First Attempt at Distancing Rand Paul from the Ron Paul Inc. Scandal

David Weigel writes today in Slate:

Rand Paul hasn't kept Kesari around, either. Earlier this year I reported on the Iowa scandal, Kesari, and the fairly obscure players who went from the world of direct mail to the worlds of Ron and Rand Paul. It was made very clear to me that Kesari was not among the people being brought into Rand Paul's orbit as he expanded his national profile and made trips to primary states. Nobody knew what would happen to the bribe saga, but Iowa allies of the Pauls were already working to distance themselves from the key figures.

Rand may or may not be successful in distancing himself from Ron Paul Inc.

The Kesari referenced by Weigel is Dmitri Kesari who is at the epicenter of the Ron Paul Inc. scandal. He is the one that negotiated the secret payoffs to Kent Sorenson. Sorenson has pleaded guilty (SEE: BREAKING: Kent Sorenson Pleads Guilty to Concealing Ron Paul Campaign Payoff).

But this is only one of the problems Kesari has. The FBI is investigating MANY other activities of Kesari. Kesari is under extreme pressure to co-operate with the government. And no one, outside of Kesari and the government, knows where that is going to lead. As I have reported here exclusively at EPJ, Kesari may have been recording Ron Paul Inc. as early as 2009 (SEE: BOMBSHELL: Ron Paul Inc. Operatives May Have Been Secretly Recorded Since 2009).

When Kesari starts to talk, if he hasn't already, will he be able to snare Rand? It is very unlikely, but Kesari was around the Rand Paul 2010 campaign to some degree and I am aware that the FBI is investigating some of the activities that Kesari was involved with in relation to Rand's 2010 camapign that might include campaign law violations. This is stuff that Rand was probably unaware of.

Then there is the question, What did Kesari record on his magic pen recording device?  More than likely, what is going to happen here is that Rand will be linked as aggressively as possible by libertarian haters and the political establishment for his "ties to Kesari" (and Jesse Benton).

Politics is a dirty game and the amateur night fashion in which parts of Ron Paul Inc. operated is going to provide the dirty game players a lot of mud to sling Rand's way.

-RW