Williams Mullen Voter Fraud Scandal

Williams Mullen- the employer of Jerry Kilgore (Chair of Government Relations and Terri Suit (Government Affairs Director), has been implicated by the Virginian Pilot of being the location where the illegal (and racially targeted) Obama-Sessoms flyer originated in Virginia Beach.

Is Williams Mullen trying to get a reputation for being the place where vanquished or disgraced Republican officials go to retire and commit voter fraud?

(HT:  VBDems)

UPDATE:  Check this out- every member of the Williams Mullen Government Relations Team is white!!  And then we learn that's where the racially targeted flyer was handed out?!?!?

Hmmmm.........

Comments

[55]

Come on, the race card is so overused. You of all people, who was so outraged by what they were trying to do to Hillary, should feel the same way.

[spotter]

Let's see, Norfolk State students went to a scheduled training for Sessoms poll workers at the Williams Mullen law firm and were given the misleading and illegal fliers and instructed to hand them out to black voters in black precincts.

And you think NLS is overplaying "the race card"?

Exactly what planet do you live on?

However wrong you think this is, it is clearly not "voter fraud" and NLS should change the heading. Voter fraud involves falsifying ballots and/ or voter registration and has nothing to do with handing out flyers... no matter how misleading they are.

[Shades of Light]

This is a yellow blog entry.

Further, Bill Harrison is NOT a Republican.

[spotter]

Republican or opportunist or both, sometimes the difference is very slim to non-existent in Va. Beach.

http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/4082?start_year=2005&end_year=2008&lookup_type=year&filing_period=all&filter_cmte=all&filter_cmte_radio=all&order=amount&page=1

[spotter]

By the way, all the "others" on that donations list, including Sessoms, are Republicans.

[Phillip Paul]

Come on, go easy on the Republicans! IT'S ALL THEY'VE GOT LEFT!
They've been exposed as two-timing liars (I still have a car tax), wasteful spenders (state budget increased 125% under their rule), big government advocates(HB3202) and nasty, nasty, nasty campaigners(attack on Tricia Stall in 2007 primary), so all they've got left is to falsify hand-out flyers and sit on the sidelines making nasty comments and throwing mud, whenever and wherever they can! What's a Brian Kirwin to do? Mullens, Smullens, its all the Republicans have left!

"It is clearly not 'voter fraud'.... Voter fraud involves falsifying ballots and/or voter registration and has nothing to do with handing out flyers... no matter how misleading they are."

So let me get this straight. It's not voter fraud because an ordinary would-be voter didn't defraud a candidate, right?

Instead, a well-heeled, well-funded, well-established Republican candidate deliberately defrauded ordinary voters.

Worse, he did it with the direct participation and knowing involvement of a well-heeled, well-funded, well-established supposedly "ethical" and "professional" Republican law firm.

You're right. It's not voter fraud. It's candidate fraud. A Republican candidate willfully defrauding the voters. With the help of Williams Mullen.

Disgraceful.

Yes, NLS, please change the headline. This is so much more serious than voter fraud.

[CarolineProgressive]

Every member of the Williams Mullen Government Relations Team is white? That's unpossible!

Ben Tribbett conveniently omits that Bill Axselle, a partner on the WM government relations team, is a former Democratic member of the House of Delegates. Or is Ben really that out of the loop?

Besides, where does the flyer say that Sessoms supports Obama?

It's plain ol simple fraud. And a law firm that holds a good reputation should be greatly embarrassed by this. It certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

[spotter]

The anonymous commenter above, who is obviously from Williams Mullen (who else would call the firm "WM"?), conveniently omits that Bill Axselle gave $1100 to the Gilmore Inaugural Committee. I don't know too many so-called Democrats who have done that.

http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/7565?end_year=2008&filter_cmte=all&filter_cmte_radio=all&lookup_type=year&order=amount&page=1&start_year=1996

To answer the obvious: "where does the flyer say that Sessoms supports Obama?"

The flier says "for." "Obama for President." "Will Sessoms for Va. Beach Mayor. Please look up the meaning of the word "for," and report back to us what you have learned.

Ronald Reagan was a Democrat before he was a Republican.

[7:19]

7:35,

My question was, "Besides, where does the flyer say that Sessoms supports Obama?" The flyer doesn't say Sessoms was for Obama. It says Obama was running for president. Even if you were going to assume the "for" stated a preference rather than associating a candidate with an office, the flyer doesn't say it was Sessoms' preference.

I don't work for WM and never have. Anyone who doesn't want to use the full name would use "WM," just like people use Troutman for TroutmanSanders or Hirschler for HirschlerFleischer. But you can't use just "Williams" for WM because it could be confused with H&W (even though that's usually called Hunton). But obviously you know nothing about lobbying or lobbyists in Richmond.

Which is probably why you don't know that lots of lobbyists of both parties give to gubernatorial inaugural committees. Like Ben Dendy (former legislative assistant to Governor Chuck Robb (that's a D, by the way) and Secretary to the Cabinet, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and Special Assistant to the Governor under Robb and Governor Jerry Baliles (another D)) who gave $1000 to the Gilmore committee. So did the law firm of Wilder & Gregory, that conservative redoubt whose partners were former Governor Wilder (another D) and Roger Gregory (who President Clinton (another D) put on the 4th Circuit). And those are just two I quickly pulled off the same list on VPAP you could have used if you had bothered doing any objective research.

I have looked at this flyer numerous times and still can not find where it says that Sessions supports Obama.

splotter must have ridden the short bus to school. I think he needs to go back to remedial reading.

[spotter]

He doesn't. That's the point. It's a lie.

And it's illegal because it doesn't say who paid for it.

Most respectable law firms try to avoid disseminating illegal materials in their conference rooms. "WM" must have a different standard.

If you are trying to defend this firm's reputation, or Sessoms' reputation, or Billy Harrison's reputation, you are doing a very poor job.

You might want to consider that every time you post one of these laughable comments, you are making this story more and more conspicuous on any search system.

Keep it up, and keep throwing in insults like "the short bus." They only drag this firm further into the muck.

If Sessoms has the poor judgment to run again, I promise you that I will arrange to pass out this same flier at my expense in every North Beach/Alanton/Great Neck Republican precinct, with proper attribution. Then we will see what the public thinks it means.

[Gnarly]

What's illegal about them? What's unethical about them? What does any of this have to do with race? This post is RACIST!!

[7:18 & 9:56]

I'm not trying to defend anyone's reputation, so I don't care how conspicuous the story is. And I'm not saying that the flyer complies with the legal requirements to display the committee's name (it looks like it's being distributed by a group called "African Americans for Change in Va Beach") and SBE registration information.

What I am saying is that the flyer doesn't say anywhere that Sessoms supports Obama. You wrote, "He doesn't. That's the point. It's a lie." Well, there is no lie because the flyer doesn't say he supports Obama. And my point in commenting originally, at 7:18, was to point out that Ben Tribbett either had incomplete information when he posted or purposefully selectively omitted relevant facts in his rush to try to score partisan points.

[spotter]

"Anyone who doesn't want to use the full name would use "WM," just like people use Troutman for TroutmanSanders or Hirschler for HirschlerFleischer. But you can't use just "Williams" for WM because it could be confused with H&W (even though that's usually called Hunton). But obviously you know nothing about lobbying or lobbyists in Richmond."

"There is no lie because the flyer doesn't say he supports Obama."

No, I don't know anything about lobbying, and I don't plan to find out. And I really could care less about the Richmond firms around which your world apparently revolves.

I am a citizen of Virginia Beach, and I find it appalling that my new Mayor apparently gained public office in part by passing out illegal and fraudulent fliers implying that he supported Barack Obama and vice versa.

He did that through paid staff in a conference room at the Williams Mullen law firm, recruiting and paying NSU fraternity brothers and specifically instructing them to pass these illegal fliers out in specified majority black precincts and to give them to black voters. When the tv cameras showed up, he pulled the fliers.

Before you tell me again that you don't see the connection, consider this: Sessoms obviously saw the connection, or he wouldn't have done it. And Billy Harrison's law firm wouldn't have helped him do it.

By your reasoning, a "McCain Palin" bumper sticker does not imply that McCain supports Palin, or that Palin supports McCain, or that the owner of the car supports either McCain or Palin. No, it simply states "McCain Palin," and the two are running for office, and their names just happened to land on the same bumper sticker, which just happened to land on the bumper of some random car. Because we are obtuse supporters of Williams Mullen, we will inanely repeat that we can draw no more conclusions than that.

Pathetic.

[Phillip Paul]

I smell a Brian Kirwin post here! Oh my, the stench of over-powering! Its a good thing that his acting career will take him away from politics! That Chuckie Cheese part has really paid off!!!

[7:18 & 9:56]

I am not contesting that the flyer *implied* that Sessoms supported Obama; I only said that the flyer doesn't *say* Sessoms supported Obama. As far as party ticket bumper stickers goes, it depends on who's paying for them: if the Democratic Party of Virginia pays for a Kaine-Byrne-Deeds sticker in 2005, that says that the DPVA supports all three; it doesn't mean that Kaine supports Byrne or Deeds, that Byrne supports Deeds or Kaine, or that Deeds supports Kaine or Byrne.

Here, the flyer doesn't say who paid for it. It looks like "African Americans for Change in Va Beach" paid for it. And that, incidentally, is why it's illegal--because it apparently violates Code § 24.2-956.1--not because it supposedly says that Sessoms supports Obama.

And if I were a WM supporter, I probably wouldn't even agree that the flyer was illegal. I don't support or oppose WM; I just support greater accuracy in blog posts like this one.

[spotter]

6:33 - Please read the comment above 10 times fast and let us know whether you are able to remain conscious.

Does spotter believe African Americans are incapable of supporting candidates of opposite parties? does he/she believe that they will see the name Obama and immediately cast a vote for whoever else has their name beside it?

Talk about racist stereotyping. Not only is spotter unable to understand the written word, he/she seems to be a bigot also.

[spotter]

African-Americans can support whoever they choose, as can any voter.

Will Sessoms doesn't seem to believe in that concept, though, since his paid campaign workers were instructed to give these illegal, fraudulent fliers to African-American voters. If he believed they could choose independently, he would not have resorted to fraud and cheating.

spotter,
If you believed they would be of no effect, you would not have a problem with them. Your consistent focus on this shows that you believe the recipients of these fliers are incapable of independent thought and need to be saved from their own ignorance from people like you. You seem to believe that because one may be black he is unable to distinguish fact. That kind of bigoted elitist attitude is typical of your ilk.

I believe that all voters (regardless of race) should be able to look at these flyers and have enough intelligence to form their own conclusion.
With that, I will leave you with your racist elitism.

[Someone at WilliamsMullen]

I am an African American that works at Williams Mullen. I need my job and I am fearful of retaliation, which is very common at WilliamsMullen, so I am not going to give my name. The firm has a history of discrimination towards non-whites and women. Many of the Partners are members of the private Commonwealth Club in Richmond (Main office). Commonwealth Club is an all white, male club that publicly excludes blacks and women. Everybody in Richmond knows that. As a black person, working here at the firm, it is very hard for me to swallow my pride everyday for the sake of my family, but I do. Times are tough and I do what I have to save my family. There was a recent article in the STYLE magazine ( local Richmond magazine ) regarding all the EEOC charges that are files against Williams Mullen. It is all true. Jerry Kilgore is based out of the Richmond office. The firm has no trouble revoking individual rights. Williams Mullen has a Labor Section that has a reputation for smashing unions and any employee rights. They are very proud of this fact. I am looking for another job but I will have to endure until then. For those of you who think it’s just a disgruntle employee ranting and raving, just do a little research and you will find the evidence. Look at the Williams Mullen website and try to find a African American in any photo. Check out the EEOC charges. Enough said.

5:36 is spot on. Look at the info for WilliamsMullen from the NALP Directory: http://tinyurl.com/6cg7kq

This is information WilliamsMullen itself *voluntarily* reports to the National Association for Law Placement, an organization collecting information for use by law students looking for work.

309 lawyers. 5 are black (bad news for 5:36--if you're a lawyer at WilliamsMullen, they have a 20% of finding you if they just draw names out of a hat), 3 are Latino, 4 are Asian, 2 are mixed. The rest are all white. 14 minorities out of 309. That's less than 5% of the entire professional staff.

Look at the partners, where the real decisions are made--that's even worse. 206 partners. 2 Latinos, 1 Black, 1 Asian. 4 of 206. That's less than 2%.

Thanks, Someone. Williams Mullen's reputation is well-known. I cannot fathom why the Virginia Beach office would want to emulate that history, but they're obviously doing their best.

You really need to try to find another job -- it's not worth it.

Thanks, Someone. Williams Mullen's reputation is well-known. I cannot fathom why the Virginia Beach office would want to emulate that history, but they're obviously doing their best.

You really need to try to find another job -- it's not worth it.

[spotter]

And now a special prosecutor has been appointed.

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/special-prosecutor-look-sessoms-election-fliers

Just came in to say hello. been narrow gaugin' for 10 years

[generic viagra]

daughter of a respectable Parisian, made a fortune on counterfeiting of art, she learned that her father threatens to expose.
Thank you

[Miami Information]

I really hate fraud, is disgusting.
I can't understand why peolple makes fraud, is so unfair.

[xl pharmacy]

Is something every day in every country of the world fraud is more like a cancer that governs the people with abuse of power that the people have given