The resignation of Jennifer Carnahan as state chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota is well-covered in articles from statewide media. Witness GOP Chair Jennifer Carnahan is forced out amid scandal and MNGOP seeks new chair, investigations to repair party image at the Star Tribune.
In the St. Paul Pioneer Press, readers learn MN GOP Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan resigns under cloud.
MPR' staff reports: Under fire, Minnesota GOP chair Carnahan steps down.
There's Carnahan resigns as chair of Minnesota Republican Party and The latest Carnahan news at the Minnesota Reformer.
How's this playing in Minnesota's First Congressional District, where her husband Jim Hagedorn serves as the United States Representative?
Even before Carnahan tendered her resignation, the editorial board wrote on Wednesday in Our View: GOP | Another shadow over Hagedorn:
It is unclear what will result from the public ugliness that erupted late last week at the upper levels of the Minnesota Republican Party, but it is at the very least another black eye for Rep. Jim Hagedorn, the second-term congressman for the 1st District.
Hagedorn at best appears to be a magnet for an assortment of grifters and worse — from last year’s revelations that his congressional office’s budget was being milked by a staffer’s sideline business, to an apparent commingling of congressional and campaign resources, to the indictment last week on sex trafficking charges of a major donor and family friend.
And it is clear that a significant number of party officials suspect that Hagedorn’s wife, party chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan, is part of the problem. On Sunday the party’s executive committee voted to have an audit both to trace the funds from the indicted donor and to examine all party expenditures and reimbursements to staff, involving Carnahan herself. It also canceled the nondisclosure agreements Carnahan imposed on party employees, said to have been used to muzzle criticism of Carnahan. While Carnahan has acquiesced to the audit, she now seeks to have the NDAs reestablished.
The personal ties of Hagedorn and Carnahan to the indicted Anton “Tony” Lazzaro are clear. Lazzaro was one of just 50 guests at their wedding, he has been a major supporter of Carnahan in some bitter fights within the GOP, he and Carnahan did podcasts together and there are social media photos of the three together at Vikings games and other social events.
Lazzaro went from behind the scenes to the spotlight Thursday with the release of the indictment. On Saturday it was revealed that the chairwoman of the St. Thomas University chapter of the College Republicans, Gisela Castro Medina, was also charged with sex trafficking.
While Lazzaro’s attorney calls the charges an abuse of federal prosecutorial power, Minnesota Republicans on all levels, including Carnahan and Hagedorn, are scrambling to distance themselves from him. Hagedorn — the largest single recipient of Lazzaro’s largess — has declared that his various campaign funds will donate some $21,000 of Lazzaro donations to nonprofits combating sex trafficking. Several other GOP officeholders have announced similar plans.
Carnahan complains that the firestorm surrounding her is just “guilt by association” and that her critics are using the Lazzaro scandal to undo her April reelection as party chair. That may be. But there is an adage about what happens when you lie down with pigs. You get muddy.
Ouch. Mankato resident and professor at Minnesota State University Richard Robbins writes in a letter to the editor of the Free Press,
Sane Republicans have gone silent:
Many of us got a special-edition email from Congressman Jim Hagedorn recently, fearmongering about critical race theory and how anyone who strives to tell a fair story of the American experience to our schoolchildren is essentially a Marxist and hates our country.
I suppose the special-delivery nature of it was only coincidentally related to the bad news about how a major funder for the Minnesota GOP and the Hagedorn campaign, and a close friend of Hagedorn and his wife (the Minnesota GOP Party chair), was just arrested on multiple counts of child-trafficking.
Hagedorn says he will donate the friend’s contributions to charity, which I expect he thinks will be the end of it. But I think we should ask ourselves what subset of beasts today’s Republican Party is coddling: If it’s not the Anthony Lazzaro/Matt Gaetz flag-waving accused child-sex-trafficking patriots, it’s the Blue Lives Matter flag pole-and-bear-spray-in-your-face-on-the-Capitol-steps patriots, or it’s the QAnon your-COVID-vaccine-will-turn-me-into-a-5G-antenna patriots, and on and on.
The sane Republicans have largely gone silent so as not to upset the Autocrat-in-Chief, who, by the way — according to the My Pillow Guy — was scheduled to resume the presidency
Robbins is on to something.
Over in the Rochester Bulletin, Matt Stoll reported on Friday in Schools, teachers find themselves in the crosshairs of critical race theory debate:
Last week, U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn issued an all-points-bulletin "Special Report" email, warning that school districts were taking steps to teach critical race theory.
The Republican congressman did not cite a single district that was doing so. And he declined to be interviewed or respond to questions seeking specific examples where CRT is taught.
Still, it was good politics. . . .
On Friday, Stolle also reported on Will there be fallout from the Carnahan resignation? No mention of her husband in the article, although earlier in the saga, Stolle reported in SE Minnesota GOP elected officials, party leaders divided over Carnahan:
Bill Kuisle, a former state legislator and leader in the Republican Party of Olmsted County, said Carnahan should step aside for the good of the party.
While there is no evidence that Carnahan had any advance knowledge of the alleged criminal activities made against GOP strategist and donor Anton "Tony" Lazzaro, 30, who faces federal charges of recruiting and sex trafficking charges, it is clear that their relationship was not a casual one. He was not only a GOP donor to organizations and congressional candidates, such as Rep. Jim Hagedorn, Carnahan's husband and holder of the U.S. House seat for Minnesota's 1st District, he was among the few invited to their wedding.
"Everybody is due their day in court, but they were together at the wedding, and those pictures will be spread far and wide during the next campaign, including against Hagedorn," Kuisle said. "It's going to be tough to overcome those brochures and TV commercials. It's going to be brutal."
Photos of Carnahan and Hagedorn with Lazzaro are circulating on social media. . . .
Oh that. The opinion section of the PB seems silent about the scandal, at least online.
At the Worthington Globe, a Forum Communications chain newspaper like the Post Bulletin, Stolle's August 13 piece, Hagedorn distances from top donor and GOP operative indicted on child sex trafficking charges:
Congressman Jim Hagedorn said Friday, Aug. 13, that he intends to donate to charities in southern Minnesota money that he received from a Minnesota political operative indicted on child sex trafficking charges.
The Republican congressman's statement came a day after Anton J. Lazzaro was indicted by a federal grand jury in Minnesota. Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office say Lazzaro, 30, conspired with others to recruit and solicit people younger than 18 to engage in commercial sex between May and December of 2020.
It also comes a day after Minnesota DFL Chairman Ken Martin called on Republican elected officials and organizations, from Hagedorn, Rep. Tom Emmer and Rep. Michelle Fischbach to the Minnesota Republican Party and the Log Cabin Republicans, to "denounce and disavow" Lazarro and donate funds received from him to anti-trafficking organizations.
"It is extremely disturbing that a man arrested for sexually trafficking six minors has such deep ties to so many Minnesota Republican officials, candidates and organizations, particularly Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan and her husband, Congressman Hagedorn," Martin said in a statement Thursday.
Hagedorn received $31,000 in financial contributions from Lazzaro, the largest amount given to any other GOP elected official or political organization, Martin said. Hagedorn and Carnahan also appear with Lazzaro in pictures taken at Minnesota Vikings games. The pictures had been posted to Hagedorn's Facebook page.
. . . Multiple people who have worked for or closely with the Republican Party told MPR News that Lazzaro and Carnahan have been close friends for years, traveling often and working the party circuit. He is also a top donor to Carnahan’s husband, Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn. Lazzaro was part of a select group of invitees to the couple’s California wedding, according to sources and photos.
“If the allegations against Mr. Anton Lazzaro are true, this is an abhorrent act that we condemn in the highest possible terms,” Carnahan said in a statement, pledging to turn over donations he made to the organization to charity. "Sex trafficking is a heinous act that preys on victims of all ages, races, and backgrounds, and warrants severe punishment by our judicial system. A full investigation is necessary to ensure due process is provided to all parties involved."
People who discussed Lazzaro’s party ties on the condition they not be identified by name said he was a go-to donor for Carnahan. He helped her win her job as party chair in 2017, both as a volunteer and a financial contributor. . . .
The article notes that MPR reporters' work was included in the article.
The Winona Daily News op-ed page is also silent like the Forum papers; it carried the news of the scandal by printing the Associated Press pieces about Carnahan, including Embattled Minnesota Republican Party leader resigns. No mention of her husband in the short article.
We'll take a look at additional papers in the district over the weekend.
Perhaps the most provocative report on the scandal in the First? The KAAL-TV interview, Reps. Drazkowski, Munson weigh in on the state of the Minn. GOP. Go watch the video there.
Photo: The happy couple and the alleged child sex trafficker at a Vikings game in November 2017. Via Hagedorn's Facebook page.
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