Old Lying John Bennett's team continues to implode, losing team members as the poisonous Chief of Staff Leslie Nessmith and equally as divisive Communications Director Miles Rahimi continue to turn on those that they feel are a threat to their power.
A month or so back Darren Gantz quit after Nessmith and Rahimi warned him that a committee would be placed over him to supervise his work. Gantz was confirmed by the State Committee on July 16th as Finance Chairman, meaning he worked for them, not John Bennett. Veteran GOP leader Joe Hart had headed the Budget Committee and between the two they helped drive the GOP out of desperate financial difficulty that it had been left in by former GOP Chairman David McLain. Mclain had gutted the bank account to the tune of $43,000 in cash, with the transfers posted weeks after he was no longer Chairman of the GOP.
Massive FEC fines had been paid, one was close to $13,000, for late FEC reports we understand. And there were IRS fines and fees pouring in due to late payroll tax filing and payment under previous administrations. But Gantz and Hart righted the ship for a few months until Bennett's corruption became too much to bear.
First it was Gantz that quit after his access to the financial records was removed and he was told a committee would be overseeing his work. Then the Budget Committee learned about the April 26th $4000 per month "contract" that Bennett had awarded Miles Rahimi, despite the Budget Committee not knowing of the existence. A total of $12,000 had been paid out before the Budget Committee had enough and demanded to see the contract. At first, Bennett, Bob Dani, and the rest of Lying John's cronies denied that there was a contract but it eventually was forced to the surface.
The contract was for $4000 per month, for four videos. The problem was that you could go to Miles Rahimi's Project 46.com website and pay $1500 for unlimited videos each month. What was the extra $2500 per month going for? Once the reality hit that Bennett had illegally committed the GOP to the contract according to the Bylaws, the Budget Committee stopped approving the monthly payments.
This lead to pressure being put up on the Budget Chair, Joe Hart, eventually his access to financial info was stripped as well. Keep in mind that the Budget Chair also owes their loyalty to the Party, not the Chairman.
The final straw for the corrupt Bennett administration was the refusal of the Budget Committee to pay the $4000 payoff each month. When they realized that decent men were controlling the Budget Committee Lying John created a new post, "Executive Director of Finance" a position not in the Party Bylaws, and Lying John informed Hart that he was working under the new Director Dwaine Shroyer.
Hart did the right thing and resigned in protest, leaving no one to oppose the corrupt administration. Now they are free to rob the GOP at will and funnel what few donations still coming in to Lying John's cronies.
Bennett's latest videos show an increasing paranoia, claims that everyone is out to get him and his staff, messages filled with self serving propaganda, basically how wonderful Lying John is and how he is the savior of the Party. It is these videos that are costing the GOP $1000 per week it seems, poorly produced with Lying John reading off a teleprompter.
Meanwhile Vice Chair Shane Jemison does nothing, as well as the two national committeemen Pollard and Curry. The game plan seems to be to let Lying John continue to implode despite the damage to the Party, no doubt with the hope that they can put their own crony in place once Lying John is ultimately forced out of office.
The only hope is for 124 members of the State Committee to band together and call for a state committee meeting to remove all four of the corrupt GOP officers. Which is difficult now that Lying John has removed all the contact info for the County GOP officials, putting in place a contact form that goes through his administration in place of the 70 county GOP pages that were up as late as August of this year.
