(Update) Tom ‘banned for life by the SEC’ Horne, poster boy for political corruption

. . . And the other shoe drops. Tommy Boy is having a well-deserved really bad week. By my count, there are at least five entities investigating him or pursuing legal action against him. Polk to pursue campaign finance violation case against Horne:

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk decided Wednesday to pursue Attorney General Tom Horne on charges he illegally coordinated his 2010 election campaign with an independent committee.

In a 9-page order, Polk rejecting the conclusion by Tammy Eigenheer, the administrative law judge, that Oct. 20 phone calls between Horne and Kathleen Winn were solely to discuss a real estate deal she was helping the attorney general complete. Winn was operating Business Leaders for Arizona which was registered as an independent campaign committee to help Horne get elected but could not legally coordinate its expenses with the candidate.

Polk said the timing of those calls, coupled with nearly simultaneous emails by Winn to campaign consultant Brian Murray, provides enough evidence that the pair discussed the upcoming election and TV ads that Winn’s organization was producing.

Polk said the evidence also shows that Horne, in forwarding some strategic information about weaknesses in his campaign to Winn, directed her to not just raise $100,000 but also how to spend the money to combat those shortcomings.

What all that means is Polk is reaffirmed her October decision that both Horne and Winn broke the law and that the illegal coordination made Horne the beneficiary of more than $400,000 in illegal campaign donations. Her order requires him to refund the money, with a possible penalty of three times that amount.

Horne said he will seek Superior Court review of the conclusion reached by someone he dismissed as a “county politician.”

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At issue is $513,340 spent by Business Leaders for Arizona on a last-minute television commercial attacking Felecia Rotellini, Horne’s 2010 Democrat foe.

There are no caps on how much independent committees can take from any one source. By contrast, Horne was limited to taking no more than $840 from any one source.

If there was coordination between Winn’s group and Horne, that made contributions to her group essentially contributions to Horne himself, subject to that $840 limit. It also would mean that corporate contributions to Winn’s group, which are legal, would become illegal corporate donations to a candidate.

Polk’s order requires Horne to refund all donations above the limits, totaling about $400,000, plus the possible penalty.

The legal options for Horne and Winn are not limited to challenging Polk’s findings in court.

Attorneys for the pair also claim that the $840 limit on what Horne could take is unconstitutionally low. [“Kochtopus” Death Star Goldwater Institute argument.] And if a court accepts that argument, it becomes legally irrelevant if he took amounts above that.

Stephen Lemons at the Phoenix New Times adds, Tom Horne’s Nightmare: Sheila Polk Rejects Findings of ALJ in Campaign Finance Case:

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk has rejected the findings of an administrative law judge in the campaign finance case against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, and reinstated her original order, demanding that Horne and AG outreach director Kathleen Winn reimburse donors $400,000.

In a decision filed Wednesday afternoon, Polk concluded “it is more probable than not that” Horne and Winn’s phone calls and e-mails during the 2010 general election campaign constituted coordination, thereby rendering illegal most of the money raised on behalf of Winn’s independent expenditure committee Business Leaders for Arizona.

* * *

[B]y this point, the AG must be punch-drunk.

Polk’s roundhouse right to Horne’s noggin comes after the drubbing he’s been enduring this week from yet another scandal: This one involving ex-AG staffer Sarah Beattie and allegations that Horne’s violating Arizona and perhaps federal law by running his campaign from his state office, with AG employees’ doing political stuff on state time.

Beattie’s allegations were submitted on Monday to the Arizona Secretary of State and the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission in the form of a sworn affidavit and more than 146 pages of e-mails, documents, photos, and metadata.

All of it backing up Beattie’s claim that “the AG’s executive office is the campaign headquarters [for Horne].”

That file is now also in the hands of the FBI. The Arizona Capitol Times recently broke the news that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has a copy as well. [Ex-Horne staffer files complaint with county attorney.]

Beattie’s attorney Tom Ryan praised Polk’s decision. He said he thinks Beattie’s coming forward nudged Polk toward a second bite at the apple.

“I have a firm belief that Sarah Beattie’s affidavit helped push Sheila Polk in this direction,” Ryan told me. “It certainly confirms what all rational people in the state of Arizona believe, and that is, Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn coordinated the campaign.”

* * *

Ryan’s filing of Beattie’s complaint certainly gave the Republican county attorney political cover, if she needed it, to go after Horne again.

In the filing, Polk remains adamant in her disbelief of the story that Horne and Winn have told all along: That a mountain of phone calls between the two in the waning days of the 2010 campaign were about a pending real estate transaction for Horne, not the creation of an attack ad targeting Horne’s 2010 Democratic rival, Felecia Rotellini.

* * *

[F]irst Beattie’s accusations, then Polk’s revivification of Horne’s campaign finance mess, leaves the AG engulfed in a putrid miasma of iniquity, one likely to repel donors not yet weary of Horne’s lack of political hygiene.

Will Republicans really wanna back this guy against the Democratic powerhouse of Rotellini, whom Horne bested by a mere 60,000 votes statewide in 2010, and who has crossover appeal with Rs?

* * *

Felecia Rotellini issued a statement via her website, calling the matter “a legal issue,” and saying Horne “has been held accountable and he needs to comply with this order.”

Um, he ain’t been held accountable, not quite yet.

And the only thing Horne’ll be throwing is caution to the wind.

See, from his being banned from trading for life by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission till now, Horne’s existence has been dedicated to one thing: cheating the executioner.

Like a base scoundrel in some picaresque 18th-century novel, Horne is forever in danger of falling naked into the moat of alligators, being flogged for swiping bread from a street urchin, or having his head lopped off for stealing the king’s horses.

And yet, in the end, he’s always survived, barely.

By all rights, he should go down and stay down. But I suspect, like many a rogue before him, he’ll keep trying to shine on the guy in the black hood.

Right up till the moment the ax drops on his neck.

There are very few politicians who have survived this level of scandal during a campaign, and those that did eventually were held accountable by a court of law, if not the voters. If Tom Horne had an ounce of human decency and was capable of feeling shame, he would resign and accept his punishment. But Tommy Boy is a shameless egomaniac.