A Janet Nguyen Connection?

The Story Continues

http://redcounty.com/content/janet-nguyen-connection


A Janet Nguyen Connection?


By Chip Hanlon | 11/01/10 | 10:52 AM EDT | 2 Comments
ShareThis

I'm glad someone else wrote about this because I wasn't sure how I was going to...

So, it's out there. A new connection has been drawn about who might have been behind the strange circumstances of Atlas PAC playing campaign finance footsies with the OCEA.

Late last night, El Tib wrote here about a theory that 2 different people called me with over the weekend: they said the trail in my article was interesting but that I had jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion about who put Atlas and the OCEA together. They asserted that the trail leads to Supervisor, Janet Nguyen.

Since I think this theory is being advanced out of a camp at least close to, if not part of, the guys in Orange, there's some reason for initial skepticism. But at the same time: if they didn't pull this whole caper, then they should be looking to set the record straight, so let's break it down.

Janet's a supporter of both Harry Sidhu and Jon Dumitru because they were both early endorsers of her, so a possible motive/tie exists. Atlas and Janet are apparently also close. So far, I'm open to this theory.

Next, it does make little sense that Denis Bilodeau would have had something to do with the June I.E. that hit his own boss, Shawn Nelson, the strange Atlas-OCEA tie I wrote about in my first post on this topic. If you wanted to let him off the hook entirely, you would then let him out of having done anything wrong in the October I.E. like this:

- Sure, CR&R contributed to it, but what would you expect? Cavecche (the target of that IE) originally voted against their contract.

- So what if Bilodeau did introduce individual donor Elaine Raahauge to this IE committee? Everyone knows he's a friend of Dumitru so there's nothing wrong with his bringing someone he knows in to support such an independent expenditure.

Reach-y? think it's unlikely he wouldn't know that the I.E. was also being funded heavily by the OCEA, but the explanation above is certainly possible.

It's much harder to think Dumitru had no knowledge of any of the connections in both I.E.s to the OCEA, but let's just say for a minute that's possible, too.

Then the Janet Nguyen theory looks very interesting, even I would have to say. If I came to the wrong conclusion in those earlier posts, I'd have no problem doing a mea culpa and issuing a public apology to Bilodeau and Dumitru.

At the same time, if I'm Janet Nguyen and my name just got brought into this mess for no reason whatsoever, I'm blowing a gasket immediately-- and the jig will be up for those trying to float the theory of her involvement.

Bottom line is this: at a time when conservatives are unified in the idea that public employee unions are devastating this state financially, some Republicans around here are playing games with them in a way that shows they simply cannot be trusted-- at the very least on the issue of these unions.

The guy who could clear all of this up quite easily, of course, is Lee Lowrey. Did he know he was working with OCEA (he contends he didn't)? If not, who introduced you to their front PAC, CCFG?

Because this fact remains: Lowrey funneled OCEA money through Atlas in June, and he partnered Atlas with them again in October for an I.E. The who, why and how, if I'm wrong, is his to clear up.

Or, maybe the once-conservative Atlas has changed its charter and just forgot to tell everyone...

I'm done writing about it (except for the conclusion, when it comes), but not done probing.

Also, I'm looking forward to our network admin figuring out today who put the intimidating/threatening messages through our comment system. Keep in mind, friend, you're not dealing with a one-man blog, here. The writers and, more importantly, the financiers behind RC will be most interested in those results. It probably means I'm closer to the mark than some think, and that this entire post was unnecessary.

Oh, well... we'll probably know soon, depending on Nguyen's reaction to her name being tied to all this.