An administrative law judge dismissed campaign-finance complaints against Gov. Bill Ritter for misusing inaugural money and took the rare step of ordering the Republican who filed them to pay the governor's legal fees, reports Jessica Fender.
Ritter announced the finance violations himself in April and blamed his former campaign manager for using more than $217,000 from an inaugural account to repay the 2006 campaign debt. Ritter is raising funds to repay that debt.
Plaintiff and state Rep. Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs on Tuesday alleged political favoritism and said he plans to appeal the decision, which called his complaint "substantially groundless."
I don't think the governor had anything personally to do with this, although his apparent lack of oversight is a bit disconcerting. Still I don't think we know anything close to the whole story yet. Ritter's former campaign manager Greg Kolomitz has setup a defense fund and has not hidden the fact that he feels that he has been thrown under the bus by Ritter. Many of the other people who would have had access to the accounts and been aware of what was happening are now in the administration. Would they sacrifice Kolomitz to cover for them?
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