Senatorial position (not that this is uncommon, just that here is another example of Mississippians being proved how they have been duped for so long).

Lawyer: Lott ‘Initiated Contact With People Surrounding’ Insurance Fraud Lawsuit

During a deposition last week, Jim Robie, an attorney for State Farm Insurance, alleged that former Mississippi senator Trent Lott had “urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” Questioning Lott’s nephew, Zach Scruggs, Robie asked if it had been his “custom” to have Lott “contact and encourage witnesses to give false information.” Scruggs refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment.

In an interview with LegalNewsline, Robie said Lott had “initiated contact with people surrounding” the case involving alleged efforts to “defraud” State Farm:

“Clearly, the record couldn’t be more plain that Sen. Lott and his associates were talking to people that were key advisers to Mr. Scruggs, paid consultants and those who were creating an illusion that simply doesn’t have any basic fact,” Robie told Legal Newsline on Thursday. […]

Robie said Lott, a leading Republican, initiated contact with people surrounding this case, something unprecedented for a U.S. Senator.

“Have you ever had a U.S. Senator call you?” he asked rhetorically.

A spokesman for Lott’s lobbying firm told Legal Newsline that “the former senator had no interest in justifying the implication with a response.”

Lott has previously been reported to have used his position in the Senate to put pressure on State Farm. In May, the New Yorker reported:

Charles Chamness, the C.E.O. of a national insurance trade association, has claimed that Lott had threatened him, in a telephone call, with “bringing down State Farm and the industry.” Lott also co-sponsored a proposal to strip the insurance industry of an antitrust exemption that had been in place since the nineteen-forties.

Robie says “he will continue his efforts to depose both Richard and Zach Scruggs, during which he will probe the influence of Lott.”

B’Man: Fellow Mississippi Rednecks, do you believe that Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, Haley Barbour or any of the other corrupt Mississippi reTHUGlicans are any better than this scumbag?

Another Corrupt Mississippi Politician Speaks From Both Sides Of Face

Anything to continue the bogus ReTHUGlican idiocy that is ruining this country:

Thad Cochran changes his tune on John McCain

Thad Cochran, the mild-mannered senior U.S. senator from Mississippi, made news in late January with this comment about his Senate colleague and fellow Republican, John McCain: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

Not enough, though, to keep him from joining the McCain bandwagon today shortly after Cochran’s first choice in his party’s presidential race, Mitt Romney, folded his tent. Here’s the e-mail Cochran sent out (a message that doesn’t hide where his heart still lies):

“I am supporting John McCain for the Republican nomination for President.  I supported Romney because I thought he would be the better choice for President. He had been a successful Governor of Massachusetts and was a successful businessman before that. I thought he was what we needed in a chief executive, one who could help improve our economy and create new jobs.”

We don’t expect to see Cochran performing much surrogate work for McCain on the campaign trail.

– Don Frederick

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