Bumstead Sees Fed Ed's McCord Connection, Too

Brad Bumsted, a journalist at The Pittsburgh Tribune, sees the same connection between Fed Ed and Rob McCord that I wrote about last week.

It's hard to read the tea leaves in a secretive federal investigation. But my best guess is that a state contractor, alarmed at McCord's shakedown, called the feds. They got a court order for a wiretap. They caught McCord in the act — like telling a neighbor in Montgomery County to tell his boss at a Philadelphia law firm doing business with Treasury: “If (McCord) loses and you stiffed him, every time you are trying to get something done through state government, you are going to have the state Treasurer looking to screw you,” according to federal documents.

The feds dropped the hammer on McCord. He went all out to cooperate. He wore a wire. Exactly when that began is unclear. McCord resigned and pleaded guilty in quick succession.

McCord gave them Fleck and maybe more. Now the FBI owns Fleck. He agreed to wear a wire and record some of his clients. They issued subpoenas for a slew of documents in Allentown and Reading with many similarities.

It's the timing that suggests this pattern. McCord's resignation and plea in February — then his sentencing conference set for June was postponed. The subpoenas were then served this month in Allentown and Reading.

Bumstead is also the journalist who reported that Alan Kessler, whose name appears on the FBI subpoena list, was Hillary Clinton's national finance chair in her 2008 Presidential bid.