Another Day, Another Ed Martin Lie

Ed Martin issued a press release yesterday titled, "Carnahan Donor to Plead Guilty." Here's how the release opened:

One of Congressman Carnahan’s donors and a top Democratic lobbyist is expected to enter a guilty plea in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia tomorrow. Paul Maglioccheti was indicted in August for making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations. Records report he donated $36,500 to Congressman Carnahan.

This claim is a blatant lie. Carnahan did not take any money from Maglioccheti (info via the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org)). In fact, Carnahan did not receive any money from Maglioccheti's PMA Group PAC or it's employees (though, worth noting, Roy Blunt received $2,000).

So how would Martin say something so idiotic? He links to a spreadsheet that provides a list of donations from "PMA and it's Clients." In other words, the clients of PMA, but not PMA itself, and definitely not Paul Magloccheti, donated to Russ Carnahan. A brief perusal of this link shows that the vast majority of the client donations are coming from Boeing. Martin's claim that Maglioccheti "donated 36,500 to Congressman Carnahan," is blatantly, unambiguously false. Is it true neither in letter nor in spirit, since donations from Boeing have nothing whatsoever to do with Magloccheti's illegal activity.

It's hard to understand how Ed Martin can consistently send out such garbage. Does he have incompetent researchers? Does he knowingly send out false information and hope that some news outlet regurgitates it without fact checking? Did he outsource his opposition research to Jim Durbin? Is it some combination of the above?

Whatever the explanation, it's getting pretty old.