Governor Tom Corbett’s Campaign Aides Met With Him in Office

Attorneys for those prosecuted by Tom Corbett for corruption are up in arms that the governor meets with campaign staff in the governor's office.

In what has to be the early frontrunner for the most boring scandal of the 2014 Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, Tom Corbett is now under fire for meeting with campaign aides in his office numerous times since taking office in 2011. Oooh!

People, obviously, may be upset by this. But even a lawyer for former House Democratic Whip Mike Veon, still imprisoned on a 6- to 14-year term after the “Bonusgate” scandal prosecuted by Corbett, can only muster up that it “certainly is an appearance of impropriety.” Veon was convicted of using taxpayer money to reward campaign workers. Certainly Corbett should probably avoid meeting with campaign workers in his office so articles like this aren’t written. But will this particular small fact sway anyone’s vote? Probably not.

Corbett, for his part, says he’s done nothing wrong. His campaign manager says his behavior is laudatory! He “continues to set an example of how to balance his political and office schedule,” Mike Barley said. Campaign staffers and the governor talk most often by phone, anyway, he says.

Still, if you were prosecuted by Tom Corbett I assume you’re not that happy with him. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

“Who cares about this? The people he has crucified for crossing the lines,” [Harrisburg criminal defense attorney Bill] Fetterhoff said.

“Public resources are not supposed to be used for partisan political purposes,” said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause of Pennsylvania. “I think (Corbett) places himself in a position of hypocrisy if he doesn’t apply the same standards to himself (that) he applied to others.”

Tom Wolf has, naturally, begun criticizing Corbett for this.

[Tribune-Review/Morning Call]