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Louisiana Inspector General issues power puff scolding of Jindal for presidential campaign letter on state web page

Posted in Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Media on May 29, 2015| 18 Comments »

You have to hand it to Inspector General Stephen Street. When he finds Bobby Jindal in violation of the law, he comes down hard. With all the force of a powder puff.

Reacting to a complaint from C.B. Forgotston over Jindal’s use of his office’s taxpayer-funded web page and public salaried employees of the governor’s office to issue a press release critical of Republican presidential nomination candidate Sen. Rand Paul on Thursday, Street took all of two days is issue a less than scathing report on the matter. Statement from Inspector General 5-29-2015

Jindal, who is expected to announce his candidacy next month, issued the press release that said Rand was “unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief” for saying American foreign policy was instrumental in the creation of ISIS.

Louisiana Democratic Party Executive Director Stephen Handwerk called for an investigation by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell and Forgotston filed a complaint with Street’s office.

Jindal, for his part, defended the release through mouthpiece Mike Reed who offered one of the lamest of the lame in defenses in saying, “Matters of national security are very important to Louisianians, and Louisiana is home to many American soldiers. The suggestion that the governor of Louisiana cannot or should not comment on matters of national security is without merit.”

What? Mudslides, drought, forest fires and earthquakes are important to the folks in California. Floods are important to those unfortunate people in Texas and Oklahoma and at least a dozen states have been plagued with tornadoes. Why doesn’t he issue a press release criticizing nature?

It wasn’t the first time Bobby defended a really bad idea. Remember those $250 million berms he insisted on building in the Gulf to catch all that oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster? Despite advice from all the experts that the idea was a bad one, he plunged ahead (no pun intended) and what happened? The berms and the bulldozers hauled in to build them up simply disappeared into the depths of the Gulf waters. And even after all that, he continued to insist the berms were a good idea.

Too bad Jindal has not been as tuned in to the matters of fiscal insecurity that are also important to Louisianians. If he were, perhaps the state wouldn’t be finding it necessary to slash higher education and health care budgets. Health care, after all, is pretty important to Louisianians, too—especially to those who don’t have it because of Bobby Jindal. So are our roads and bridges and coastal erosion—things a sitting governor should be devoting his attention to instead of remarks by a potential political rival.

Forgotston, prior to Street’s crushing blow to Jindal, wrote, “While you are working on the response to my complaint about the governor violating the state constitution, please include your position on his violation of this felony statute:

  • R.S. 18:1465.  Prohibited use of public funds
  • A.  No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated to a candidate or political organization.  This provision shall not prohibit the use of public funds for dissemination of factual information relative to a proposition appearing on an election ballot.
  • B.  Whoever violates any provision of this Section shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, or both.

Street, for his part, showed all the backbone of a jellyfish in his Friday release that followed his thorough, two-day investigation of Jindal’s taxpayer-funded campaign release tirade.

After reprinting Jindal’s statement, Street went on to say, “It is a matter of record that Senator Rand Paul has announced his candidacy for President of the United States and has a website…through which he is raising money to support his campaign. However, as qualifying for the Louisiana Presidential Primary will not take place until December of 2015, it is unclear at this time whether Senator Paul is a “candidate” as contemplated by …the Louisiana Constitution.

“Louisiana Revised Statute 18:451 reads, in pertinent part, as follows:

  • A person who meets the qualifications for the office he seeks may become a candidate and be voted on in a primary or general election if he qualifies as a candidate in the election.

He also cited a statute which, while defining the word candidate, “specifically excludes those seeking the Presidency of the United States from the definition.” He said inasmuch as that provision is in the chapter dealing with campaign finance, it is unclear how broadly it applies to the Louisiana Constitution).

Street, while dancing around the issue, did acknowledge that the applicable section of constitution “is intended to protect public funds and therefore raises questions about the use of public funds in this instance that resulted in the complaints filed with this office. The governor’s office could have easily avoided such questions by issuing the statement through means that did not involve the use of public funds or employees,” he said, adding that his office “recommends that in order to avoid confusion and any appearance of impropriety in the future, any such statements by the governor be issued through non-publicly funded means rather than through his publicly funded and maintained state website.”

Wow. Jindal must feel like Street jerked a half-hitch in his neck with that devastating report.

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Holy ethics violations, Batman! Now it’s Bobby Jindal in violation of law by using state web page to attack opponent

Posted in Auditor, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Senate, State Agencies, Vitter on May 27, 2015| 15 Comments »

No sooner did we call U.S. Sen. David Vitter out for potential improprieties for using his Senate franking privileges to gain an edge over his three opponents in this year’s gubernatorial election than our old friend C.B. Forgotston send us evidence of an even more flagrant misuse of his office for similar reasons.

It’s enough to make you wonder what the hell goes through these politicians’ minds except that we already know: they are so convinced they are above the law that they couldn’t care less what the great unwashed think about their flaunting of the rules.

We’ve previously reported Jindal’s acceptance of tainted campaign contributions from the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (non-profits are prohibited from making campaign contributions), laundered money from a St. Tammany Parish bank board of directors (without the 11 directors’ awareness they were “contributing” $5,000 each to Jindal) and the head of Florida’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme who funneled $30,000 in contributions to Jindal from himself, his wife and his law firm.

Within an hour of posting the story about Vitter’s use of franking privileges to promote his gubernatorial campaign, LouisianaVoice’s email exploded with messages about Jindal’s latest post on the governor’s web page, paid for by Louisiana taxpayer dollars.

The first email was from Forgotston, who has fired off a letter to Inspector General Stephen Street demanding an answer to his inquiry as to the legality of Jindal’s “press release” on Tuesday.

So what, exactly, is all the fuss about?

Quite simply, Jindal used the state computer and web page (and presumably a state employee) to gin out a “press release” personally attacking one of Jindal’s probable opponents for the Republican nomination for president under the headline “Gov. Jindal: Senator Paul unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief.” http://www.gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&articleID=4965

Paul, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, is an announced candidate for the Republican nomination. https://randpaul.com/

And what did Paul do or say that prompted Jindal to ignore legal constraints on the use of state web pages? Apparently, Paul said something to the effect that ISIS exists because of the U.S. hawkish foreign policy—a claim, by the way, that we cannot entirely disagree with.

“This is a perfect example of why Senator Paul is unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief,” Jindal whined.

Except he did his whining on a state-funded web page and that immediately invoked the wrath of a number of readers and Forgotston, who once worked as a legal counsel for the legislature, is not the one you want to tick off when it comes to matters concerning the state constitution.

In his email to Street, Forgotston began by describing the Jindal press release as “a violation of Louisiana Constitution, Article XI, 4.”

In case you don’t want to take the time to open the link, it says that while there is no prohibition against the use of public funds to disseminate factual information about a proposition appearing on an election ballot, “no public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated to a candidate or political organization.”

“It (the press release) clearly urges a vote against U.S. Senator Rand Paul for President of the United States,” he said. “The press release was issued by state employees (the release contained the names of Shannon Bates Dirmann and Shannon, Deputy Communications Director for the Governor’s Office) and has no disclaimer that public funds were not used.

“If this is not a violation of the law, please advise why it isn’t,” Forgotston said. He ended his email by writing, in all caps, “A RESPONSE IS REQUESTED,” which he said “is not directed to any recipients of his email other than the State Inspector General.”

In case any of our readers also would like to submit a similar question to the OIG, here is Street’s email address: stephen.street@la.gov.

Forgotston said he will also share his concerns with Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera.

As Forgotston himself is fond of saying: you can’t make this stuff up.

 

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Vitter may be making use of U.S. Senate franking privilege to unfair advantage over his three opponents in governor’s race

Posted in Elections, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Senate, Vitter on May 27, 2015| 14 Comments »

 

U.S. Sen. David Vitter could be setting himself up for a repeat of ethics complaints over a perceived use of his Senate franking privileges in his campaign for governor.

The congressional franking privilege, which originated in 1775, allows members of Congress to send official notices, brochures and updates to constituents back home under their signature without having to pay postage. Congress, through legislative appropriations, reimburses the U.S. Postal Service for franked mail it handles.

Vitter is not a candidate for re-election in the 2016 election but instead is running to succeed Bobby Jindal as governor against three other candidates. He is making full use of his franking privileges to announce town hall meetings across the state to address local issues. One such mail-out has caught the attention of LouisianaVoice.

Reform efforts over the past two decades have reduced overall franking expenditures from $113.4 million in fiscal year 1988 to $16.9 million in FY 2014 and even then, many of the mail-outs are simply tossed unread by recipients back home. Much of that reduction can be attributed to a shift to electronic communications rather than any real reform of the practice.

Franking has come under wide criticism by opponents of the privilege who say it:

  • Is financially wasteful;
  • Has become outdated with the introduction of other forms of communication, i.e. e-mail;
  • Is abused for private and political gain;
  • Gives unfair advantages to incumbents in congressional elections.

The last two could be cited as giving Vitter an unfair edge in this fall’s governor’s race. While he is not running for re-election, he is a candidate for governor and his Senate franking privileges could be looked upon as an unfair advantage over fellow Republicans—Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne—and Democrat State Rep. John Bel Edwards who are also running for governor.

Franking rules strictly prohibit incumbents from actually soliciting votes when the mail-outs are done on the taxpayer dime but they do not preclude addressing hot button issues like immigration, social security, veterans’ benefits, etc.

In 2009, Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Chris Whittington filed an official ethics complaint against Vitter for his verbal attacks on U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, an eventual opponent in Vitter’s 2010 re-election campaign. Those attacks were made in local meetings pursuant to mass mail-outs by Vitter via the franking privilege.

Whittington said Vitter, by explicitly invoking the name of Melancon in his so-called town hall meetings, publicized in advance by franking mail-outs, crossed the line from official business (the supposed purpose of franking) to campaigning.

Though the words “vote for…” never appeared in any of Vitter’s mailings, reports from his town hall meetings across the state made it clear that he mentioned Melancon often. Vitter in turn charged that the Democrats were trying to “shut down the debate and suggest that it’s somehow out of bounds. Well, it’s not out of bounds because this is still America,” he said.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/08/22/770585/-LA-Sen-Louisiana-Dems-File-Ethics-Complaint-Against-Sen-Vitter#

In Vitter’s most recent franking mail-out, he issued an invitation to one of his town hall meetings on Monday, June 1 in the chambers of the East Baton Rouge Council “to discuss possible solutions to relieve traffic congestion. We’ll also discuss efforts like working to pass a long-term highway reauthorization bill that would help to update our roads and bridges,” the announcement said. IMAG0721(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

While strictly interpreted, such a discussion could easily be passed off as a federal concern with federal roads and highways crisscrossing East Baton Rouge Parish. That, along with the unquestioned problem of traffic congestion experienced by local motorists, could easily be construed by Vitter as a Senate-related issue.

We have no way of knowing at this point, but it would seem a safe bet that similar town hall meetings have been or will be announced by Vitter via franking in other parts of the state to discuss other pressing problems.

But coming as it does in the middle of what promises to be a heated election season in Louisiana, it would appear to give Vitter a decided—and unfair—advantage over his three opponents who do not have the luxury of free campaign mail-outs.

Nor would it be the first time Vitter has skated on the edge of campaign rules.

In January of 2014, Vitter was up against a state law that prohibited him from using his seven-figure campaign funds amassed as a federal office-holder for a state campaign.

No problem for a manipulators like Vitter and Charlie Spies, a Republican lawyer who was instrumental in launching Mitt Romney’s largest super PAC. In early 2013, Spies created the Fund for Louisiana’s Future and registered the super PAC both federally and in Louisiana in order “to support Sen. Vitter whether he ran for re-election to the Senate or for governor.”

Thus did Vitter become perhaps the first politician in the U.S. to be the largest single funder of his own super PAC.

A former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission said Vitter’s funding of his own super PAC, unprecedented to that point, raised the issue of the separation of super PACs and a candidate’s campaign “to a new level.”

Another observer, Paul Ryan, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, said the existing Louisiana prohibition of the use of federal campaign funds in a state campaign was the only plausible reason for a candidate ceding control of his own campaign funds by transferring cash from his federal campaign to his gubernatorial campaign.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/how-david-vitter-shattered-another-campaign-finance-rule-20140601

Stand by, folks. This election campaign promises to be a tad out of the ordinary, even by Louisiana’s unique standards.

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Jindal discards all pretense of sanity, compassion with his executive order on Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act

Posted in Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on May 19, 2015| 28 Comments »

 

b4ac09e9355fe66141a07e0ff68bc8e0_ebrf[1](CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

The metaphorical ink wasn’t even dry on the Baton Rouge Advocate web page story (yeah, we know, there’s no ink—or paper—on the internet) about Grovernor (as in Grover Norquist) Jindal’s decision to issue an executive order to do what the Legislature, in a rare flash of clarity, refused to do—approve House Bill 707 by State Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Bossier City)—when outraged comments from irate readers began appearing.

The House Civil Law Committee voted 10-2 to return Johnson’s silly yet dangerous Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act bill to the calendar, a move that effectively kills the bill this session.

The grovernor immediately went on the attack by issuing his executive order to accomplish what legislators wisely would not—put in place the necessary protection for businesses to discriminate against gays. http://theadvocate.com/news/12415408-123/house-panel-effectively-kills-religious

“It’s not about discrimination,” Grovernor Jindal insisted. “It’s about protecting rights.” JINDAL EXECUTIVE ORDER

Whose rights? Certainly not those of gays and if the law is taken to more extreme measures, as some will almost certainly attempt to do, against blacks, against Islamics, against Jews, against Hispanics, perhaps even against Asians, including Indians.

This is about anything but protecting a business owner who has deep-seated religious beliefs from catering to same sex marriages. What if that business owner has equally deep-seated religious beliefs against Little League baseball players playing a Sunday afternoon makeup of an earlier rained-out game? Of if he is offended because Jews don’t observe their Sabbath (Saturday) on the same day of the week (Sunday) as Christians?

There have already been stories about how just about any one of us is condemned to hellfire and damnation by laws and dictates of the Old Testament. Robert Mann had a dandy that ran in the New Orleans Times-Picayune that illustrates the sheer idiocy of Johnson’s bill and those like it passed in Indiana and Arkansas. http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2015/04/louisiana_religious_freedom_ga.html

And thorough as Mann’s story was, there was no mention of Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.”

So there you have it: could Jindal’s real agenda be an executive order as the first step toward capital punishment for gays? It is in the Bible, after, and Jindal’s agenda is by his own admission, faith-driven. It’s only logical, to quote Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock.

As one Advocate reader so aptly observed, Jindal is the non-candidate running all over the country bitching about overreach in government but who apparently had no problem handing down his own edicts that control millions of people’s lives when it happens to be political expedient to him.

Another reader was quick to pounce on Jindal with his own words in an earlier attack on President Obama. He wrote, “Here is what Jindal had to say about President Obama’s Executive Order on Immigration: ‘If the President wants to make the case that the law should be changed, he should go make the case to Congress and our people. This is an arrogant, cynical political move by the President, and it’s why so many Americans no longer trust this President to solve the problems we face.’ Substitute the word ‘Governor’ for ‘President’ and what’s the difference?” he asked, perhaps not so rhetorically, of Jindal’s hypocrisy.

If Jindal’s latest actions, taken in context with the above statement, do not represent a double standard, then there never has been and never will be a double standard by any definition.

At the same time, it represents yet more legal fees for Jimmy Faircloth or whoever is called upon to defend the state when the lawsuits start flying and U.S. Supreme Court rulings come down.

A reader named Beatrice said that Jindal should begin waving one of those giant foam fingers people wear at athletic events, “except make it a middle finger, pointed at Louisiana.”

Our favorite, from Joe: “You’ve been bested, old man. Can you believe it? We have a genuine psychotic tyrant on the loose in the governor’s mansion.”

Finally, one reader attempted to steer the dialog back to the real issue. “The legislature just showed that you can’t be a bigot and get away with it here. There is finally hope for this state. Now maybe the legislature can get back to important things – like finding $1.6 Billion to et rid of next year’s deficit without destroying education and health care. You know—the thing that really matters in the day-to-day lives of Louisiana citizens.”

Not that any of those comments will matter to Jindal who with each passing day more and more frequently exhibits psychopathic patterns of behavior.

No, we’re not doctors, analysts, counselors or social workers, but some of the symptoms are right up front for all to see. Which of the below symptoms might apply to Jindal?

  • A disregard for laws and social mores;
  • A disregard for the rights of others;
  • A failure to feel remorse or guilt;
  • The inability to form emotional attachments or feel empathy with others (though they often can mimic emotions and fool those closest to them, even family members);
  • The ability to manipulate people and to easily gain others’ trust;
  • They generally are well-educated and able to hold steady jobs;
  • They are cool, calm and meticulous, planning out every detail in advance;
  • All the above.

Intelligent psychopaths make excellent white-collar criminals and con artists, thanks to their calm and charismatic natures. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath

But none of those traits come close to describing Jindal, of course. Not this grovernor. No siree. Grovernor Jindal is sincere, understanding, compassionate, reverent and most of all, ambitious.

And there are delegates to woo in Iowa and those folks up there are God-fearing Christian who will take up his banner and follow him when they see what he’s done down there in Louisiana. Just you wait. He’s gonna bust through to 2, maybe even 3 percent in the presidential sweepstakes polls yet.

If you don’t believe it, just ask his core constituency—those Duck Dynasty people. They’re the ones who believe Jindal would be a great president, gays are abnormal human beings, and that blacks were happy picking cotton.

Seriously, though, the man is a total disgrace.

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Catching up on odds and ends in Baton Rouge; Fred Tombar lands on his feet, Troy Hebert sends bill to former ATC agent

Posted in ATC, Campaign Contributions, Corruption, DOA, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on May 14, 2015| 27 Comments »

 

Because of our limited staff (one, plus a few occasional contributors), we often fall behind in our efforts to keep up with the news of our misbehaving public officials. We try to keep up, but these guys are pretty slick and very resourceful in finding new ways to siphon off funds, whether they be state funds or contributions from campaign supporters.

So, today, we will highlight a couple of politicos who are very tight: Bobby Jindal and his director of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC), Troy Hebert (whose wife just happens to be the Jindal children’s pediatrician, we’re told).

We have an update on the status of Frederick Tombar III, who, like Hebert was appointed to a high-level position in the Jindal administration only to harass himself out of a job.

Tombar, it seems, has landed on his feet after leaving his $260,000 a year job as director of the Louisiana Housing Corporation because of some sexually explicit emails he sent to two female employees—one, a contract employee and the other an actual employee of the agency.

Both women attempted to put off Tombar’s advances because of fear of losing their jobs but eventually each filed complaints and Tombar left before he could be interviewed during an investigation by Ron Jackson, Human Resources Director for the Division of Administration.

Not to worry. We’re told by sources that Tombar, of New Orleans, had a soft landing at Cornerstone Government Affairs consulting company where he will work alongside two former state Commissioners of Administration, Mark Drennan and Paul Rainwater. http://www.cgagroup.com/index.html

http://www.cgagroup.com/team/RainwaterPaul.html

http://www.cgagroup.com/team/mark_drennen.html

Efforts to reach both Drennan and Rainwater for comment were unsuccessful.

It’s not known what Tombar’s salary at Cornerstone will be, but we are willing to bet it doesn’t approach the quarter-million a year he was making as a Jindal appointee.

That other appointee mentioned earlier, Troy Hebert, of whom much has been written here, little of it good, recently sent a bill to former ATC agent Howard Caviness of West Monroe who now serves as Grambling State University chief of police. Well, actually, the bill was not from Hebert, but from the agency under which he serves, the Department of Revenue (LDR).

The invoice, for all of $123.59 is for an alleged overpayment to Caviness in Dec. of 2012, according to the letter dated April 29 which is stamped “2nd notice.” Supposedly, the $123.59, when collected, will go to help patch over Jindal’s $1.6 billion budget deficit. LDR letter

Attached to the letter is a time sheet for the two-week time period of Nov. 26—Dec. 9, 2012, with no explanation other than a hand-scrawled, “will leave a balance owed.” ATC timesheet

(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

Caviness, contacted by LouisianaVoice, feels the action is in retaliation for his having testified on behalf of another former agent, Brett Tingle, who Hebert fired while Tingle was recovering from a heart attack.

Reprisals against a state employee by officials in the Jindal administration? Surely not!

But that would fit the modus operandi of Hebert and would give credence to a third former agent who revealed she was ordered to conduct an investigation of LouisianaVoice publisher Tom Aswell (that would be me). That former agent admitted that she did indeed follow through on the investigation but found me “rather boring.” We’ll take boring any day.

But we did our own nosing around and found that Hebert played pretty fast and loose with campaign donors’ money while he was still a state senator—and even after he left office to take over operations at ATC after Jindal did a number on former ATC Director Murphy Painter.

At the top of the list, as with the case of so many office holders, was his $12,165 expenditure for the purchase of what seems to be the most sought-after perk of all state politicians: LSU football tickets—$4,930 of that well after he left the House of Representatives in 2010 to become head of ATC. It’s somewhat difficult to see how whose expenditures, especially the $4,930 spent after he left office, could be justified as being “related to the holding of public office,” as state campaign expense laws clearly dictate. related to a campaign  personal use  cannot use campaign funds for personal use

But, as they say in those cheesy TV commercials, “Wait! There’s more!”

Our boy Troy also shelled out the following amounts for other seeming unrelated purposes:

  • Nov. 11, 2014: All State Sugar Bowl tickets, $590 (again, quite a stretch in tying this to holding public office); SUGAR BOWL
  • April 22, 2009: Sullivan’s Restaurant, Baton Rouge, $2,323.10 for a fundraiser; RESTAURANTS
  • April 1, 2010: Delta Airlines, $691.80 (no explanation of any destination, but his House district was pretty small and probably didn’t require air travel to get around Iberia Parish; TRAVEL
  • April 1, 2010: Hilton Hotel, Washington, D.C., $1,505.70. Ah! There’s his destination for that Delta flight. But what was he running for in Washington? HOTELS
  • May 10, 2011: Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans, $500. About those two hotel bills: state regulations limit hotel rooms to a mere $120 per night. Perhaps someone should sent Hebert a bill for the difference. Oh, wait. The rooms were paid out of campaign funds, not the state treasury. So that makes it okay, we guess.  travelguide

Still, $15,452 in campaign expenditures which somehow just don’t pass the smell test for legitimate campaign expenditures, especially $5,520 of which was spent after he left office.

And then there’s Jindal.

Since 2009, a year after he first took office, he has racked up an eye-popping expenditure of $169,597 in hotel room costs alone. TRAVEL

Even more revealing, all but $30,000 of that ($139,660) has been since his re-election in October of 2011, evidence that he has spent precious little time in Louisiana performing the “job he always wanted,” and the job to which he was elected.

Jindal also spent more than $185,000 in campaign money since 2003 on air travel, his campaign expense records show. Because his travel expenses were about equally divided between pre- and post-re-election in 2011, it would indicate that much of his lodging was provided by organizations to whom he was speaking.

By running as an “undeclared” candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he was able to make free use of campaign funds he reaped while running for and serving as governor. That would explain why he is so cagey about his non-candidacy candidacy: the rules change and federal regulations kick in once he is a declared candidate. His self-serving claim to be “praying for guidance” over his decision has little or nothing to do with it; it’s all about the way he can spend the money.

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