Mitt’s Gang, Same as the Bush & Cheney Gang

This Politico story today by Maggie Haberman reveals that one of Mitt Romney’s bundlers is D.C. lobbyist Richard Hohlt, who was a “go-between” for reporter Robert Novak and the Bush White House in the scandal involving the leaking of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity. According to information that came out at the Scooter Libby trial in 2007, which was reported in the book I published with Murray Waas, The United States v. I. Lewis Libby, Novak sent a draft of his fateful column attacking Iraqi invasion critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson* and outing Wilson’s wife Plame as a CIA official, to Hohlt, who then sent on to the Bush White House. This is interesting on at least two counts.

1) Owing to the opacity and secrecy of the Romney campaign very little has been reported about Mitt’s bundlers,  which unlike the Obama campaign, will not disclose any of these key fundraisers, who not only contribute themselves, but influence other donors to give, as well.

2) It shows that Mitt’s fundraising team, just like this foreign policy team, is dominated by unethical old warriors from the Bush years. This is hardly surprising, especially given Mitt’s partiality to Dick Cheney, for whom Scooter Libby was Chief of Staff before his conviction on obstruction of justice in the Plame matter.

* I also edited and published Ambassador Wilson’s book The Politics of Truth–A Diplomat’s Memoir: Inside the Lies that led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity (2004)