No doubt by now you’ve seen the flap over the whole Mark Pryor-Girls Gone Wild internship mess. If not, here’s your brief recap-
Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis managed to win a “charity auction” for a D.C. internship with Pryor’s office from the website BiddingForGood and declared he’d be sending “the hottest girl in America” to intern for Pryor. Pryor, his staff, and the DPA all immediately jumped on the accusations, calling the whole thing a hoax, etc. From there, Pryor called in the FBI, Francis said A, B, and C, none of which is really worth repeating, and then, finally, the truth of the matter came out:
Pryor’s office said earlier this week that they called in federal authorities because they believed the auction to be a “hoax” and that someone had impersonated the Arkansas democrat.
The 39-year-old Francis insisted it wasn’t a stunt.
“It was confirmed with his office as far as I knew, it was never a hoax,” Francis told TPM in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.
As it turns out, the soft-porn mogul was right — the son of a lobbyist has admitted to creating the mix-up over the internship.
In a letter apologizing for the “embarrassment” he caused Pryor, Los Angeles businessman Chad Brownstein — son of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck partner Norman Brownstein — said he told someone organizing an auction benefiting the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that “pending approval of [Pryor’s] office, I thought it might be possible to auction off an unpaid month-long summer internship for a high school student with your office.”
The letter was circulated by Tamara Taylor of Sitrick and Company, who told TPM the public relations firm was retained by Brownstein directly and that his father’s law firm had no involvement.
When all this broke, I kind of sat back and watched it play out, which considering my feelings on Pryor, which are no secret, took a fair deal of restraint. The whole idea of Pryor, the guy that runs for Pope for every election (not that we haven’t seen plenty of folks who do that caught in worse) getting wrapped up in this didn’t make any sense. The details of how all this happened though do however. It’s no secret that Pryor and his staff are super cozy with lobbyists and folks that contribute big donations to his campaigns. That’s pretty much common knowledge in Arkansas political circles. The attitude in the Pryor camp is generally something like “if someone brings you a check, take it no matter what”. With that kind of attitude, it’s no surprise that someone in that little clique of wealthy contributors, a businessman from California and the son of a lobbyist no less, decided to take a few liberties.
Some things still aren’t adding up though-like how this got “accidently” put out early or what made Brownstein so sure this was a possibility. That stuff isn’t really passing the smell test and raises more questions than answers.
The worst part of it for Pryor? I don’t think any of this is going away anytime soon. And there might still be more that comes out. Like I said, some of this smells pretty fishy. And if there is anymore to this, Pryor needs to just save us all a lot of trouble and change his mind about running for reelection. Who knows, maybe Brownstein can get him a nice little job out in California since they seem to be so close…
The moral of the story: Don’t be so close to the people writing the checks to your campaign. You might just find yourself regretting it.
This is all so contrived. Of all the people in the world who but scum Joe Francis “wins” the auction. And Senator Pryor claimed he knew nothing about the auction. He claimed it was a hoax. I find it hard to believe this man, Pryor, who used his clout to stop the IRS from collecting on a $2.8Million tax bill that a company owned by Pryor’s mother-in-law owed in unpaid payroll taxes. Pryor is caught in a lie again. He lied in 2006 when he hid assets and denied ownership of interest in the same company that owed the taxes. How can we believe he didn’t know about this auction when he had ties with the Temple that held the auction? As for Joe Francis’ involvement in this scandal, it’s a case of “Scum Seeking Scum.” Mark Pryor has to go. He still has not cleared up the discrepancies from un-reported income and undisclosed assets in the wake of his role in helping his mother-in-law skip out on paying taxes. There is a petition to demand that Pryor release his tax return at http://www.retirepryor.com.
Brownstein is a big contributor. A quarter of a million a year, and it’s not for friendship. It’s to pay for influence on voting decisions. This thing is dirty, dirty, dirty. Where did all the assets from the IRS investigation go? Why does Pryor’s wife periodically travel to the Caymen Islands? Can you say “Off Shore Account”?
We know Pryor and Brownstein visited the Wilshire Temple TOGETHER before all these issues of the pornographer came into play and now we know that the Brownstein firm had an ax to grind against the pornographer. Now Brownstein is releasing carefully chosen statements that his internship offer was “pending approval” which is apparently as big a lie as Pryor calling his crony a “donor”. Brownstein is falling on his sword. The senator thinks he is above the law.
Chad Brownstein’s father, Norm Brownstein’s law firm won a judgement against pornographer Joe Francis over a gambling debt. Chad Brownstein arranged the auction that Joe Francis won. It’s it too coincidental and disgraceful that Joe Francis was set up to send one of his “wild girls” to a US SENATOR’S office. Senator Mark Pryor had to have known about the auction. He had ties with the Temple and Brownstein has contributed to Pryor’s election campaign. This is a second scandal involving Pryor. He must be investigated for refusing to disclose assets, hiding income and pressuring the IRS to allow his family’s $2.8Million dollar tax bill go uncollected. That SOB has damaged the office of Senator and he needs to go.
I’m shocked, shocked! Karl Rove orchestrated this whole mess! I knew there were too many so-called coincidences and it turns out that Rove launched the attacks on Sen. Mark Pryor! A friend of mine in DC heard from an insider with the Republican National Committee that Rove is close to Congressman Tim Griffin and Griffin is likely to be Pryor’s challenger in the 2014 Senate race. So these attacks on Pryor, classic Rove smear tactics, including the Retire Pryor website, are attempts to weaken Pryor’s chances at re-election.
Where is there any evidence that Karl Rove has anything to do with this scandal? Pryor is lying and it is evident to anyone with a brain that reads his press releases. Pryor’s long connection with Brownstein coupled with his pretending Brownstein is a nobody “donor” in the press releases proves it.
I am in the biz. I work in Washington. I saw Karl Rove with Carlton Saffa two and a half weeks ago walking out of the Capital Hill Hilton. You want some proof?
The Pine Bluff Commercial states a Little Rock man, Carlton Saffa is behind the Retire Pryor campaign:
http://www.pbcommercial.com/sections/news/news/state/lr-man-waging-early-bid-defeat-pryor.html
The Arkansas Times states that Karl Rove is spending big money to get republicans elected:
http://m.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/02/01/stephens-money-in-roves-pac
Former White House aide Tim Griffin became Pryor’s enemy when Karl Rove lobbied to get Griffin appointed U.S. Attorney in Arkansas without Pryor’s approval.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Griffin
The Arkansas Times said:
Noted: A paid hack for U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, who will run against Pryor in 2014 unless he runs for governor (though Herb Rule might retire him first), Twittered this news four times in rapid succession this morning, with lascivious photos and lots of cluck-clucking, with much repeating by other wingnuts. Dirty trick at work? Or just kismet? The Rove machine that nurtured Griffin knows how to plant the dirt, that’s for sure.
Pryor is being framed by Karl Rove. Pryor is a hard working senator, a champion of small business and a staunch advocate of Arkansas.