Hat tip to Josh Marshall for finding the latest on the Ohio GOP's coin-gate scandal. There's a national angle which is being exposed by the Toledo Blade:
Last week, Greg Weinman, the Mint’s senior counsel and ethics official, told The Blade that the Treasury Department’s inspector general had opened an investigation into Mr. Noe’s role as a member and chairman of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, a panel that advises the Treasury secretary on themes and designs for coins and congressional gold medals.GOP = corruption.
In May, 2003, the White House and House Speaker Dennis Hastert recommended that Mr. Noe get a seat on the influential 11-member committee. Treasury Secretary John Snow appointed Mr. Noe, less than six months after the Toledo-area coin dealer expressed interest in joining a Mint committee to Henrietta Fore, then director of the Mint.
“I have always had interest in getting more involved on the national level,” Mr. Noe wrote to Ms. Fore.
Mr. Noe’s appointment and eventual chairmanship of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee enabled him to expand his reach into the federal government, according to more than 2,700 pages of e-mails and other committee records released last week by the Mint to The Blade. The newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the public records in June, 2005.
