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McConnell campaign chief resigns amid scandal

James R. Carroll and Joseph Gerth
The Courier-Journal

Jesse Benton resigned as Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign manager Friday following reports that he had emerged as a figure in an endorsement scandal during the 2012 Iowa presidential caucus.

In an emailed statement Friday evening, Benton denied any involvement in the scandal, in which Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson admitted receiving payments from U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's campaign before switching his endorsement to the congressman. He had previously backed U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Benton was Paul's political director at the time.

Sorenson pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to concealing the payment and obstructing the investigation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and federal court documents.

And Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told The Des Moines Register that the investigation is ongoing.

Benton as well as former McConnell campaign consultant Dimitri Kesari — who also worked for Paul — were mentioned in documents gathered during an Iowa state ethics probe of Sorenson, a complaint to the Federal Election Commission and emails purported to be from the Paul campaign obtained by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors federal campaign finance issues.

In his emailed statement, Benton said: "Recently, there have been inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue. I hope those who know me recognize that I strive to be a man of integrity."

"The press accounts and rumors are particularly hurtful because they are false."

He said that he resigned to avoid becoming a distraction to McConnell's re-election campaign, saying the "election is far too important and the stakes way too high."

Benton, who also ran Rand Paul's 2010 general election Senate campaign, did not return a phone call or an email seeking additional comment Friday night.

Josh Holmes, a former McConnell senior aide and current adviser to the campaign, did not immediately return a phone call Friday night seeking comment.

But the campaign said in an email earlier in the day that "Senator McConnell obviously has nothing to do with the Iowa Presidential caucus or this investigation so it would be inappropriate for his campaign to comment on this situation."

Campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said Hyllus Corp. — a company to which Kesari has been tied —worked for the campaign briefly but is no longer involved.

Kesari did not return an email seeking comment from The Courier-Journal.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported Wednesday that it had learned there are two separate grand juries investigating the Iowa activities of Paul's and Bachmann's campaigns.

And emails obtained last year by the center from Dennis Fusaro, a Paul campaign aide, purport to show that Sorenson negotiated for payments to abandon his position as chairman of Bachmann's Iowa campaign.

Meanwhile, the Federal Election Commission confirmed Thursday that it has received a complaint from a former Bachmann campaign official regarding Sorenson. The agency does not disclose the nature of the complaint until it is resolved.

But Benton and Kesari are named in the complaint regarding payments by the Paul campaign to Sorenson, The Des Moines Register reported in March.

Federal investigators said Sorenson, who had been backing Bachmann, secretly negotiated to join the Paul campaign and received $73,000 to do so.

Monthly payments of $8,000 were routed through a film production company and a second company before being received by Sorenson, circumventing the FEC's reporting requirements, court documents said.

When he switched campaigns, Sorenson publicly said he was not being paid. He also provided false testimony to an independent investigator about the payments "in part to obstruct investigations that he anticipated by the FBI and FEC," according to the Justice Department.

Sorenson's attorney, F. Montgomery Brown, issued a statement saying his client was taking "complete responsibility" for his behavior.

Mark Weinhardt, a specially appointed independent counsel to the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee, issued a 566-page report last fall that found Sorenson also was paid by the Bachmann campaign and by a Bachmann-controlled political action committee, but he filtered the funds through two separate consulting firms.

The report also determined that Sorenson received a $25,000 check from a senior official in Paul's presidential campaign, which the legislator did not cash. He also received $73,000 in wire transfers that Weinhardt said created "a strong suspicion" that he was being paid by the Paul campaign.

In a transcript and recording of a telephone conversation published by the Iowa Republican's website, Sorenson allegedly tells Fusaro, "Oh, I know that Jesse (Benton) knows. I know Jesse knows" about the $25,000 check.

The Iowa ethics report shows that the check, to Sorenson's firm, Grass Roots Strategies, was drawn on a bank account of a jewelry store in Leesburg, Va., run by Kesari's wife, Jolanda.

Weinhardt said in his report that Dimitri Kesari, "through counsel, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when we sought to interview him."

Bachmann said in a Dec. 29, 2011, interview on Des Moines radio station WHO that Sorenson told her "he was offered money — a lot of money — by the Paul campaign ... and that's why he left."

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (703) 854-8945. Follow him on Twitter @JRCarrollCJ. Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter @Joe_Gerth. Des Moines Register reporters Jason Noble and Jennifer Jacobs contributed to this story.