The prosecution rested its case yesterday in the corruption trial against former state Sen. Jon Woods, reports Doug Thompson at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The defense will now call its own witnesses.

Woods is accused of being involved in kickback schemes involving Ecclesia College, as well as a network of healthcare nonprofits under the umbrella of Preferred Family Healthcare with ties to lobbyist Rusty Cranford (himself indicted in a separate federal kickback case). Two of his alleged co-conspirators, former state Rep. Micah Neal and Ecclesia College president Oren Paris III, have already pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the government.

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The trial thus far has painted an unsightly picture of legislative and lobbying hijinks at the Capitol. Neal described the General Improvement Fund process in the legislature as a “slush fund.” State Sen. Bart Hester said that the regional development districts ostensibly in control of approval for GIF grants rubber stamped them for legislators, who had total control of sending their allotted amounts of GIF money to pet projects, in violation of the state constitution. Neal and Woods used the GIF process to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to the entities that allegedly paid them kickbacks. They were also highly successful in their coordinated efforts to convince their buddies in the legislature to send yet more money. Hester, Rep. Charlie Collins, Rep. Bob Ballinger, and many others, most still in the General Assembly, slopped public money to Ecclesia (none have been charged with wrongdoing). Former Senate President Pro Tem Michael Lamoureux — now a lobbyist and previously chief of staff for Governor Hutchinsonalso greased the wheels for grants bound for Ecclesia, despite faulty applications, according to testimony.

Meanwhile, Tom Goss, then the chief financial officer at Preferred Family Health, told Cranford that Woods was “taken care of” and “a new bubba for our team.” In addition to alleged kickback payments, they allegedly hooked Woods’ fiancee up with an overpaid job. How many bubbas were on Goss and Cranford’s team? That will have to wait for future trials, if they ever come. But what we do know is that the network of healthcare nonprofits now under the umbrella of PFH has been the single biggest beneficiary of the legislature’s GIF largess since 2013.

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And the GIF knavery was just a whiff of the larger stench. Woods got a law passed establishing a special fund for grants that only Ecclesia was eligible for. According to testimony (corroborating previous reporting by the Arkansas Blog), he tried to sneak language into the medical marijuana amendment that would have funneled marijuana tax money to the college. Woods and Neal tried to push their colleagues to okay a multi-million dollar deal for a private company with connections to Goss and his wife. And on and on.

The government, somewhat surprisingly, chose not to call Paris to the stand. Too bad. Paris seems to be quite the character. According to evidence presented at the trial, his text-message response to the alleged scheme to funnel money to the college via legalized medical marijuana: “I think it is great to take money from Satan and Kingdom of darkness and put it to Kingdom of God use.”

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It’s still possible that the government could call Paris as a rebuttal witness after the defense rests. I’m sure he has quite a story to tell. This was never going to happen at this trial, but a political question that is worth asking everyone involved is just how Woods and Neal managed to be so convincing to their colleagues regarding Ecclesia? They were, allegedly, motivated by kickbacks. None of the other lawmakers — at least eight during the period in question and yet more after that — have been charged with any crime or wrongdoing. So just what was it about this obscure Bible college in Springdale that inspired them to lavish hundreds of thousands of dollars toward dubious projects?

The grotesque part is that for all of the hullabaloo over a trial like this, the real rot in the political system is perfectly legal. Big-money lobbyists have plenty of ways to steer politicians their way without literally having to (allegedly) stuff envelopes full of cash so that low-grade state legislators can buy high-priced sports memorabilia.

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The New York Times, for example, recently reported on an astounding story of the rank corruption baked into the federal regulation of the banking industry.

Mick Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina who now serves as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Trump administration, was recently appointed the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney, the Times reports, was remarkably candid about the role of campaign cash and lobbyists in an address to banking industry executives.

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[Mulvaney] told banking industry executives on Tuesday that they should press lawmakers hard to pursue their agenda, and revealed that, as a congressman, he would meet with lobbyists only if they had contributed to his campaign.

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mr. Mulvaney, a former Republican lawmaker from South Carolina, told 1,300 bankers and lending industry officials at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

Mulvaney received generous contributions from payday lenders when he was in Congress and is now repaying them by undoing Obama-era regulations on predatory practices in that industry. We don’t call that a kickback, but it works pretty well for the payday lenders.

Back in Little Rock, the legislature passed legislation, co-sponsored by Woods, to refer a so-called “ethics amendment” to the constitution to voters, who passed it in 2014. Despite what must have been a sincere effort by Woods to place airtight limits on lobbyist largess, legislative perks, and campaign cash, it turns out that the amendment had a few loopholes. And the game rolls on.

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p.s. UPDATE: Speaking of payday lenders, Thompson just reported that according to testimony today, Fayetteville payday lender Robert A. Srygley loaned Woods $35,000 before the 2012 GOP primary, which was then repaid with no interest in late 2013. Nice deal if you can get. 

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