Grant Rodgers

grodgers@dmreg.com

Federal jurors returned guilty verdicts Thursday in a host of public corruption charges against three former Ron Paul presidential campaign aides accused of a secret plot to pay an Iowa state senator $73,000 for his endorsement.

The criminal convictions stem from a November grand jury indictment against the three 2012 campaign operatives stemming from payments the campaign made to former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, who dramatically switched his support from the campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann to Paul just days ahead of the Iowa Republican caucus.

The verdicts against campaign chair Jesse Benton, campaign manager John Tate and deputy campaign manager Dimitri Kesari were celebrated by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice as a victory aimed at making sure the money that flows through campaigns remains transparent.

In Iowa, the case may serve as a cautionary tale to political operatives in both parties in future caucus cycles, Republican and Democratic insiders said.

“When you’re on a campaign, you’re highly stressed out,” said Grant Woodard, a Des Moines attorney who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and with other Iowa Democratic candidates. “You’re always looking to try to find some sort of advantage. People try to get loose with the rules and try and figure out ways of skirting compliance laws, but I think it shows on all levels of a campaign you need to be aware of what your staff is up to. Ignorance is not an excuse.”

Woodard said that message has become even more important in recent years as the rise of super PACS and political nonprofit groups has introduced new levels of sometimes hard-to-trace cash into campaigns.

“(With) this new super PAC money, I think you’re going to have instances very similar to this case that are going to continue to pop up,” he said.

Benton, Tate and Kesari all left the federal courthouse in Des Moines without speaking to reporters after the verdict was announced just before 11:30 a.m. U.S. District Judge John Jarvey will set a sentencing date for each defendant at a later date.

The verdicts capped a four-year saga with roots in a Dec. 28, 2011, decision by Sorenson — whose career in conservative Republican politics was torpedoed by the scandal — to endorse Paul at a campaign rally.

The former Iowa state senator testified at the trial that he expected to be paid by the campaign, and told jurors that Benton told him on the night of the endorsement, “You’re bleeding for us, we will take care of you.”

But prosecutors claim the operatives had to hide the payments after allegations from the Bachmann campaign that Sorenson had been wooed with cash. The state senator publicly denied receiving or being offered any money by the Paul campaign.

Those denials forced Benton, Tate and Kesari to pay Sorenson through a third-party video production company so that the money flowing to him would be hidden on public expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, prosecutors said.

A grand jury indicted the three operatives on several charges that were first announced in August, but Jarvey dismissed those charges entirely against Tate and all but one of the charges against Benton ahead of a trial that began in October, citing a legal technicality.

Kesari was convicted at that first trial of a charge of causing false records but found not guilty of an obstruction of justice charge.

Benton, who is married to Paul's granddaughter, was acquitted of a single county of lying to FBI agents. He told reporters “God is great” as he left the courthouse in November.

But on Thursday, Benton’s wife, Valori Pyeatt, was left in tears as the judge read the verdict against her husband. Both Benton and Tate were convicted of conspiracy, causing false records, causing false campaign expenditure reporting and false statements scheme.

“Concealing and falsely reporting campaign expenditures undermines the integrity and transparency of the federal election process,” said Paul Abbate, an assistant director in charge of the FBI field office in Washington, D.C., in a news release. “When political operatives secretly buy an elected official’s political support, it undermines public confidence in our entire political system.”

The jurors found Kesari guilty of each charge he faced: conspiracy, causing false campaign expenditure reports and false statements scheme.

Defense attorneys for the three operatives did not disagree that Sorenson was paid by the Paul campaign. Rather, defense lawyer Jesse Binnall, who represents Kesari, has suggested that Sorenson did legitimate work for the campaign, including recording robocalls and travelling to South Carolina ahead of the Republican primary there.

In an opening argument, Binnall told jurors that the final destination of the cash — a consulting company owned by Sorenson — was mistakenly obscured by a campaign worker who improperly coded the expenditures as "audio/visual" expenses. In a brief interview outside the courthouse, Binnall argued that there was nothing illegal about paying Sorenson as a subvendor through a third-party company.

“I represent somebody who’s innocent and so do my colleagues,” he said. “There’s going to be an appeal and there’s some very important legal issues that are going to be decided in that appeal.”

Attorneys for both Benton and Tate argued that the two operatives were largely removed from discussions about Sorenson's role on the campaign.

The timing of the original indictment amid the 2016 caucus cycle prompted Ron Paul and others to argue that the prosecution was a politically motivated attempt to ruin the now-ended Republican presidential campaign of his son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

It also spurred conversations about the role of money in the caucus process, with The New York Times highlighting the case in a story questioning, “Is Iowa for Sale?”

Will Rogers, chair of the Polk County Republican Party, said the case is undoubtedly a “black eye” for Iowa. But he was also confident that the memory of the Paul operatives’ convictions will stick for a longer time in the minds of candidates, campaign managers and other politicos.

“Who’s not going to drill into his staff and say, ‘Look, you can never pay for play,’” Rogers said. “You can never do this type of thing ever in the future. That is definitely going to be a talking point.”

Sorenson pleaded guilty in 2014 to two charges of his own, including obstruction of justice, and his own prison sentence. He has been awaiting a sentencing hearing while the case against Kesari, Benton and Tate was prosecuted.