Sunday’s Washington Post added a new name to the endless list of Republican campaign associates/criminals this election cycle.

Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.

Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen and the head of a group called the “first day founders.” Campaign aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of “Thompson’s Airforce.”

Here’s Phil Martin’s rap sheet:

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation. [...]

Archived Florida court records provide details of the various cases against Martin, including alleged sports-betting activity, a cocaine deal he arranged with an undercover sheriff’s deputy and carried out through a middleman, and the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana to an undercover detective for $3,400. Martin produced the marijuana from the trunk of his 1973 Cadillac as he and the detective were parked behind a Tampa area department store, according to the arrest report.

According to court records, close friends and an ex-wife, Martin arrived in Tennessee from Tampa about 1985 while serving probation for his various offenses. He set up a series of businesses, starting with the Puzzle’s Pizza parlor. He opened a hardware store, and friends say he began trying to recruit business partners for more ambitious real estate ventures.

Tell me if you heard this one from another leading Republican candidate:

Thompson’s campaign said the candidate was not aware of the multiple criminal cases, for which Martin served no jail time. All are described in public court records.

Karen Hanretty, Thompson’s deputy communications director, said yesterday that “Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since the mid-1990s and remains so today.” Thompson communications director Todd Harris added that Martin was not subjected to the campaign’s standard vetting process because “he’s a longtime friend.”

“There’s not a campaign in the world that has the ability to research every one of its supporters going back more than 20 years,” Harris said.

The Post digs into the Thompson campaign’s dealings with Martin:

Martin has been more than just a key fundraiser to Thompson, though. The use of his plane eases a major logistical burden stemming from the intense demands on presidential candidates this year for appearances in more than 20 states holding early primaries. It also may have saved the campaign at least $120,000, given that Federal Election Commission rules allowed Thompson to reimburse Martin for the use of the private jet at the commercial ticket rate until Congress changed the rules in September.

Thompson has reported reimbursing Martin $102,330, without specifying precisely where he flew on the plane, or when. But a comparison of flight records for the plane, kept by the tracking firm FlightAware, and news accounts of Thompson’s campaign appearances this year shows that since June the plane has made more than two dozen stops that coincided with Thompson campaign events.

(Hat tip: Jeralyn Merritt, TalkLeft)

Posted by Matt Ortega
Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 2:30 am

1 Response to “FDT Co-Chair’s Criminal Past Unearthed”

Something to say?

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website