Rand Paul wants to defeat the Washington machine, which sounds great but hes really just referring to the dishwasher in his kitchen.
Rand Paul likes to say he wants to "defeat the Washington machine," but maybe he's just referring to the dishwasher in his kitchen. Rich Koele / Shutterstock.com

In case you missed it, three aides to Rand and Ron Paul have been re-indicted for paying a senator $73,000 to switch his endorsement from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul in 2011. As the New York Times reported last week:

Paul's 2012 campaign chairman Jesse Benton, campaign manager John Tate and deputy manager Dimitri Kesari are charged with conspiracy to cover up $73,000 in campaign payments to former Iowa Sen. Kent Sorenson. Sorenson dropped his support for Michelle Bachmann and endorsed Paul in December 2011, six days before the Iowa caucuses.

The whole twisted, sordid tale is super-confusing but if it's true it basically confirms everyone's worst suspicions about how government works: a bunch of rich guys shuffle their money between each other, then every couple of years tell a bunch of lies so that they can keep the money-shuffle going.

Still, it's nice to see that once in a while some bozos are so bad at the game they get in trouble for it.

The bozos in question—who have not been convicted of anything, just charged—all worked as staffers for either Rand or Ron. Benton was Ron Paul's campaign manager on the 2012 campaign, and now works for the "America’s Liberty PAC," which is up to God knows what sort of shady business to elect Rand Paul.

In late 2011, according to Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson, staffers met with Sorenson and arranged to launder $73,000 through a film production company in exchange for Sorenson switching his endorsement from Bachmann (for whom he worked at the time as campaign chair) to Ron Paul.

In a delightful demonstration of the free market at work, the Bachmann campaign is also alleged to have illegally funneled money to Sorenson. Nice work, Sorenson.

The three Paul staffers, for their part, are defending the alleged bribe as payment to a "subcontractor." Okay sure, good one.

A whistle-blower tipped regulators off to the payments, and Sorenson resigned in 2013. He's been charged with obstruction of justice, but the sentencing has been complicated, in part, because Sorenson was caught smoking pot in 2014. Why does that have anything to do with the bribery? It doesn't. It's just our dumb justice system being dumb.

Anyway, the three Paul staffers were acquitted last month after a judge ruled that prosecutors were too disorganized with their evidence. After the acquittal, one of the staffers (who is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter—what a coincidence!) told reporters, "God is great," by which he probably meant "money is great."

But now all three have been re-indicted by a new grand jury, so their troubles aren't over. Hopefully this time, prosecutors will be a little more careful with their evidence. Why, they couldn't have been more sloppy the first time around if someone had PAID them to mess up!

So far Rand Paul's campaign has scored endorsements from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a variety of Congress people including Idaho's Raul Labrador (who believes voters should not be allowed to choose their Senators), and Jonathan Davis, lead singer of Korn. Were any of these honest endorsements? Or were they paid for by craftier operatives, who knew how to hide their money-laundering? We may never know, but it's not like the cash is rolling in for Korn these days like it used to.