Edwards and Rowland and Wilson-Foley

The Register Citizen marks the opening of the John Edwards campaign contribution-private gift nexus trial with a revelation on the relationship between felonious former Governor John G. Rowland and nursing home magnate Brian Foley and his wife, Republican congressional hopeful Lisa Wilson-Foley. The newspaper reports that Rowland and the nursing home had some sort of business deal. Campaign spokesman and one-time Rowland critic Chris Healy provided a muted response to inquiries from the Register Citizen’s Jordan Fenster. Healy did not know when the dough stopped flowing from the Foleys to Rowland, but he could not be sure it did not overlap with Wilson-Foley’s campaign. There’s probably an easy way to find out–ask. Even better, release the consulting agreement. It will have dates, amounts, duties and obligations in it.

No mention yet of whether Rowland disclosed the relationship to the brass at WTIC, where Rowland co-hosts a talk show called “State and Church.” These are the sorts of undisclosed relationships that catch the interest of the Federal Communications Commission. WTIC management will have some explaining to do if it knew of the Rowland “consulting” deal and did not require him to disclose it to listeners while he warbled Wilson-Foley’s praises for Wilson-Foley’s. Rowland will have put his radio gig in jeopardy if he did not tell the station’s general management about his deal with Foley and Wilson-Foley, who uses her work at the family business, Apple Rehab, as a selling point in her campaign.

No one should be surprised if we learn that Rowland has suggested to other campaigns ways to compensate him outside the public disclosure requirements of the law for political advice and assistance. Wilson-Foley was probably not the only target of the man who went to the hoosegow for selling his office for charter plane flights. If he’ll do it for you, he’ll do it to you.