Senator Lisa Murkowski has now twice been confronted with allegations that she routinely abused cocaine, sometimes in a somewhat public manner, and has opted to not deny those allegations on both occasions.
Frankly, even if true, I don't know that even the alleged significant past cocaine use would be a disqualifier. She could do blow with Barry in the WH these days. My curiosity had more to do with her seeming sense of entitlement and a notion that the rules, and perhaps even the laws, aren't a big concern for Lisa Murkowski, where she herself is concerned.
It was back during the primary that I first heard reports that Alaska's independent candidate for Senate, Lisa Murkowski, may have routinely ignored the state's drug laws by regularly abusing cocaine. Given a lack of solid sources and Lisa Murkowski's loss to Joe Miller, I moved on, though some reports suggested the abuse may have been habitual, even while her influential politician father, Frank Murkowski, positioned himself as something of a hardliner on drug enforcement.
When she went back on her word to Alaska's voters by refusing to accept the primary results, as she had pledged to do at a Kenai forum, concerns about her character caused me to revisit what I had then viewed as little more than rumors. While several sources refused to go on record, even as regards the allegations, I continued to network and only recently found one who would do that, as well as claim a direct exchange over them with Lisa Murkoski herself, one in which she did not deny the allegations.
Satisfied that those and other concerns were worth airing, I opted to contact the Murkowski campaign itself. I can assure you, as I did them, I don't take putting the words Senator and cocaine in the same headline lightly. After a brief call with her campaign manager, I sent them the questions below in writing, as requested. Given a lack of response, I then texted and emailed her campaign manager, telling him I would treat the lack of response as a no comment.
1) Has Senator Murkowski ever used cocaine recreationally prior to her holding elective office at the state, or federal level? Has she ever shared same in the past, without cost, with friends and or associates, including at a then downtown Anchorage restaurant owned by her husband?
2) It's also been alleged that this was something of an open secret within a relatively small circle of friends and associates in Alaska. If true, is that a correct characterization?
3)Has the Senator ever been confronted with said allegations? If so, how did she respond?
4) Has her husband, Verne Martell, ever been involved with a police matter in California? Did Lisa's father Frank ever use his influence to minimize said matter, if not in essence, make it go away? Has she ever been approached by CA or AK media in this regard?
5) Finally, as it will likely be briefly re-visited in a pending item, the Senator recently spoke well of PMBR, see link below, despite its having been hit with an 11.9 million dollar judgment for copyright violation. Would the campaign care to comment as to how her experience with PMBR relates to the copyright issue? Any comment as to any concerns that the acknowledged assistance from PMBR could be construed as her having gained insight to copyrighted questions for which (bar exam) testing candidates should not have had access?
After weeks of networking through contacts in Alaska, I ultimately reached attorney Richard (Rick) J. Helms who was keenly aware of similar allegations, evidently as a result of his having challenged Lisa Murkowski in her first bid for office back in 1998. “I received many calls back then alleging that Ms. Murkowski used cocaine in substantial amounts for a prolonged period of time" said Helms. While Helms ran against Murkowski as a Republican in 1998, he's currently registered non-partisan.
Said Helms, “I told some of the callers that if the information, well if the information if it was true it was clearly a felony crime, and they could contact the police or the District Attorney, or if they wanted even Crime Stoppers where they could remain anonymous. The answer was almost always the same which was “they won’t do anything because she’s Lisa Murkowski, or she is Frank’s daughter.”"
Helms claims to have brought the allegations directly to the attention of Murkowski back then in a private conversation at the television studios of KAKM television, where they were appearing together at a candidate forum called "Running."
Murkowski did not deny the allegations, though Helms did then tell her he did not plan to inject them into their campaign - and he didn't. Days after, Murkowski is said to have followed up with a note. "She sent me a handwritten note a couple of days later with some comments about the party, issues and mentioned that she would hold me to my word regarding me not mentioning the cocaine during our campaign.”
It's believed that some of the sources for the allegations may have been law enforcement officials disgruntled that, as Alaska has a history of battling drug abuse issues, the daughter of an elected official would brazenly skirt the law by indulging in cocaine, including somewhat openly at a downtown Anchorage restaurant then owned by her husband, Verne Martell.
The similarities of the allegations, Murkowski's refusal to deny them, both then and now, along with her obvious concern over them given her note to Helms, as well as off the record reports via other sources, have convinced me that the allegations are serious enough to be aired. One would think that someone with Murkowski's political ambition would have denied them straight up the first time she heard them, were there nothing there, perhaps even forcefully.
Her campaign also could have simply denied them to me either by phone, or email. Why didn't they? Were they afraid to say anything before finding out just exactly what is, or isn't known, for now?
As regards the issue involving her husband and a possible legal problem in California, as I told her campaign manager, I know very little of that. When we first spoke, Helms informed me that he was contacted by the Alaska Daily News at some point after the election and was left with the impression that they and another McClatchy newspaper based in California were investigating such a story, one for which he claims to have no additional knowledge.
I also asked her campaign about PMBR and its known problems, as I couldn't believe this item when it appeared in the news from Alaska just days ago. Are there even any journalists in Alaska?
Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News last week that she didn't pass the Alaska bar exam until her fifth try. The multiple choice portion of the test gave Murkowski particular trouble until she took a preparatory course in Oregon offered by PMBR, Murkowski said. She was so impressed by the course that she went on to be the company's representative in Alaska for several years after that, according to the Daily News.
Murkowski may have been impressed enough with PMBR to work for and brag about it but the National Association of Bar Examiners certainly wasn't. As I reported on August 30th during the primary, they sued and won an 11.9 million dollar settlement against them for stealing copyrighted questions to the bar exam ... in Alaska, of all places. Unlike many states, I believe Alaska allowed for limited access to writing materials. The state presented a unique opportunity for the firm to gain access to questions used nationally.
And that's the firm Murkoski went to after failing the exam four times. Doesn't that at lest raise some question as to what steps Murkowski may have undertaken to pass an exam she was unable to pass on her own? Did she fail it, or was she gathering questions for her current, or future employer each time through? Not every client of PMBR would know what they were eventually found to be doing. But Murkowski would have been in a unique position to know given her home state and subsequent relationship with them.
Whatever the case, as with the cocaine allegations, Murkowski's campaign refused to comment on it when asked.
The events giving rise to this lawsuit began with the February 2003 administration of the Alaska Bar exam, which was taken by Defendant Robert Feinberg, the PMBR creator and CEO, and 3 Dorothy Benson, another PMBR employee. After time was called, Feinberg attempted to leave the examination room with handwritten notes and Benson was found to have similar notes on her desk. Although Alaska is one of the few jurisdictions that allows note taking during the MBE, removal of those notes from the exam site is forbidden. After disclosure of the Alaska incident, Plaintiff obtained PMBR materials and found, so it alleges, many questions similar to those used on the MBE.
And that brings us back to what I candidly consider the character flaw of Lisa Murkowski's that led me to take a deeper look in he first place. She stood in front of voters at a forum in Kenai and told them point blank she would abide by the outcome of the primary. But she didn't do that.
As was widely reported, immediately after losing, she approached the Libertarian Party more than once in a seemingly desperate effort to get back on the ballot no matter what kind of deal she had to make.
And now, there she stands, Union and Leftist candidate Lisa Murkowski, loudly proclaiming to be all about what the people want - after the people in her own party rejected her. Now, she's in a desperate bid to hold on to a postion of power she didn't initially earn - her father appointed her, which caused a furor in Alaska at the time ( see dubious land deal she and her husband were caught in at that link, as well.) Should we be surprised?
In point of fact, if her write-in bid assures any outcome, it's that a majority of Alaska's voters may not come together around any one individual to represent them in Washington. Frankly, I don't believe Lisa Murkowski gives a damn about the people, or what they might want.
So, what to make of Lisa Murkowski, given her and her campaign's inability, or lack of desire, to speak to these issues when asked? Does she look like a proud public servant born to serve? Or the child of a powerful man filled with such an undeserved sense of entitlement, she would flout her state's drug laws by snorting coke in some downtown bar, while aspiring to a position where she gets to pass them, once she managed to pass the bar exam and daddy had the nerve to appoint her, of course?
Alaska's voters will have to decide that one for themselves. But given a lack of response to the valid questions for which I received no response, I'm left to draw my own conclusions. Based on what I've seen and heard, both on and off the record, Lisa Murkowski represents the absolute worst of American politics.
Hopefully enough Alaskans exercise sound judgment and reject the little girl Senator that daddy made, just as her own political party did. Taking it all in, frankly, I'm not convinced she's capable of accomplishing much of anything on her own. So, who knows, perhaps Miller will end up winning, after all.
