‘Money talks in this business and bulls**t walks…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Who is campaign “Consultant No. 1”?
That’s a question many have been asking since the U.S. Department of Justice announced election fraud charges against a top Philadelphia election supervisor last week.
As judge of elections, Domenick DeMuro was supposed to monitor the integrity of the election process in the city’s 39th Ward. But according to court records, he accepted bribes from an unnamed campaign consultant in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
DeMuro pleaded guilty to committing fraud on behalf of favored Democratic candidates and the mysterious political consultant who paid him.
“DeMuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear,” said William M. McSwain, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Federal authorities have declined to comment on the identity of the person who bribed DeMuro, but two sources have now come forward to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the newspaper’s own independent analysis has all but confirmed, that “Consultant No.1” is likely ex-Democratic congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers.
Myers represented Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District between 1976 and 1980 and has since built a powerful consulting network that has made him a “must-hire operative” for aspiring office-seekers in the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia, according to the Inquirer.
Myers has a long history of corruption. His congressional career ended with a three-year prison sentence for bribery, and the House of Representatives formally voted to expel him in disgrace.
The “Abscam” sting operation that implicated Myers and several other Democrat congressmen received the Hollywood treatment in 2013’s American Hustle.
More recently, federal prosecutors sought information about his labor union ties that involved search warrants and charges filed against a prominent labor-union ally in 2016.
But Myers is perhaps best known for saying, “Money talks in this business and bulls**t walks,” on an undercover FBI recording moments before accepting a $50,000 bribe from federal agents disguised as Arab sheikhs.
If Myers is indeed “Consultant#1” then, as per the DeMuro indictment, he allegedly solicited payments from Democratic candidates and classified them as “consulting fees” for financial-disclosure purposes.
The payments ranged from $300 to $5,000 and were allegedly used to pay Election Board officials, like DeMuro, in exchange for ballot stuffing and potentially other illegal voting activities meant to benefit his clients.
“If even one vote is fraudulently rung up, the integrity of that election is compromised,” said McSwain in a statement.
“I want the public to know that this investigation is active and ongoing, and my office is taking every possible step that we can to ensure the integrity of the upcoming primary and general elections in the nine counties of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,” he continued.
Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs are widely recognized as the linchpin to whether the swing state of Pennsylvania turns for the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden or President Donald Trump in November.
Campaign finance records show that Myers is the only political operative to accept so-called consulting fees in the 39th Ward, where he lives.
He’s also the only consultant who has relatives that have run for elected office in the 39th Ward. His brother Matthew Myers is currently the Democratic leader of Ward 39B, and his nephew Jonathan “J.R.” Rowan holds the same position in Ward 39A.