After the jump, Darby’s statement and a short video clip in which Darby, co-founder of Common Ground Collective, advocates for Hurricane Katrina victims.

December 29, 2008

To All Concerned,

The struggles for peace and justice have accomplished significant change throughout history. I’ve had the honor to work with many varying groups and individuals on behalf of marginalized communities and in various struggles. There are currently allegations in the media that I have worked undercover for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This allegation no doubt confuses many activists who know me and probably leaves many wondering why I would seemingly choose to engage in such an endeavor. The simple truth is that I have chosen to work with the Federal Bureau of investigation.
As compelling as the natural human desire to reason and express oneself can be, regardless, I must hold my comments at this time on certain aspects of the situation. That said, there are a few statements and generalizations I will make relating to my recent choices.

Though I’ve made and will no doubt continue to make many mistakes in efforts to better our world, I am satisfied with the efforts in which I have participated. Like many of you, I do my best to act in good conscience and to do what I believe to be most helpful to the world. Though my views on how to give of myself have changed substantially over the years, ultimately the motivations behind my choices remain the same. I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter.

I strongly believe that people innocent of an act should stand up for themselves and that those who choose to engage in an act should accept responsibility and explain the reasoning for their choices.

It is very dangerous when a few individuals engage in or act on a belief system in which they feel they know the real truth and that all others are ignorant and therefore have no right to meet and express their political views.

Additionally, when people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it’s damaging to the efforts of those who do give of themselves to better this world. Many people become activists as a result of discovering that others have distorted history and made heroes and assigned intentions to people who really didn’t act to better the world. The practice of placing noble intentions after the fact on actions which did not have noble motivations has no place in a movement for social justice.

The majority of the activists who went to St. Paul did so with pure intentions and simply wanted to express their disagreements with the Republican Party. It’s unfortunate that some used the group as cover for intentions that the rest of the group did not agree with or knew nothing about and are now, consequently, having parts of their lives and their peace of mind uprooted over.

There is no doubt in my mind that many of you reading this letter will say and feel all possible bad things about my choices and for me. I made the choice to have my identity revealed and was well aware of the consequences for doing so. I know that the temptation to silence or ignore the voice of someone who you strongly disagree with can be overwhelming in matters such as this one; and no doubt many people will try to do just that to me. I have confidence that there will be a few people interested in discussion and in better understanding views different from their own, especially from one of their own. My sincere hope is that the entire matter results in better understanding for everyone.

Many of you went against my wishes and spoke publicly in defense of me. Those involved were correct when they wrote that I wasn’t making my choices for financial reasons or to avoid some sort of prosecution. They were incorrect that my ideology didn’t support such choices. One individual who publically defended me stated that they didn’t believe I was working undercover because the government would have used my access to take down a more prominent activist if the allegations were true. If indeed the government or I was interested in doing so, it could have happened in such a manner. However, the incorrect notion that the government was out to silence dissent was the cause for the mistake made by that person. In defense of the individuals who openly did their best to do what they thought was defending me, they did not know the truth and they had no way of knowing the truth due to their ideological and personal attachments to me. It’s unfortunate that the truth couldn’t have come out sooner and that the needed preparations for such a disclosure take time. I really did mean it when I said that I didn’t want to discuss it and that I didn’t want folks addressing the allegations.

Again, I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter. I’m looking forward to open dialogue and debate regarding the motivations and experiences I’ve had and the ethical questions they pose.

In Solidarity,

Brandon Michael Darby

The agency that runs the airport refused an apparently serious offer to buy the men’s room stall made famous by Craig’s 2007 conviction for disorderly conduct in a sex-solicitation sting operation by the airport police. The Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) spurned the $5,000 offer, which arrived by certified mail, according to MAC spokesperson Patrick Hogan.

“We would not want to do that to the senator,” Hogan told the Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane, Wash., which is just over the state line from Craig’s home state of Idaho. “We’d want to treat this case like we do any other, and we don’t sell fixtures for novelty purposes.”

Read more and see those intact fixtures for yourself in a new YouTube video after the jump.

Craig tried to take back his guilty plea, but – unlike issuing a presidential pardon – copping to a misdemeanor is irrevocable. That’s what the state Court of Appeals told Craig when it rejected his appeal earlier this month.

The revelation about the rebuffed purchase offer is part of a story on Hogan’s claim that sight-seers’ “special interest” in the bathroom has dwindled since Craig’s arrest. The men’s room’s status as a tourist attraction ended the gay cruising activity that the MAC police sting had targeted, Hogan said. That in turn allowed MAC officials to reverse their decision to extend stall walls to meet the floor, a project that would have cost several times the amount of the would-be stall-buyer’s offer.

The airport survived a boycott by Craig supporters only to find the MAC in heavy talks with Delta to renegotiate Northwest’s contracts following the airlines’ merger. The publicly owned and operated airport even faces privatization threats in the state legislative session that starts next month. By not remodeling the mens’ room, the airport commission can argue it has saved enough to afford its high-minded refusal to play-for-pay with at least one well-heeled sex-scandal devotee.

Still, Hogan sounded more like an enthusiastic tour guide than the spokesman for a thrifty public agency when he gushed, “The restroom looks exactly as it was when the senator was arrested.”

Here is a video re-enactment of Craig’s visit to the Minnesota airport men’s room, released Monday by satellite radio talk show host Michelangelo Signorile:

Rybak and Coleman call RNC a “success,” adding, “nearly 100 lbs of Jelly Bellies were distributed to the media during the Convention.” –molly 5:21 PM Sep 5th from web

Overheard by an onlooker [at a showdown between protesters and police]: “I’ve been a St. Paul guy forever. This is TIME Magazine shit!” 7:36 PM Sep 4th from web

Police: “You must go to the left.” Protester: “Your left or ours?” 6:31 PM Sep 4th from web

i’m so hot for the teacher…. i should learn not to leave my twitter open 4 drunk bloggers to spoof tweets… 11:41 PM Sep 3rd from web  [A ghost-tweet by a passerby who noticed an open MnIndy laptop at the Liberal Lounge.]

Overheard post-Poor Peoples March. Placid Jesusy-looking guy to riot cops: “We love you. Thank you for the pepperspray. It was delicious.” 12:14 PM Sep 3rd from web

Overheard at May Day cafe: “Dude, I totally got tear gassed. It was fucking awesome.” 11:57 AM Sep 3rd from web

Guntzel: Watching protesters & police make their moves was “like watching a newborn’s eyes as its brain works out the w orld in front of it.” 10:39 AM Sep 3rd from web

Overheard from excited Mpls policeman, “So I shot him with impact round a[nd] he just fucking dropped!” 6:51 PM Sep 1st from web

Conventioneer: “if obama gets elected, it will be a jewish state. I will go to cuba. We have no place to go.” 2:23 PM Sep 1st from txt

McCain meatballs for sale on 7th St. Sound appetizing. And stale. –Molly 11:07 AM Sep 1st from txt

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More of MnIndy’s Best:

Ten most popular stories of 2008

Top 10 photos of 2008

Top videos of 2008

It’s the second politically unpalatable presidential pardon in six weeks to touch Coleman, who remains in the grips of a drawn-out recount in his bid for re-election against Democratic challenger Al Franken. The Minnesota Independent broke the news last month that soon after taking office in 2003, Coleman wrote letters of support for the pardon application of Frank Vennes, Jr. A convicted money launderer now best known as an associate of accused Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, Vennes was also a donor to Coleman’s 2002 campaign fund and to political action committees that supported Coleman.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann revoked her support of a pardon for Vennes after the Petters scandal broke this year. She also redirected a portion of Vennes’s contributions to her campaign to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug treatment program that’s been a favorite of Minnesota politicians.

10. Friends of Todd

When Sen. Norm Coleman and Todd (but not Sarah) Palin rallied in Duluth in October, an ardent supporter carried this curious sign, captured on film by Paul Demko.

9. Meter remade

A hacked parking meter, spotted by Steve Perry during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

8. Spraygun

RNC police breaking out high-powered pepper spray aerosol cans, photographed by Jeff Severns Guntzel.

7. Anti-RNC Everyman

Vermin Supreme, the most ubiquitous RNC protester, photographed by Molly Priesmeyer.

6. Why we vote?

A discarded newspaper, photographed by Paul Schmelzer outside a north Minneapolis polling place on Election Day, may offer a glimpse at voter motivations in 2008.

5. With Rage on-stage

An eerily lit shot of crowds at the September Rage Against the Machine concert, by Tony Nelson.

4. RNC onlookers

A pair of protesters watch an RNC demonstration go by, by Mike Dvorak.

3. Ready

A phalanx of riot police at the Republican National Convention, by Tim Roman.

2. Franken foregrounded

Senatorial candidate Al Franken speaks at an Oct. 21 rally at the University of Minnesota as a well-known supporter looks on. Photo by Andy Birkey.

1. Keith Smith (before photo)

Our top photo of the year, shot by Paul Demko, shows 17-year-old protester Keith Smith just hours before he was reportedly beaten by police at the Republican National Convention.

To see more Minnesota Independent photos, visit our Flickr site.

More of MnIndy’s Best:

Ten most popular stories of 2008

Top videos of 2008

Top RNC tweets

Image: ABC News

Burhaan Hassan was a fairly typical kid, the kind who asked his mother for $20 when he wanted to go see a movie on weekends. But on Election Day, while much of the world — including his single mother — was consumed by the historic election, he and a handful of Somali-American teenagers quietly boarded a plane to Kenya, en route to the front lines of a Jihad in Somalia.

Hassan, 17, wasn’t working and couldn’t afford the expensive airfare, said his uncle, Hussein Samatar, an immigrant from Somalia who now runs the African Development Group of Minnesota. “We believe someone — some group — has paid for his ticket,” he said.

Law enforcement agencies and community leaders fear that up to a dozen local boys have been conscripted by a radical group to fight a Jihad in Somalia, a lawless country in the Horn of Africa.

Special agent E. K. Wilson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Minneapolis wouldn’t confirm or deny the fate of the “missing boys,” as they are known in the community. He would only say that his agency is aware that an unspecified number of Somali youths have traveled from throughout the United States, including Minneapolis, to “potentially fight in Somalia.”

Mysterious case

The lack of specificity in the case has jolted the Somali community in Minnesota, estimated at more than 70,000 — the largest in North America. The FBI would neither identify the missing teenagers nor give details of their trips, even though its agents have repeatedly interviewed family members, associates and travel consultants who may have unwittingly sold tickets to unscrupulous recruiters.

The FBI wouldn’t even confirm if a teenager whose remains the agency returned to his family last month was one of five suicide bombers who attacked government and foreign installations in Somalia, killing 24. Yet almost everyone in the community believes that 19-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, a University of Minnesota student, was indeed a culprit in those attacks.

Still, an eerie question — how could this happen to us? — has rattled the Twin Cities Somali community for the past few weeks. While virtually no one denies that the community has been infiltrated by jihadist recruiters, exactly who is to blame for the missing boys is a matter of considerable controversy.

Some activists blame Abubkar As-Saddique Islamic Center (AAIC), located just of Lake Street in south Minneapolis, for preaching intolerance to vulnerable young men. In addition to being the largest mosque in the Twin Cities, some of the missing teenagers, including Hassan, frequented its after-school and youth programs.

Earlier this month, law enforcement officials blocked AAIC’s imam and a youth coordinator from boarding a flight to Mecca for pilgrimage. This intensified the cloud of suspicion hovering over the center.

AAIC officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but released this statement:

“The AAIC does not engage in any political activity. It has not, and will not, recruit for any political cause. There has never been, nor will there ever be, any support of terrorists, their radical philosophy, or their acts by the AAIC. The Center unequivocally condemns suicide bombing and all acts of indiscriminate violence.”

“We needed leadership from them,” said Samatar referring to the AAIC. He says his nephew Hassan memorized the entire Quran at AAIC. A pious young man who reportedly felt a sense of belonging at AAIC, he was a senior at Roosevelt High School, where his academic excellence earned him advance admission to the University of Minnesota.

“He had all the qualities to succeed,” said Samatar wistfully. “Everybody assumed he would grow to become an amazing man.”

‘Disjointed youth’

Other community leaders call for a nuanced look at the situation. Abdisalam Adam, director of Daral-Hijra Center, a mosque in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, said the whole ordeal should prompt introspection in the community.

A member of a community panel established in the wake of the boys’ disappearances, Adam said young Somali men are in a “disjointed state from the rest of the community,” and in desperate need of emotional anchors.

“Some join gangs,” he said, while “others fall prey to cyber recruiters.”

Al-Shabaab's logo

A United Nations investigation recently uncovered evidence that extremist groups in Somalia have ratcheted up their online recruiting and fundraising capabilities. Among other things, the U.N. Monitoring Group, which is tasked with monitoring weapons flowing to Somalia, found that members of Al-Shabaab (”The Youth”), a Somali group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, have “intensified their cyber activities.”

The U.N. report notes that, unlike more moderate Islamist groups in Somalia, Al-Shabaab has relatively young leaders, some from Western countries, in its ranks. Obscure young jihadists with foreign passports have greater mobility — a key advantage over more well-known leaders, experts believe.

Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College in North Carolina, said recruiting Somalis with foreign passports would have “some advantages if [Al-Shabaab] intends to attack sites outside Somalia.”

So far, the group hasn’t carried out attacks beyond Somalia, though it has issued threats. Still, young people with foreign passports also pose a risk to Al-Shabaab, said Menkhaus.

“They have an exit option if they get scared or have doubts … and could turn to law enforcement in the West and expose Al-Shabaab,” he said.

Greater oversight

Before these teenagers went missing, youth programs at mosques went minimally scrutinized, complained some community leaders. To address this, Adam, the Daral-Hijra Center director, urges mosque leaders to introduce greater oversight on youth activities.

“Our image as a community is tainted,” he said. “Instead of pointing fingers at our mosques and religious leaders, we need to repair our image. We need to minimize the influence of external factors by increasing oversight.”

Meanwhile, concerned Somali parents are keeping their teenage boys on shorter leashes to prevent them from leaving. Ahmed, a 16-year-old high school student who didn’t want his last name to be used, said his parents no longer allow him to ride the school bus. They personally deliver him to and from school.

“I’m under 24-hour surveillance,” he quipped, noting that his parents also confiscated his passport. “It’s fine with me, though — whatever makes them feel good.”

Abdi Aynte, a former fellow at The Minnesota Independent, is Washington correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service.

I’d met Rowley in 2006, at her campaign fundraiser at my parents’ house. At the time, she seemed fierce and friendly, with a somewhat prim persona akin to her plaid-skirted appearance on the cover of TIME four years before. Now, a comfortably rumpled Rowley sidled into a courtroom seat with the more relaxed bearing of a street-level activist and occasional blogger. She had a stack of “Defend the RNC8!” postcards to pass out, and a lot to say.

Rowley recently submitted data requests about law enforcement during the 2008 Republican National Convention to the FBI (via the Freedom of Information Act) and to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s and St. Paul Police departments (through the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act). She expects to learn whether the surveillance and policing of 60 to 70 political organizations in St. Paul last September to protest the Republican National Convention (RNC)– as well as the surveillance of another 80 or so legal aids, independent media and artistic performance groups — was overly broad.

If it wasn’t, Rowley said that news will come as a relief to people like those she knows in CODEPINK who say they were pulled over repeatedly around the time of the RNC. But if the wide net she’s cast does snare examples of extra-constitutional overreaching, they’ll go into a book she’s working on with author William John Cox.

Rowley regaled me and Minnesota Public Radio’s Laura Yuen, who sat nearby, with stories about her early days as an FBI agent in the early 1980s. Hoover had died almost a decade (and several reform efforts) earlier, but his ghost still hovered over the Bureau. It was Rowley’s job to respond to the very sort of data requests she now has pending about the RNC. As we watched the defense attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild kibitz at the front of the courtroom, Rowley recalled that as an FBI agent she sat among stacks of files on the Guild’s members — a throwback to Hoover’s conviction that the Guild was a communist organization.

Back then, every new lead meant a new file, Rowley said. If folksinger Burl Ives threw a party, the next day everyone in attendance had an FBI file. She suspects that won’t be the case with the 150 groups about whom she’s requested records.

Rowley said she was always proud that the FBI fought public corruption as its top priority (it’s now the agency’s fourth priority, according to an FBI spokesman I talked to separately). I asked her about reports that the FBI is looking into allegations that businessman Nasser Kazeminy funneled money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman through a business he controls in Texas and Coleman’s wife’s employer in Minnesota. Does the FBI really open different levels of cases with some (like the Coleman cash question, reportedly) termed mere inquiries while others are full-fledged investigations? Rowley, who retired in 2004, said that in her day two levels of investigations did exist but the lesser was rarely used, and in any case the difference between them was nominal at best — you either had a case worth pursuing or you didn’t.

Rowley spoke in an elevated whisper — this being a courtroom, although the judge never appeared — that later put me in mind of the lower, hoarser whisper that actor Hal Holbrooke used in the “All the President’s Men” film to portray of Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, who had been Hoover’s second-in-command at the FBI. Felt died Thursday, having revealed himself as Deep Throat but taking with him any key to the internal contradictions of a man who helped engineer both the illegal surveillance on dissidents and the downfall of a president who put such dirty tricks to his own political ends. Next time I see her, I’ll ask how Rowley — who put her own livelihood at risk to root out wrongdoing within the FBI — how she felt about Felt.

The postcard Rowley was handing out this week.

According to Time Out, a 20-something Blago staked out Nixon’s New York residence with a pal in 1980, angling for a photo and autograph. The picture surfaced in a profile of Blagojevich produced by Chicago public television station WTTW.

Details after the jump, including the names of those whose trials start this week.

CRASS tells the Minnesota Independent that trials start this week for Vernon Rodrigues (felony); Shannon Alsup, Ashley Majer, Lisa Mirkovich, Loren Yglecias (gross misdemeanors); and Jared Collins, Leif Johnson, Thomas Kamen and Andrew Wilson (misdemeanors).

The protest against Coleman is set for 4:30 p.m. today at Mancini’s Steak House, 531 W. Seventh St., St. Paul.

The call-in to Gaertner’s office is set for  9 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m.–1 p.m. Wednesday. That effort leads up to the next court date for the eight people arrested before the convention began who are known as the RNC8: Luce Guillen Givins, Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Eryn Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald.

CRASS describes itself as “non-hierarchical coalition of RNC arrestees and community allies” that includes Coldsnap Legal Collective, Friends of the RNC 8, the National Lawyers Guild - Minnesota, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Anti-War Committee, Twin Cities Indymedia, and Veterans for Peace.

On Friday, Joe Robinson received the first RNC protester felony sentence – a $100 fine and 100 hours of community service — from Ramsey County District Court Judge Salvador Rosas, who is assigned to hear the RNC8 case on Wednesday.

So there is a circumstantial link between the payments and the house costs, a potential motive for Kazeminy to steer a sum like that to the Colemans, as two lawsuits allege and the FBI is now looking into. (The Republican senator has denied the charge and welcomed the investigation.) But it’s not yet a “gotcha” — as Lyden admits in a blog post. Like MnIndy, Fox 9 had been sniffing around Colemans’ remodeling project in relation to the Texas charges since before Election Day. Video, transcript and property tax record after the jump.

Another interesting tidbit: The Colemans paid a campaign donor $33,000 for design services on the project.

Here’s the Colemans’ property tax statement.

Here’s a link to the Fox 9 video report.

Here’s video released by the Minnesota DFL Party showing Fox 9 reporter Lyden trying to ask Coleman about the remodeling and Texas lawsuits after a press conference in Monticello, Minn.

And here’s a transcript of the Fox 9 report, which the Al Franken for Senate distributed by e-mail without comment this morning.

JEFF PASSOLT: Tonight, a federal investigation into an extreme home makeover. The home belongs to Senator Norm Coleman and his wife.

ROBYN ROBINSON: The timing and the cost of their home renovation raises new questions about an allegation a wealthy businessmen tried funneling money to the senator. Fox 9 investigator Tom Lyden has been digging deep into this and he joins us now with what he’s found.

TOM LYDEN: The FBI is now reportedly investigating these allegations that Edina businessman Nasser Kazeminy tried to funnel $75,000 to the U.S. Senator through the Senator’s wife, Laurie. But we couldn’t help wondering why a U.S. Senator, who makes about $180,000 a year, actually need the money? That’s what the Fox 9 investigators began looking about a month ago, and it lead us right to the Senator’s doorstep.

[BEGIN VIDEO]

LYDEN: Norm Coleman’s home in Saint Paul’s Crocus Hill neighborhood is not lavish, but it’s a lot nicer than it used to be, thanks in part to contractor Jim Taylor, who helped remodel the senator’s home two years ago.

JIM TAYLOR: Actually put a second floor master bedroom bathroom - the bedroom was there, we just added the bedroom with a closet and a kitchen remodeling, turned into half the house remodeled by the time we painted and we finished the floors and did the landscape work.

LYDEN: The remodeled kitchen was even the backdrop for some of the senator’s campaign commercials.

LAURIE COLEMAN: Hey Norm, will you take out the trash?

NORM COLEMAN: I got it, honey.

LYDEN: The Fox 9 investigators learned the woman in charge of the project was Sherry Wilsey, an interior designer and along with her husband Roger longtime friends of the Colemans’ and financial contributors to the Senator’s campaigns.

The Wilseys’ even hosted a fundraiser for Senator Coleman during the Republican National Convention at their Summit Avenue mention just a few blocks from the Colemans’.

TAYLOR: She’s a designer, and she got us in contact with Norm. Pretty much we were done by the end of the year; there were a few things that lingered on into the spring.

LYDEN: The spring of 2007. That’s when, according to two lawsuits, Edina businessman Nasser Kazeminy began a series of three $25,000 payments to Coleman from Deep Marine Technology, a company he controlled in Texas, to Hays Company, a Minnesota insurance company where Laurie Coleman works.

Senator Coleman is not a party to the lawsuits, but he’s denied any wrongdoing, claiming it’s all politics.

NORM COLEMAN: The allegations regarding me and my wife in this suit are false and defamatory.

DAVID SCHULTZ: There’s no question about the fact that it doesn’t look good.

LYDEN: But government ethics professor David Schultz says tough questions are fair game when serious financial allegations are made which involve a U.S. Senator.

SCHULTZ: It speaks to, first in terms of credibility, in terms of what Norm Coleman has to say in terms of responding to allegations. Second, it speaks to also sort of the whole sense of motive, motive in terms of why he might at this point going, trying to get money through his wife from an individual in Texas.

LYDEN: We tried to talk to Senator Coleman about the home renovation project three weeks ago when he visited the Monticello nuclear plant. You would have thought we were radioactive.

Senator Coleman never did agree to sit for an interview, but his campaign did agree to share billing records of the remodeling project. Originally projected to cost $328,000, four months later it was up to $414,000, overbudget by $86,000.

[OVERLAY: ESTIMATE, OCT. '06
$326,000

ESTIMATE, FEB. 28, '07
$414,000

OVER BUDGET
$86,000]

LYDEN: Similar to the amount, and at the same time, the lawsuit alleges Kazeminy was trying to get money to Coleman.

According to the lawsuits, in March of 2007, Kazeminy said “U.S. Senators don’t make [s--t]” and he was going to try to find a way to get money to U.S. Senator Norm Coleman.

SCHULTZ: On the one level, it could just be a coincidence. On the other level, it could be that one of the reasons why he’s getting this money from elsewhere is to try to basically make up for his - to be able to pay off a loan, to be able to pay off a line of credit.

LYDEN: Records provided by the campaign showed Coleman paid his friend Wilsey, the general contractor, in full for the renovation, $414,000. And he did it in part by refinancing his home in March 2007, for $775,000. The Senator acknowledges that, like a lot of people in America, he now owes more on his home than it’s actually worth.

That isn’t a crime. What we know is this: the senator had costly and overbudget renovations to his home at the same time a contributor was allegedly trying to funnel him money. We don’t know if the Colemans’ really needed the money, or if the Kazeminy allegations are even true.

REPORTER: Why won’t the senator answer the question?

LYDEN: But on at least two occasions now, the senator has walked away from reporters claiming their motives are political. And yet the questions aren’t going away. [END VIDEO]

LYDEN: Couple of footnotes - the interior designer and general contractor, Sherry Wilsey, was paid $33,000 for her work. That’s important because, as a friend and a Coleman contributor, if she wasn’t paid for her services that would be a gift and would have to be reported to the Senate Ethics Committee.

Also want to clarify something Jeff said, the FBI investigation concerns the Kazeminy allegations and not the home renovations - at this point.