Investigation Finds No Wrong Doing In Alvin Greene’s Senate Run

Where did Alvin Greene get the $ 10,000 for his Senate filing fee ? He got from you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer !

One of the few legitimate questions about Alvin Greene’s Senate run in South Carolina involved where he got the $ 10,000 filing fee to put his name on the ballot. After all, only a few months earlier, Greene had qualified for a Court-appointed lawyer in his ongoing harassment case. Some Palmetto State Democrats, such as Jim Clyburn, alleged that Greene had been bankrolled by Republicans. As it turned out though, his campaign was funded by the United States Government:

Alvin Greene, the obscure jobless man whose come-from-nowhere victory in the June Democratic primary for U.S. Senate created a national furor, had legitimate sources of income to pay his $10,400 primary entry fee, law enforcement sources said Friday.

He will not, according to SLED, face criminal deception charges for requesting a taxpayer funded attorney in a still pending criminal case against him.

State law enforcement officials wrapped up an investigation of Greene’s finances after questions were raised about how he could qualify for indigent defense and afford to pay more than $10,000 to seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Greene’s surprise June 8 upset victory over former circuit judge Vic Rawl initially caused many to speculate Republican operatives had secretly bankrolled Greene’s primary entry fee to sabotage the primary. Rawl’s defeat left Greene the Democratic challenger to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

The source of Greene’s money is none other than the U.S. government and the S.C. state government, said SLED director Reggie Lloyd.

“That’s who bankrolled Greene’s entry fee for the primary,” said Lloyd, whose agency worked with 5th Circuit Solicitor Barney Giese in the investigation. “The U.S. government and the state of South Carolina funded his filing fee.”

(…)

In its investigation, Lloyd said, SLED had access to all Greene’s checking and savings accounts.

Those monthly statements showed Greene, 32, had a monthly balance last fall of several thousand dollars in his Bank of Clarendon checking account in Manning, Lloyd said.

Last October, Greene received a $5,843 check from the U.S. Department of Defense in connection with his discharge from the military last year.

“That brought him up to more than $8,200,” Lloyd said.

Greene continued having a checking account balance of about that amount into March, when Greene received a federal income tax refund of $2,173 and a state tax refund of $932, Lloyd said.

“At that point, he had more than $11,400 in his account,” Lloyd said.

As for the court-appointed attorney it appears that he was never asked about his assets, only about his income (something which is fairly standard, actually, Court’s usually don’t waste a lot of time examining the assets of Defendants) so, he never lied about anything.

So essentially, the guy burned his life savings to run for Senate and ended up winning the nomination. Nothing nefarious. No “dirty tricks.” Just one unknown candidate running against another unknown candidate and, this time, the roulette wheel landed on Alvin Greene.

H/T: Ed Morrissey

FILED UNDER: 2010 Election, Congress, US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tano says:

    I think it rather misleading to say that his campaign was funded by the government.
    An income tax refund is, in no way, the government’s money – it is, of course, the return of a loan that the taxpayer has made to the government – usually involuntarily.
    And his money from the DoD seems to be compensation for services rendered.
    So how does this equate to “government funding”?

  2. floyd says:

    “An income tax refund is, in no way, the government’s money – it is, of course, the return of a loan that the taxpayer has made to the government – usually involuntarily.”

    While this is generally true, it must be pointed out that there really is no such thing as “government money”.
    It must also be pointed out that in our squirrely system it is possible to get an “income tax refund” without ever paying any income tax.

  3. Obviously, referring to this as “government money” was intended to be tongue-in-cheek

  4. JKB says:

    Oh, great, now the Dems in congress will move to confiscate all refunds and other government monies owed ostensively to solve the debt crisis but really to avoid the little people from repeating Greene’s diabolical plan.

  5. Tano says:

    “was intended to be tongue-in-cheek”

    Well, sorry then. But its hardly obvious. Before reading this I was over at Memorandum, where I saw quite a few wingnut blogs making the same charge – and they were serious about it.