Revenge is a dish best served cold

...and so Tom Daschle may have some reasons to be smug.

Now, I have no great love for Tom Daschle, who to me represented everything the Democratic Party has devolved into -- corporate whore AND Republican whipping-bitch. But the guy who defeated him, John Thune, is just the kind of jut-jawed Bob Forehead/Bob Roberts Republican phony by whom voters allow themselves to be seduced and then regret it later on.

Well, this latest Republican Paragon of Virtue may be in some serious trouble -- or would be, if corruption and venality weren't required for membership in the Republican Party, and if Clean Slate Christianity weren't the party's official religion.

Via Americablog comes yet another tired story of financial corruption, this time involving Mr. John All-American Boy Thune.

It seems that MetaBank of Sioux Falls loaned a car dealership, Dan Nelson Automotive, some $30 million over a period of time ending in the fall of 2004. The dealership filed for bankruptcy in the spring of 2005 in the middle of a state Attorney General investigation for consumer fraud, with $28 million still owed to MetaBank -- representing 94% of the dealership's outstanding debt -- that's 7.2% of the bank's total assets.

The Clean Cut Kid explains why this is an issue:

So the timeline now looks like this: 1) Nelson becomes aware of the Iowa fraud investigation in September of 2004. 2) Nelson secures loans from MetaBank as late as October of 2004. 3) Nelson files for bankruptcy in June of 2005.

In just the last year, the bank has gone through a name change. Previously known in various incarnations as First Federal Savings, First Midwest Financial, and Security State Bank, the company changed the name of all of their banking divisions to MetaBank this year.

The name change is significant because without being aware of it, you wouldn’t make the connection between MetaBank being named as Dan Nelson Automotive’s most significant creditor and the fact that South Dakota Senator John Thune sat on the board of First Federal Savings/First Midwest Financial/Security State Bank from January 27, 2003 until November 18, 2004. In fact, Thune sat on the Audit Committee for the institution. According to Personal Financial Disclosure Reports required by the Senate for candidates, Thune was in a fiduciary relationship with the institution by being paid $35,750 as a board member.

Now all of this doesn’t really mean a whole lot except for the fact that Thune and Dan Nelson, who owns 75% of Nelson Automotive, are close friends. So close that Nelson managed Thune’s first run for Congress in 1996. So close that Nelson contributed $9,000 to Thune’s campaigns over the years. Nearly half of that amount came into Thune’s coffers while Thune was serving on MetaBank’s board. Thune and Nelson are so close that a search of the Senator’s Federal Election Commission Reports show Thune disbursed funds to Dan Nelson Automotive in 2004 to the tune of nearly $90,000 for vehicle leases and renting office space.

A strange twist and side note to this discussion is that one of the properties where MetaBank holds a lien as part of the $30 million in loans was the very property Nelson was leasing to Thune — one of the members of the board of directors. Strange indeed.

Taking all of these facts into consideration, there are serious questions about the relationship between Thune and Nelson. Serious because it involves a United States Senator. Serious because it involves a bank in the middle of it all that is publicly traded on NASDAQ. Serious because Nelson was still borrowing money from MetaBank after Nelson was aware of an investigation into their business practices.

When Thune accepted a position on the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of MetaBank, did he disclose that he had a relationship with one of their significant customers and agree to recuse himself from matters regarding that customer? Should he have even done so? How about his duties on the Audit Committee? Did his duties there include overseeing any aspect of the lending process? Was he privy to Nelson’s financial status at all and if so, did he disclose any concerns to his employer or did he do nothing? As close as Thune and Nelson appear to be, one really has to wonder about all of these things because with what we know as fact, something just doesn’t look right.

Of course, given that Thune has over four more years in his term, and this would be greeted among Senate Republicans with "He helped his buddy. So what's the problem?", it's highly unlikely that anything is going to happen to this pod-person of a Senator. Of course for those who think that a member of a bank board of directors funnelling bank money to a friend who's under investigation is perfectly OK, then explain to me how losing money in a land deal gone bad 25 years ago warrants a $70 million impeachment investigation.