Swan Song: Corruption Begins on Campaign Trail.

Democratic operative Tom Swan, called in to elbow and shove Speaker of the House Christopher Donovan’s congressional campaign through its fundraising scandal, took an aggressive stand on allegations of corruption when the target was felonious former Governor John G. Rowland. Swan sings a different tune when allegations of corruption at the intersection of legislation and Donovan campaign fundraising. “The corruption trail starts on the campaign trail,” Swan observed in 2004.

When Rowland’s crimes began to be revealed, Swan urged the legislature to launch an independent investigation into the beleaguered governor whose crimes sent him to prison in 2005. With Donovan’s powerful aide Laura Jordan refusing to answer questions posed by light-touch campaign investigator Stanley Twardy and Donovan dodging public inquiries, the legislature ought to take Swan’s advice and begin its own bipartisan investigation with the benefit of independent counsel to investigate what Donovan and his staff did to influence legislation and other actions in return for campaign contributions. The inquiry need not be limited to Donovan and Jordan. Others in the legislature accepted contributions from people associated with roll-you-own tobacco stores. Their public recollections of the sequence and nature of events seem incomplete.