Photo: Twitter

Updated: A Joseph Basel — possibly of Minnesota and involved in an alleged phone-tampering against Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — follows veteran rightwing prankster James O’Keefe on Twitter.

“JEBasel” has only two tweets of his own, the latest from Dec. 18: “Minnesota needs global warming NOW! Workers of Minnesota Unite!”

But among the 35 Twitter feeds he follows are O’Keefe and two accounts associated with conservative anti-ACORN cheerleader Andrew Breitbart.

Update: JEBasel also follows Francisco Gonzalez, whose latest tweet reads: “Please pray for my friends @JamesOKeefeIII and Stan Dai. They and Joe Basel were arrested by the Feds: http://bit.ly/aHcw90.” (Another person JEBasel follows: timpawlenty.)

JEBasel’s Twitter avatar photo also resembles the avatar for a Facebook account belonging to a Joseph Basel who studied at the University of Minnesota-Morris.

Unsealed court documents have unleashed a wave of press about an American ring allied with a terror group in Somalia. Minneapolis “is the center of it,” the local FBI head tells the AP.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

MINNEAPOLIS: Thissen chats! State Sen. Paul Thissen, a DFL gubernatorial candidate, holds a video chat at noon today. [Polinaut]

HOPKINS: Good turnout at DFL guv-race forum. Not the 11 candidates, but the capacity crowd of 700 who showed up to hear them, a year ahead of the election. [Pioneer Press]

DULUTH: Danger on the streets. Anti-abortion protesters alleged a threat by a woman with a knife Tuesday, and a car crashed into the Minnesota Teen Challenge building. [News Tribune; Northland's News Center]

KANDIYOHI COUNTY: Publicly funded taxi service to end. The final night of service is New Year’s Eve, with the last cab — inconveniently enough for rural revelers – at 9:30 p.m. [West Central Tribune]

AUSTIN: Stormy days in public safety. A police captain faces sentencing for swiping evidence, and the fire chief faces investigation for a hostile work environment. [Austin Daily Herald]

OWATONNA: Tensions persist at parent meeting. High school officials tried to quash rumors and quell fears about conflicts between white and Somali students. [Owatonna People's Press]

(iStockPhoto)

A report released this week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that Minnesota ranked in the top fifteen states for mortgage fraud claims in 2008 and in the top ten on a couple of measure. Specifically, data from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network found Minneapolis FBI field offices ranked 9th in the number of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) related to mortgage fraud. And data from Fannie Mae’s reviews of mortgage loan “misrepresentations” put Minnesota at 7th in total fraud cases out of the 50 states.

A combination of aggregate data from eight different mortgage fraud tracking organizations put Minnesota at 13th overall for mortgage fraud. The top 15 states were California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, Texas, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Minnesota, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.

The FBI report said that fraud cases increased in 2008 as mortgage lenders tried to maintain their “high standard of living” following the disastrous collapse of housing bubble.

Mortgage fraud trends in 2008 reflected the overall downturn in the US economy … the mortgage loan industry reported a spike in foreclosures and defaults; and financial markets continued to contract, diminishing credit to financial institutions, businesses, and homeowners. These combined factors uncovered and fueled a rampant mortgage fraud climate fraught with opportunistic participants desperate to maintain or increase their current standard of living. Industry employees sought to maintain the high standard of living they enjoyed during the boom years of the real estate market and overextended mortgage holders were often desperate to reduce or eliminate their bloated mortgage payments.

Norm and Laurie Coleman (Paul Demko, Minnesota Independent)

Norm Coleman may not dip into his campaign coffers to cover all his expenses stemming from lawsuits and other complaints that allege misconduct by him or his donors. That’s the upshot of draft advisory opinions issued late Thursday (pdf) by the Federal Election Commission.

The FEC drafted two opinions to guide its consideration of Coleman’s inquiry about which legal bills federal law would let him pay with campaign funds.

Related lawsuits in Texas and Delaware contend that Coleman benefactor Nasser Kazeminy steered him $75,000 through a business relationship between a Texas firm Kazeminy controls and the St. Paul insurance firm where Coleman’s wife works. The FBI is looking into whether Kazeminy improperly paid for Coleman’s suits, an allegation that also prompted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to ask for a Senate ethics investigation.

Here is the question Coleman asked the FEC:

May the Committee use campaign funds to pay legal counsel for the services described above in connection with the Texas and Delaware lawsuits, the FBI investigation, and the Senate Ethics Committee complaints?

The FEC will base its decision on two draft advisory opinions that reach somewhat different conclusions.

Opinion A says the law won’t let Coleman tap campaign accounts to pay for legal representation in the Texas or Delaware lawsuits or the FBI investigation, but the campaign can pay half the costs of monitoring the out-of-state lawsuits.

Opinion B says the law disallows only spending campaign funds for the FBI investigation into matters unrelated to his candidacy or elective office.

At their June 25 meeting, the commissioners will try to reach a decision about which draft opinion, or some combination of the two, represents their understanding of how election law applies to Coleman’s situation.

Draft Advisory Opinion A:

For the reasons discussed below, the Commission concludes that the Committee may use campaign funds to pay for the following legal services: reviewing the complaints to the Senate Ethics Committee; reviewing ABM’s letter to the FBI; representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of alleged violations of Federal law or rules governing the office of a Senator or the conduct of campaigns; and responding to media inquiries.

For the reasons discussed below, the Commission concludes that the Committee may not use campaign funds to pay for the following legal services: representing Senator Coleman in the Texas or Delaware lawsuits; and representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of allegations unrelated to Senator Coleman’s campaign or duties as a Federal officeholder. For the reasons discussed below, the Commission concludes that the Committee may use campaign funds to pay for 50% of legal fees for monitoring the two lawsuits.

Draft Advisory Opinion B:

For the reasons discussed below, the Commission concludes that the Committee may use campaign funds to pay for the following legal services: reviewing the complaints to the Senate Ethics Committee; reviewing ABM’s letter to the FBI; representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of alleged violations of Federal law or rules governing the office of a Senator or the conduct of campaigns; monitoring and representing Senator Coleman in the Texas and Delaware lawsuits; and responding to media inquiries.

The Committee may not, however, use campaign funds to pay for legal services representing Senator Coleman in an FBI investigation of allegations unrelated to Senator Coleman’s campaign or duties as a Federal officeholder.

The FEC is taking public comment on the matter until noon on June 24.

More analysis to come.

The document lists physical descriptions, phone numbers and other identifying information about activists in Iowa City.

Despite the infiltration, only one Iowa protester was arrested, activists say, and those charges were later dropped.

At least three other people connected to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office were involved in infiltrating groups in Minnesota. “Norma Jean Johnson” also known as Ramsey County Deputy Sheriff Marilyn Hedstrom, infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee.

Rachel Nieting, a Ramsey County jail guard posed as Norma Jean’s niece, and Chris Dugger, was a confidential paid informant who now aspires to be a deputy.

The interview happened “recently,” Sam Stein reports. The story is the first news of FBI investigations into Coleman’s affairs taking place in Minnesota.

It’s also the first resurfacing in months of allegations that Coleman’s friend and benefactor Nasser Kazeminy bought suits for the former Senator when he was still in office.

Coleman has denied the story, which if true would likely mean a violation of reporting rules or gift limits.

The Federal Election Commission will decide within two months whether Coleman’s campaign can pay lawyers who dealt with complaints about the allegations.

The Huffington Post’s anonymous source provided business cards left by the FBI as proof of the alleged interview and also offered other details — including that agents also asked about a different set of allegations in Texas.

In December news reports said the FBI was looking into separate charges raised in civil lawsuits filed in Texas and Delaware that Kazeminy had funneled $75,000 to Coleman via transfers from a business he controls in Texas to the St. Paul insurance firm where Coleman’s wife, Laurie, works.

The Colemans aren’t named as defendants in the lawsuits, which are mostly concerned with broader business issues having nothing to do with them.

In March the U.S. Secret Service said it was investigating a leak of private financial information, including credit card numbers, from a database of donors stored at Coleman’s campaign Web site.

Update: The Pioneer Press has now reported on the same story, independent of HuffPo, with several new details. The “main topic” of agents’ interest were suits, according to the anonymous source, who couldn’t offer them information based on direct knowledge of the matter. The interview took place within the last two weeks, the PiPress said.

Norm Coleman insisted Thursday that he and his wife, Laurie, have done nothing wrong.

The former U.S. senator was talking about a Texas lawsuit’s claim that a campaign donor funneled the Colemans $75,000 disguised as a business transaction. Also, a Coleman spokesman insisted that after three and a half months the campaign is still assembling a request for federal approval to spend campaign cash on fighting the allegations.

“There have never been any allegations that either my wife or I have done anything wrong,” Coleman told MinnPost correspondent Cynthia Dizikes Thursday as he left a meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “There are allegations between businessmen about a business dispute. But there has never been a single allegation that me or my wife have done anything wrong, and we haven’t.”

That doesn’t mean they’re not spending money to prove their innocence. Both Colemans and both owners of businesses named in the allegations have hired top-shelf attorneys. One of the lawyers is Joe Friedberg, who represented Coleman in his election contest trial and is also representing Coleman donor Nasser Kazeminy, a defendant in the Texas suit.

It’s the first time in months that Coleman has himself publicly addressed the money-funneling allegations.

Meanwhile, a Coleman staffer insisted for the second time in two weeks that the former senator is still seeking federal approval to pay for legal expenses arising from the Texas lawsuit (and a related suit in Delaware) out of campaign coffers.

“We’re in the process of working with the FEC on that matter,” Tom Erickson told The Hill’s Briefing Room blog. It’s the same thing he told MinnPost March 19.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) provides advisory opinions on questions of federal election law within 60 days to candidates who request them. Often the commission can rule sooner, if the requestor asks for an expedited response, Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly told MnIndy.

That was the case with Franken’s request for an opinion as to whether he and a party organization could establish new funds to pay for the election-contest phase of the dispute.

Coleman’s campaign announced on Dec. 17 it would seek such permission, but the Minnesota Independent’s monitoring of the FEC’s Web site since then has revealed no Coleman requests. An FEC spokesperson has told MnIndy that the agency doesn’t comment on advisory opinion requests until they are officially received.

The FEC has also not made any public response to a complaint filed later in December by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, which asked the commission to rule on what the Alliance called Coleman’s violation of federal election law. The alliance last year asked for investigations into the money-funneling claims by the Senate ethics committee and the FBI.

News last December that the FBI has launched a probe preceded Coleman’s announcement about the FEC request by a few days.

This week, the alliance’s executive director, Denise Cardinal, told MnIndy that she had received a flurry of calls from reporters in Washington, D.C., about the complaint, but she has no news from the FEC.

Interest in the Texas lawsuit, which was filed last October, was revived last week on news of sworn testimony by a second former executive from Deep Marine Techology Inc. B.J. Thomas claimed Kazeminy had demanded in 2007 that the company make a series of $25,000 payments to Hays Companies, a St. Paul insurance firm where Laurie Coleman works. Kazeminy, the executives claim, gave the order in the context of a comment that “United States senators don’t make shit.”

In his brief interview with MinnPost today, Coleman said “I can’t say anything”  about the FBI probe. ”We want this matter to be fully reviewed and fully investigated because nothing happened, and we are looking forward to that taking place.” It’s the same thing he said Nov. 12 in response to the Alliance’s call for investigation — with one difference. This time he didn’t accuse “my political opponents” of being behind the charges.

In a separate federal investigation, the U.S. Secret Service is looking into a leak of donor data, including credit card numbers, from Coleman’s campaign Web site. Coleman’s campaign said they welcome that probe as well.

After the jump, Darby’s statement and a short video clip in which Darby, co-founder of Common Ground Collective, advocates for Hurricane Katrina victims.

December 29, 2008

To All Concerned,

The struggles for peace and justice have accomplished significant change throughout history. I’ve had the honor to work with many varying groups and individuals on behalf of marginalized communities and in various struggles. There are currently allegations in the media that I have worked undercover for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This allegation no doubt confuses many activists who know me and probably leaves many wondering why I would seemingly choose to engage in such an endeavor. The simple truth is that I have chosen to work with the Federal Bureau of investigation.
As compelling as the natural human desire to reason and express oneself can be, regardless, I must hold my comments at this time on certain aspects of the situation. That said, there are a few statements and generalizations I will make relating to my recent choices.

Though I’ve made and will no doubt continue to make many mistakes in efforts to better our world, I am satisfied with the efforts in which I have participated. Like many of you, I do my best to act in good conscience and to do what I believe to be most helpful to the world. Though my views on how to give of myself have changed substantially over the years, ultimately the motivations behind my choices remain the same. I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter.

I strongly believe that people innocent of an act should stand up for themselves and that those who choose to engage in an act should accept responsibility and explain the reasoning for their choices.

It is very dangerous when a few individuals engage in or act on a belief system in which they feel they know the real truth and that all others are ignorant and therefore have no right to meet and express their political views.

Additionally, when people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it’s damaging to the efforts of those who do give of themselves to better this world. Many people become activists as a result of discovering that others have distorted history and made heroes and assigned intentions to people who really didn’t act to better the world. The practice of placing noble intentions after the fact on actions which did not have noble motivations has no place in a movement for social justice.

The majority of the activists who went to St. Paul did so with pure intentions and simply wanted to express their disagreements with the Republican Party. It’s unfortunate that some used the group as cover for intentions that the rest of the group did not agree with or knew nothing about and are now, consequently, having parts of their lives and their peace of mind uprooted over.

There is no doubt in my mind that many of you reading this letter will say and feel all possible bad things about my choices and for me. I made the choice to have my identity revealed and was well aware of the consequences for doing so. I know that the temptation to silence or ignore the voice of someone who you strongly disagree with can be overwhelming in matters such as this one; and no doubt many people will try to do just that to me. I have confidence that there will be a few people interested in discussion and in better understanding views different from their own, especially from one of their own. My sincere hope is that the entire matter results in better understanding for everyone.

Many of you went against my wishes and spoke publicly in defense of me. Those involved were correct when they wrote that I wasn’t making my choices for financial reasons or to avoid some sort of prosecution. They were incorrect that my ideology didn’t support such choices. One individual who publically defended me stated that they didn’t believe I was working undercover because the government would have used my access to take down a more prominent activist if the allegations were true. If indeed the government or I was interested in doing so, it could have happened in such a manner. However, the incorrect notion that the government was out to silence dissent was the cause for the mistake made by that person. In defense of the individuals who openly did their best to do what they thought was defending me, they did not know the truth and they had no way of knowing the truth due to their ideological and personal attachments to me. It’s unfortunate that the truth couldn’t have come out sooner and that the needed preparations for such a disclosure take time. I really did mean it when I said that I didn’t want to discuss it and that I didn’t want folks addressing the allegations.

Again, I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter. I’m looking forward to open dialogue and debate regarding the motivations and experiences I’ve had and the ethical questions they pose.

In Solidarity,

Brandon Michael Darby

Had state Sen. Kathy Sheran’s bill to reform absentee voting dodged Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto pen last year, it might have spared Minnesota some of the agony of the current statewide recount. Sheran denied foreknowledge that this year’s Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race would hang on absentee ballots. Now she tells the Minnesota Independent her reform effort also wasn’t inspired by a recount that involved a contested absentee ballot in her first race 24 years ago.

That story is told in government meeting minutes that are — amazingly — available online going back more than 50 years at the City of Mankato Web site. But proximity to the state’s most dramatic recounts seems to run in the family for Sheran, whose father, a longtime chief justice on the state Supreme Court, joined the high court in the midst of Minnesota’s last major statewide recount.

Sheran’s 2007 bill was the latest in a long line of legislation proposed since 1994 but never signed into law that would make it easier for Minnesotans to cast a valid absentee ballot. Under her bill, voters wouldn’t have to give a specific reason for voting absentee, such as being unable to make it to the polling place on Election Day. Regular absentee voters could have signed up to automatically receive absentee ballots, rather than applications for ballots, before each election. Voters who can’t get to their polling places because of illness or disability, or who live in nursing homes, could have an absentee ballot sent to and cast by an agent they designate. And Minnesotans who are out of state wouldn’t have to have their ballots witnessed by a registered Minnesota voter or a notary public, unless it’s their first time voting absentee.

(That last measure wouldn’t have been enough to help one Minnesota voter in New York who told MnIndy her initial absentee ballot this fall was rejected for improper witnessing – a problem she was able to remedy only by last minute heroics.)

Anyone with Internet access can trace Sheran’s concern for the plight of absentee voters back to her first election nearly a quarter century ago. A special meeting of the Mankato City Council on Sept. 18, 1984, in its capacity as the local canvassing board, heard Sheran make the case for tallying an absentee voter’s challenged ballot in a primary election for an at-large seat on the council:

Kathleen Sheran, 117 West Glencrest, appeared before the Council stating that the outcome of the election would not be changed overall by the one challenged ballot. She explained that the opportunity of the person to vote is significant, and determining the validity of the ballot in question was an important decision. She stated that she appreciated the way the challenged ballot was presented. Ms. Sheran further stated that the Council must determine the voters intent. She questioned whether the scribbling on the ballot would identify the ballot, and should this take away that person’s right to vote. She stated that it might be easier to say that one vote would not make a difference to the outcome of the election.

The ballot was counted and though it didn’t tip the election, it allowed Sheran to increase her lead over the third-place finisher by five instead of only four votes:

Mr. Smith moved to accept the challenged absentee ballot as a vote for Kathleen Sheran for the office of Councilmember At-Large. Mrs. Lofy seconded the motion. Mr. Hagemann, Mrs. Lofy, Mr. Smith and Mayor Mocol voted aye. Mr. Christ and Mrs. Brown voted nay. The motion carried. Mr. Hagemann then moved to approve the results of the re-count of the Primary Election for the office of Councilperson At-Large, with 1,390 votes for Francis X. Brady, 1,513 votes for Paul V. Meyer, and 1,395 votes for Kathleen Sheran. Mrs. Brown seconded the motion, all voting aye, the motion carried.

Sheran went on to take first place — and her first elective office — in the general election that year, as she explained in a recent e-mail to MnIndy:

The first time I ran for election to the Mankato at large seat there were three candidates…so in the primary I came in second….in the general election I came in first…and served 16 years… The vote was so close that there was a recount…for the primary that is…I won by a significant amount in the general election. I can’t remember the numbers for the final outcome that year. It is interesting you ask if my interest dated back to this experience.  The answer is no…this did not enter my mind at any point during the introduction of the absentee ballot bill. The bill I introduced served to increase access to persons who might not otherwise be able to vote, and provided an option of getting some assistance to recieve a ballot, while limiting the number of persons one person can assist. I enjoyed looking back at the minutes you found….LONG time ago and would not have remembered this appearance unless you had shown me these minutes…actually..still don’t recall the appearance… I do remember the recount!

Proximity to dramatic Minnesota recounts seems to run in Kathy Sheran’s family. She’s following in the footsteps of her father, Robert. J. Sheran, who after wartime service as an agent in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, was elected to two terms (1947-50) as Mankato’s state senator.

Robert Sheran

Ten years later, the elder Sheran, a DFLer, joined the state Supreme Court, taking his place on the bench Jan. 8, 1963 — just as Minnesota’s last great statewide recount in the governor’s race was getting underway. He narrowly missed a direct role in that recount: A series of preliminary decisions that favored the Republican incumbent soon after the election led to an agreement by both sides to forego the Supreme Court for a separate, three-judge panel that would oversee the recount. Sheran might have recused himself anyway, since that recount involved Republican Elmer L. Anderson — the man who had just appointed Sheran to the high court.

Later Robert Sheran was elevated to chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, where he served for eight years, 1973-81. During that time current Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, who’s also a member of the State Canvassing Board that will certify Franken or Coleman as winner of the Senate recount, learned the judicial ropes as a clerk in Sheran’s office.

None of which answers the question: Why the heck does the City of Mankato Web site have city council meeting minutes from 1984 (let alone 1957!) online? According to City Manager Patrick Hentges, city staff realized five or six years ago that a resource they’d found useful — records of city council meetings going back to the Eisenhower era — might be enjoyed by Mankato citizens (and the Whole World Wide Web, by extension).

It’s advantageous for all involved in city matters to review the record on recurring topics. “A lot of these issues go back … We dealt with them before, in 19-whatever,” Hentges says. He adds that having council meeting minutes — and soon, video excerpts — available online makes up for the inevitable loss of institutional knowledge as council members and city staff come and go over the years.

Ironically, Kathy Sheran’s freshman year, 1985, is one of only four years since 1957 that are missing from Mankato’s online archive of city council meeting minutes. Hentges said city staffers aren’t sure what happened to the records from those years.

I’d met Rowley in 2006, at her campaign fundraiser at my parents’ house. At the time, she seemed fierce and friendly, with a somewhat prim persona akin to her plaid-skirted appearance on the cover of TIME four years before. Now, a comfortably rumpled Rowley sidled into a courtroom seat with the more relaxed bearing of a street-level activist and occasional blogger. She had a stack of “Defend the RNC8!” postcards to pass out, and a lot to say.

Rowley recently submitted data requests about law enforcement during the 2008 Republican National Convention to the FBI (via the Freedom of Information Act) and to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s and St. Paul Police departments (through the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act). She expects to learn whether the surveillance and policing of 60 to 70 political organizations in St. Paul last September to protest the Republican National Convention (RNC)– as well as the surveillance of another 80 or so legal aids, independent media and artistic performance groups — was overly broad.

If it wasn’t, Rowley said that news will come as a relief to people like those she knows in CODEPINK who say they were pulled over repeatedly around the time of the RNC. But if the wide net she’s cast does snare examples of extra-constitutional overreaching, they’ll go into a book she’s working on with author William John Cox.

Rowley regaled me and Minnesota Public Radio’s Laura Yuen, who sat nearby, with stories about her early days as an FBI agent in the early 1980s. Hoover had died almost a decade (and several reform efforts) earlier, but his ghost still hovered over the Bureau. It was Rowley’s job to respond to the very sort of data requests she now has pending about the RNC. As we watched the defense attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild kibitz at the front of the courtroom, Rowley recalled that as an FBI agent she sat among stacks of files on the Guild’s members — a throwback to Hoover’s conviction that the Guild was a communist organization.

Back then, every new lead meant a new file, Rowley said. If folksinger Burl Ives threw a party, the next day everyone in attendance had an FBI file. She suspects that won’t be the case with the 150 groups about whom she’s requested records.

Rowley said she was always proud that the FBI fought public corruption as its top priority (it’s now the agency’s fourth priority, according to an FBI spokesman I talked to separately). I asked her about reports that the FBI is looking into allegations that businessman Nasser Kazeminy funneled money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman through a business he controls in Texas and Coleman’s wife’s employer in Minnesota. Does the FBI really open different levels of cases with some (like the Coleman cash question, reportedly) termed mere inquiries while others are full-fledged investigations? Rowley, who retired in 2004, said that in her day two levels of investigations did exist but the lesser was rarely used, and in any case the difference between them was nominal at best — you either had a case worth pursuing or you didn’t.

Rowley spoke in an elevated whisper — this being a courtroom, although the judge never appeared — that later put me in mind of the lower, hoarser whisper that actor Hal Holbrooke used in the “All the President’s Men” film to portray of Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, who had been Hoover’s second-in-command at the FBI. Felt died Thursday, having revealed himself as Deep Throat but taking with him any key to the internal contradictions of a man who helped engineer both the illegal surveillance on dissidents and the downfall of a president who put such dirty tricks to his own political ends. Next time I see her, I’ll ask how Rowley — who put her own livelihood at risk to root out wrongdoing within the FBI — how she felt about Felt.

The postcard Rowley was handing out this week.