Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori
HAGGERTY TRIAL
- Haggerty Contract Is Said Backdated (By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL, Wall Street Journal) Under cross-examination, Mr. Connolly said the mayor lost all control of the $1.2 million once he sent it to the party. Asked if the mayor could earmark the money specifically for ballot security, Mr. Connolly said he "can make a request" but whether that is "honored or not" is up to the party.
- NY party official testifies at operative's trial (Associated Press, Wall Street Journal) Haggerty approached Connolly in August 2009 to say that "a donation would be coming from the mayor, and it would be their wish that they would use that toward a ballot security operation" that would run up to $1.1 million, Connolly told jurors. He said he checked with some people he didn't name to ensure the arrangement was legal, and then went ahead with it, relying on what Haggerty had told him about the planned operation.
- Testy Mayor Stays Cool on the Stand, Avoiding Potential Fallout (By Jill Colvin, DNAinfo) “How many principals of campaigns really understand campaign finance law?” he said. "No one expects the mayor to know what the money is used for in the end."
HAGGERTY TRIAL
- NYC mayor testifies in trial of political operative (By Hussein Saddique, CNN) "I understood that if anyone was denied access to the ballots, that a trained lawyer was to be there to help that individual," Bloomberg told the court when asked to describe the "ballot security" operation.
- Bloomberg Testifies in Political Operative’s Trial (By Michael Howard Saul, Wall Street Journal/ Metropolis) “I did not view it as a campaign expenditure,” the mayor testified, explaining why the campaign did not include this financial transaction on its public disclosure reports. The mayor said the money for the ballot security operation was intended to benefit all candidates running on the Independence Party line.
- Bloomberg Testifies in Consultant’s Trial (By THE NEW YORK TIMES/ City Room) Throughout the cross-examination, Mr. Castello repeatedly tried to suggest that what Mr. Bloomberg described as an agreement to provide ballot security was something much more nebulous: a political donation that he could not exert further control over.
- NYC mayor endures hours of cross-examination; ex-operative accused of bilking him out of $1M (By Associated Press, Washington Post) “Until you had all the documentation, nobody in their right mind would send a check,” said the businessman-turned-politician, who told jurors the lost money mattered to him: “We could have done a lot of good in society” with it, he said. “It’s a lot of money.”
