Front-runner Geoff Diehl is Problematic for GOP's Campaign Against Warren

GOP donors, PACs and super PACs from across the nation should do their homework before they commit too much campaign cash to Geoff Diehl (pronounced like "deal"), who is the Republican front-runner in this year's primary to take on Elizabeth Warren for her Senate seat. Otherwise they may squander their resources.

If they do their research though, then they'll find this Boston Herald article here about Diehl's campaign manager and former Boston Herald reporter Holly Robichaud and I bet that it’s been on the radar of Warren's campaign since it was published, if not before. 

According to the Boston Herald, it turns out that Robichaud was being paid by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to lobby against the popular bill, which now that its been enacted into law, allows victims of 9/11 and their families to sue Saudi Arabia for damages in U.S. Federal Court. That bill first made news after Obama wanted to veto it, but couldn't because it passed both Houses with rare bipartisan veto-proof super-majorities.

Now, clandestinely taking money from Saudi Arabia would have been problematic enough for Robichaud and Diehl as well as possibly a federal felony for Robichaud under the Foreign Agents Registration Act if she failed to register as an operative of a foreign government participating in a political lobbying. But what's probably worse is that instead of being honest about working for the Saudi's, Robichaud apparently claimed that she was advocating for U.S. military combat veterans in order to prevent them from being sued in foreign countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan if those nations were to enact similar reciprocal legislation.

If that sounds familiar, it's probably because that was also Obama's stated reason for his opposition to that same bill. And it appears that it hasn't happened yet, or if it has, then a thorough search hasn't turned up a single instance of a U.S. combat veteran being sued in a foreign court over their role in an American uniform.

Anyways, the staff at the Herald probably didn't enjoy having to publish that article on Robichaud and place it prominently in their paper, but it seems that they knew that failing to do so would present credibility issues for their publication, just like Robichaud's role as campaign manager appears to do for Diehl.

Further, it's not just the skeletons in his campaign manager's closet with which Diehl must contend. He appears to have his own as well.

The day before the Herald revealed Robichaud's alleged claims to have been working for American combat veterans while she was really lobbying against the victims of 9/11 and their families on behalf of Saudi Arabia, I spoke with Geoff Diehl about my situation, which is detailed in this Rolling Stone article here or in this article by Michelle Malkin here or in this Infowars clip here.

Anyways, a recording of my jail call with Geoff Diehl, cut down to the relevant parts, is available on YouTube here.

As you can hear on the call, Diehl asks if there's anything urgent with Sheriff McDonald and what's going on at the jail. I specifically implored him to intervene on behalf of the U.S. military combat veterans who this jail routinely takes off of their psych meds and tortures in what it calls “Q5.”

At the time, I had been writing about Q5 for more than a year at outlets like Red State, Shadowproof (1, 2) as well as the Huffington Post (1, 2) and I also mentioned Q5 during an international broadcast on RT. Here's just 1 account of Q5 which I published at Red State here and I've heard about 100 or so others that are all notably consistent:

For example, a marine I’ll call “N,” who’s currently being held on a bogus Massachusetts gun charge at PCCF, has claustrophobia and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from when his Humvee was flipped by an IED and his team was pinned inside by enemy gunfire. Despite being told of N’s diagnosis, as well as previous articles about PCCF’s prior mistreatment of veterans at The Huffington Post and ShadowProof, management tried to move him from an open dormitory unit to a small cell – twice.

The first time, N said he could not enter the small cell. PCCF management retaliated by placing him on suicide watch and forcing him into the jail’s Q5 unit. There, N says he spent the night unable to sleep, nearly naked in a tiny approximately 40-degree Fahrenheit cell without a mattress or blanket.

Dozens of others tell similar stories of Q5, where they say skin turns purple and sticks to the cold floor like the cliché tongue on a frozen flagpole. One reported dead flies on the floor and another described seeing a previous occupants’ pubic hair strewn about. The first thing many want to tell the public is that one of the cells in Q5 has no toilet — instead they describe having to defecate in a hole in the ground.

After being cleared off suicide watch by mental health staff the next morning and returning to the open dorm, N said his night in Q5 was the worst experience of his life – worse than being pinned down inside the Humvee. He marveled at the probable media backlash if U.S. troops put enemy POWs through such treatment.

Indeed, such survivors of Q5 are not hard to find in the Plymouth County Corrections Facility (PCCF) in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where Diehl is a state representative. And despite his direct fiduciary oversight role as a local legislator representing the county where this is happening, Geoff Diehl doesn't appear to have made so much as a phone call on behalf of veterans like “N.”

Maybe that's because the sheriff whom Diehl told my wife he runs in the same circles as is the notoriously corrupt Joseph McDonald Jr., also of Plymouth County and Diehl can’t risk rocking the boat on his own corrupt cadre of local politicians, who also seem to include the local D.A.'s office as well as Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who members of his own party here have nicknamed “Tall Deval” after his less-than-unimpeachable Democratic predecessor Deval Patrick.

To illustrate, not too long before I spoke with Geoff Diehl and we stopped hearing from him, Channel 5 News here in Boston reported on an alleged marriage fraud scam being run by one of Sheriff McDonald's top employees. You can watch that coverage here.

According to reports, a supervisor hired by McDonald, whose facilities houses detainees from ICE, was paying guards $10k each to marry Vietnamese immigrants. And according to our research, the owner of the nail salon which appears to have been involved in the scam still donates to McDonald's election fund. As do an astonishingly high number of his employees, some of whom openly remark about having to buy coveted promotions by donating to McDonald's campaign.

To further illustrate, local D.A. Timothy Cruz is another political bed fellow of Geoff Diehl who has also faced similar allegations. Indeed, as you can read here, his office just paid out $2.4 million in tax payer money on top of $248,000 in legal fees to settle a lawsuit brought by a former prosecutor in his office who said he was fired for refusing to donate to Cruz's campaign. There are also other scandals facing Cruz regarding his handling of informants, which you can read about here.

And how far up does the corruption go in the Massachusetts state GOP? It appears all the way to the top.

After the 2014 election cycle, the party had to cough up $240k for edging out a non-preferred gubernatorial candidate who apparently didn't pay-to-play with the state GOP, as you can read about here. And another litigation seems likely this year too as the allegations have only continued to pile up.

Indeed, as you can read here, the MASSGOP appears to be the only state party in the area which requires candidates to spend thousands just to be heard at its state convention where they must receive sufficient nominations from party delegates in order to make the primary ballot. So money appears to funnel upward from local pay-to-play and other scams to the GOP party coffers. One can say that county-level corruption even appears to be encouraged by the nature of the system.

All of this begs the question, why is Massachusetts state A.G. Maura Healy. a Democrat, letting all this happen without prosecuting anybody? Is she “on the take” too? Or, as an ally of Elizabeth Warren herself, is she waiting for the primaries to be decided before she springs the trap and makes arrests when it's too late for whatever might be left of the state party to pick other candidates?  Time will tell. But it might be wise for GOP donors to hold off on donations to take on Elizabeth Warren for now.

 Marty Gottesfeld is an Obama-era political prisoner and Republican Senate candidate against incumbent Elizabeth Warren. You can donate to his legal defense fund at FreeMartyG.com or to his political campaign at VoteMartyG.com.