Birthday Party Over, Donovan Emerges to Refuse to Answer Scandal Questions.

What a long 20th birthday party Speaker of the House Chris Donovan threw for his daughter while a crisis engulfed his campaign. The beleaguered candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the Fifth District skipped a Friday afternoon press conference, sending his new campaign manager to answer questions about the emerging campaign finance scandal enveloping his campaign. Donovan read a statement Sunday promising that his campaign will continue and declaring his innocence of any knowledge of the illegal contributions his campaign is accused of accepting. The Meriden Democrat declined, however, to answer any questions about  the investigation or his knowledge of the thousands of dollars in bogus contributions made their way into his committee bank account.

Donovan’s campaign has hired former United States Attorney Stanley Twardy to review its campaign finances. Twardy will not, of course, enjoy the authority federal investigators possess in pursuing the threads of the unfurling scandal. How he will verify in two weeks the authenticity of contributions from the 8,500 the Donovan campaign says it’s received is not clear. Nearly $180,000 are unitemized, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Anyone else who might have been an illegal conduit contributor is unlikely to admit it to Twardy.

In the fifth day of the lethal fundraising scandal, Donovan, known for his aggressive fundraising tactics, appears willing to disclose information to the campaign committee’s lawyer while continuing to shut out the bewildered public.