The Dark Money Story that Sooner Tea Party Broke
Continues to Have Legs
Collusion and Campaign Law Evasion Possible?
Definition of incestuous
1 : constituting or involving incest
2 : guilty of incest
3 : excessively or improperly intimate or exclusive
STP first linked House leadership to the dark money in a story that went out into HD 80 voter guide around the 12th of August. We published the first newsletter story on September the 4th, then reported the stampede to re fill their PAC coffers and sell House votes on September 8th, leading the AP writer Sean Murphy to inquire on the links between the dark money and House leadership. We shared the evidence and allegations which we had gathered for a follow up story on the 16th of September, most of the info found its way into the Associated Press story that came out on September 27th.
That AP story went national nearly overnight. The shame and embarrassment to House leadership was immense, Jon Echols was the only spokesperson claiming leadership had no responsibility or knowledge, while Charles McCall remained silent. Meanwhile one of the main characters in the scandal, Rep. Chris Kannaday, loudly proclaimed his part in the attacks.
Now one could swallow the lie that leadership knew nothing of the dark money attacks and be left with three possibilities:
A. House leadership is so inept and impotent that they were unaware of a major plan to oust Republican conservatives.
B. House leadership was seen as so impotent that Rep. Chris Kannaday and the donors that paid nearly $750,000.00 had no fear of punishment should the attacks be tracked back to them.
C. House leadership had actually blessed and supported the dark money attacks and is now lying about not knowing or being involved.
Personally, those that are connected realize that only C is credible, that House leadership was well aware and supportive if not actually involved. The donors that likely funded these attacks wouldn't have gone rogue without assurances that this would please House leadership.
However, this is appearing to have created a monster, Rep. Chris Kannaday has grown in power and stature claiming his leadership of the attacks. The donor class dug deep in their pockets, very deep, and they won, they eliminated a half dozen conservatives that were voting against tax increases. Kannaday won over around eight new converts, those candidates that he supported with the attack money targeting their conservative opponents. How significant will those eight supporters be?
Generally, a speaker candidate needs 30 House members in order to create a caucus that will dominate. With around 70 Republicans, 30 in one caucus, maybe 16 in the conservative caucus, the remainder being splintered into freshmen class, rural, and far left Republican caucuses, a 30 man caucus is massive.
Rep. Kannaday and Jon Echols pretty much put Charles McCall in the speaker chair, coupled with the McCall Prosperity PAC that was used. We wrote about the use of this dark money in the Speaker race back in February of 2016. The Prosperity PAC is run by one Frank Naifeh, filing agents are Carly Farris at JamesMartinCompany.com and Ashley Stuart. The PAC had been around awhile but it was dormant till the third quarter of 2015, about the time that Charles McCall was pushing his way to the Speaker chair. Notice that the one of the biggest contributors was the McCall family with $20,000 in this quarter alone. They gave to many of the same conservatives that were removed in the primary and runoff thanks to the dark money.
In the third quarter they shook down a lot of the lobbyists and donor class folks, spending the money on AH Strategies (Found Holland) and Ryan Martinez. You will see the owners of Central Liquor contributing, owned by the Naifeh family, same Naifeh that ran the PAC.
The first quarter of 2016, when we wrote the story of McCall's PAC buying votes for Speaker, they had focused on mainly RINO candidates. Second quarter of 2016 they continued milking medical and energy companies for donations and sent it to 18 mostly RINO House members. McCall was elected Speaker in May of this time frame, so a direct connection to purchasing the Speaker chair is evident. Of course Charles McCall wasn't getting any donations, he owned the PAC. The third quarter of 2016 saw the McCall family pump another $20,000 into the PAC, not quite half of what was collected that quarter. They gave to a handful of conservatives, mainly peace gestures, but mostly RINO candidates took the money. Fourth quarter 2016 saw the money spent on 24 candidates and Fount Holland's work. The donors were mostly from the medical field with a lot of small amounts coming from doctors, obviously large donations split up amount many candidates.
In 2017 the Prosperity PAC pretty much coasted, gathering in thousands of dollars from energy, doctors, firefighters, and lobbyists while spending a fraction of that on a couple of candidates. It was clear that they were filling their war chest for 2018. One of the expenditures was to Marathon PAC, which will be discussed later. By the second quarter of 2018, the last available filing, the Prosperity PAC seems to have done its work and was winding down with another large payment to the Marathon PAC.
Marathon PAC showed up on the Guardian system in 2016, perhaps a carry over from the old Ethics Commission reporting system. It was mostly inactive in 2016 and 2017, the same Carly Farris of James Martin Company was the filing agent, Matt Hinkle and Thomas Tillison Jr. were the officers. Echols and Kannaday along with a couple of other House members were the early donors and most likely the actual owners of the PAC. Money from lawyers poured in, both Kannaday and Echols are lawyers of course as well as the puppet masters over McCall, so this showed a shift of leadership money beginning to flow through Echols and Kannaday's hands after McCall had been elected and needed to distance himself from collecting bribes, uh, campaign donations....Kannaday was milking the attorneys with promises of rolling back the worker comp reforms we are told.
By the third quarter attorney money and other industry money was still coming in and expenditures went mostly to Fount Holland's companies.
The beginning of 2017 saw Marathon Pac raking in money, tens of thousands of dollars from firefighters, one of which challenged Mike Ritze and defeated him. In third quarter 2017 the firefighters pacs were once again churning tens of thousands of dollars into the Marathon Pac, no doubt saving up to take on Mike Ritze with their firefighter candidate. The fourth quarter saw once again tens of thousands of dollars pouring in from firefighter PACS and attorneys.
The first quarter 2018 saw tens of thousands of dollars coming in from doctors and medical companies. The second quarter 2018 showed a $5000.00 donation back to Prosperity PAC(owed by Charles McCall), perhaps that was forwarded on to the same Properity Alliance PAC that initially funded the Conservative Alliance PAC that did the spending with Trebor Worthem and Fount Holland or it could have gone to Ryan Martinez. Rep. Kevin McDugle also received a maxed out contribution. And is it a coincidence that they give McDugle $5000 and then give Prosperity PAC the same amount?
5/3/2018
MCDUGLE, KEVIN - KEVIN
MCDUGLE FOR OKLAHOMA 2018
ID: 8860
29521 E. 65TH ST. S., BROKEN
ARROW, OK 74014
Contribution to Candidate Committee
CONTRIBUTION TO CANDIDATE COMMITTEE
$5,000.00
$5,000.00
$5,000.00
PROSPERITY PAC
ID: 7604
PO BOX 54595, OKLAHOMA CITY,
OK 73154
Contribution to PAC
CONTRIBUTION TO PAC
$5,000.00
$5,000.00
$5,000.00
And there is more to this. Remember that the Prosperity PAC was pretty much dormant after gathering a lot of money in 2017 but not spending that much. So it was a surprise when they sent Ryan Martinez $5000.00 in the middle of June, were reimbursed by Marathon PAC the very next day. And Marathon PAC had maxed out with Ryan Martinez in early May. That could well be funneling money to evade campaign finance laws.
First, Marathon PAC's maxed out donation to Martinez
Prosperity PAC's donation to Martinez
Marathon PAC repaying Prosperity PAC for the donation to Martinez one day after Prosperity PAC donated
Another thing has become very, very, clear. The Charles McCall Speakership is threatened by a combination of the influx of new teacher caucus House members and by Rep. Chris Kannaday. Kannaday is the driving force behind the dark money, he has not only admitted that, he has bragged about it. Kannaday will walk in with eight new members that he helped in defeating the eight conservatives, they will owe Kannaday everything. Kannaday also has the support of donors that made nearly a quarter million dollars to one PAC alone, the Prosperity Alliance PAC, and Kannaday is the public face of that dark money attack. Kannady can easily brush McCall aside along with most of the other top leaders with the eight new members along with Josh West and Kevin McDugle's help.
The bottom line, you have hard connections between Marathon PAC, Prosperity PAC, Fount Holland and Trebor Worthem, the principles that have already admitted that they helped the dark money attacks against the conservatives, and Jon Echols, Chris Kannaday, Kevin McDugle, and Charles McCall. Their PACS are intertwined and incestuous. And we saw last week that while Hofmeister might be cleared in that old dark money scandal, the rest of the principles in those charges have not been cleared by OK county D.A. David Prater. Fount Holland might yet find himself in hot water.
