For the second election cycle in a row, Brooklyn's only home-grown Republican office holder, State Senator Martin Golden, tried and failed to engage in a hostile takeover of the Brooklyn GOP's political apparatus
Going into the 2015 Republican organizational primary season Golden was probably at his high-water mark of political power and influence; nonetheless, given the results earlier this week at the GOP 2015 County Convention, Golden's 2015 performance was a "Classic Fail" --- and since it was almost identical to what he did in 2013 --- That makes it >>> a "Double-Dip Classic Fail"
As bad as this looks for Golden inside the GOP --- this is probably much worse than what might be immediately obvious --- and good staff work by a good staff would never have let it happen
Doesn't anybody on the Golden team know or care about the fact that State Senator Golden is under investigation for a variety of acts of political corruption --- Why would anybody allow their boss, friend, political ally, man who runs the gravy train, whatever puts them on the Golden team or causes Marty Golden to float their boat, create a new mountain of EVIDENCE of political corruption for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and his investigators to dig into ?
I'm not on the Golden team, and I certainly am not a Marty Golden insider. If I were, I'd have chapter and verse on a lot more than what I have written below. In other words, there are many folks on the Marty Golden Team that would make far better potential witnesses for the prosecution than I would be..... And that's not a good thing for Mr. Golden, especially with somebody like Preet Bharara and his investigators snooping around god-knows-where for who-knows-what.
PETITIONING AND OTHER PRE-PRIMARY MATTERS
I'm going to begin with a time frame that is post-2015 GOP Primary. The reason for that is whatever procedural and substantive shortcomings occurred in Golden's recruitment of candidates for the 2015-2017 Republican County Committee, and the vetting of, petitioning for and submission of petitions to the Board of Elections are matters completely known only by those Golden operatives that ran the petitioning effort. The extent that those recruitment efforts focused on BOE emplyees would be particularly problematic [especially in connection with several matters discussed below]. Other irregularities would largely have merged into the 2015 administrative and in some instances adversary proceedings conducted at the BOE and the records of those matters maintained by the BOE.The Golden petitioning and election law team, and the BOE control all the pre-primary materials that still might exist; and whatever skulduggery might have occurred at the BOE, such as the mass elimination of several candidates not on the Golden team slate, would involve a complex conspiracy that I am neither able to describe nor about which I could show anything close to proof. Furthermore, the pre-primary goings-on were not nearly as widely reported upon in 2015 as they had been in prior years.
AFTER THE PRIMARY BUT BEFORE THE CONVENTION --- THE BROOKLYN BOE, COERCION AND R.I.C.O.
Interestingly, some of the post-primary-pre-convention activities that I will discuss did occur at the BOE for Brooklyn. In the run-up to the 2015 Kings County Republican Convention, some of the BOE employees at the Brooklyn office were harassed and even threatened in their jobs if they weren't with the winning team at the upcoming GOP convention. It was made perfectly clear that the "winning team" was the one backing Golden's choice at the convention or giving their proxies to Golden at the convention.My sources indicated that this was done by many of the BOE employees and supervisors at the Board that were also County Committee members. Particularly mentioned as being part of the mix were Diane Rudiano, a long-time chief clerk at the Brooklyn office, thus viewed by many as the boss, and Koshel Choudry, another supervisor at the Brooklyn BOE.
Harassment of an employee by threats of job loss to influence a vote or other political activity is a crime in New York State. If any evidence of that could be tied directly or indirectly to Mr. Golden, it would be more than scandalous; it would be proof of involvement by the State Senator in criminal activities and conspiracies. And, given the ongoing nature of the enterprise, R.I.C.O violations [remember, in the 2013 was the strange destruction of petitions of an anti- Golden group, supervised by BOE emplyees with connections to Golden, and also involving Golden's hand-picked BOE Commissioner Simon Shamoun in an after the fact cover-up].
DURING THE CONVENTION --- MARTY GOLDEN'S PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP --- ALONG WITH DIANE RUDIANO & MOST OF THE B.O.E. EMPLOYEES PRESENT
Marty Golden's biggest blunder so far in 2015 was personally handing in over 400 proxies to the Credentials Committee for the 2015 Kings County County Committee Convention. Several of those proxies were apparently fraudulently dated and/or contained other visible irregularities. Golden's tender of the arguably fraudulent proxies is now a matter of record that clearly involves him in a possible election fraud, that evidence is in now the hands of the KCRP. And it seems obvious, that the other details and additional evidence of that potential fraud are completely under the control of Golden and the people on Golden's convention team [remember some of them, Golden's staff and lawyers, were in the clown car outside Remsen Hall during the convention].Needless to say State Senator Martin Golden's activities didn't end with his tender of over 400 problematic proxies. The New York State Senator led a faction of delegates that repeatedly attempted to disrupt the orderly process of the convention, often involving State Senator Golden's attempting to deliver out-of-order inflammatory speeches. More significant, Golden's efforts to do his song and dance was completely supported by most of the BOE-employed delegates at the convention, and they were orchestrated and led by Diane Rudiano. Oddly, one of Rudiano's own chants was this: "We are entitled to legal representation...." The Convention Chairman pointed out that Ms. Rudiano and her cohort were not in any kind of criminal proceeding, and also the rules didn't provide for any non-member legal assistance "on the floor." [ To which, let me add, "No legal representation is called for yet, Diane, but maybe in due course....."]
A complete record of these goings-on is completely under control of the Golden team, in the form of a complete recording of the proceedings by Glenn Nocera, who was a County Committee Member affiliated with Golden and a nominee on the Golden-supported slate of officers.
AFTER THE CONVENTION --- AN ATTEMPT BY GOLDEN TO RECONVENE WITH ONLY HIS FACTION
After the end of the normal business day, when all the scheduled business of 2015 Brooklyn GOP Convention had been completed and proceeding brought to a close, and after many of the members of the Kings County Republican County Committee had vacated the premises, the Golden faction, led by Golden himself, attempted to reconvene the 2015 GOP County Convention in a fraudulent attempt to engage in some ulta vires activity in the name of the Brooklyn GOP. There are reports that Mr. Golden even attempted to immediately re-rent Remsen Hall to "continue" the convention.STAFF, ADVISERS & INNER CIRCLE --- A LACK OF POLITICAL, PRACTICAL & LEGAL SENSE
If Marty Golden's staff, advisers and inner circle had any political, practical or legal sense, they would never have let the overought State Senator do any of what was discussed above {and also a lot of stuff that wasn't mentioned in this post].If Preet Bhara wanted to, all of this could be used in a variety of ways to advance any potential prosecution of Golden and/or others near to Golden.
Enough said for now..... More if and when we get it, and it's worth putting out there.
