MS governor Barbour latest GOP politico under investigation

One of the most recent developments in the New Hampshire phone jamming case was that the effort was paid for by Republican officials and mounted by a company itself funded by Republican officials, complete with ties to Tom DeLay and then White House staffer Ken Mehlman, current head of the RNC.

It doesn't stop there, though. Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour (former chief of the RNC and Bush campaign strategist) was involved as well, and might have turned a profit from the company's illegal activities.

The Associated Press is reporting that Barbour, a former Republican Party chairman, arranged the start-up financing for GOP Marketplace. Virginia corporation records show Barbour's investment company arranged a $250,000 loan to GOP Marketplace in 2000.

A spokesman for the governor says Barbour had no idea the company would engage in criminal activity two years later.

The lawyer for the now-defunct company's convicted president said Barbour wasn't consulted about its operations.

Barbour, who became governor of Mississippi in 2003, gushed over the prospects of GOP Marketplace in a company press release in 2000. The loan made Barbour and his Washington business partners part owners of the company, according to incorporation papers.

Coingate, phone jamming, Abramoff's shenanigans, voter fraud, and even the recent expansion of the Cunningham bribes into a DC prostitution ring-- the sheer depth and complexity of these scandals really demonstrates just how much organization is behind these criminal acts, from coast to coast.