Fred Thompson may play a tough, no-nonsense prosecutor on TV, but when it comes to his campaign supporters… well, not so much. From the Washington Post:
Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing…
Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation…
Karen Hanretty, Thompson’s deputy communications director, said yesterday that “Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since the mid-1990s and remains so today.”
Of course, Thompson is still way behind former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the whoops-I-did-it-again department. Giuliani counts among his close friends and advisers disgraced former cop Bernie Kerik a Catholic priest accused of molesting teens, a Senator who apparently frequents prostitutes, and a campaign co-chair arrested on cocaine charges. However, he has drawn even with Senator John McCain.
