Filibusted Judge's Wife a Swift Boats Contributor

By DHinMI

Last week I pointed out the irony that one of Bush's filibustered judicial nominees is the son of the former Republican Senator who led the last filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.  Today we'll look at another of Bush's filibustered nominees and his connection to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. 

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Henry Saad was nominated in 2001 for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  His confirmation was blocked, Bush renominated him, and his appointment is again stalled in the Senate.  Saad's wife is Mara Letica, an attorney and vice president of her family business, Letica Corporation.  In 1992 she was nominated by the elder Bush as ambassador to Croatia, but the nomination occurred late in Bush's presidency, and like her current husband, she wasn't approved by the Senate, in that case so incoming President Clinton could appoint his own ambassador.  In 2004 Letica was one of 105 members of Small Business Leaders for Bush-Cheney '04. 

The small business group was not, however, Mara Letica's only contribution to last year's presidential contest.  In addition to some contributions to congressional candidates, she gave $25,000 to the Republican National Committee.  (Some of her donations were recorded as "Mara Letica," others as "Mara Letica Saad," and her home address on Michigan campaign finance disclosures is identical to Judge Henry William Saad.)  While some people may wish that judges and their familes come to the bench having been above partisanship, that's just not a realistic expectation, and probably shouldn't be.  But after all the protests by George W. Bush, his campaign and the White House about being shocked--SHOCKED--to learn about the Swifties' scurrulous attacks against John Kerry, and their denials about any associations between the Swifties and the Bushies, some enterprising reporter might want to ask Bush or Scott McLellan or somebody else at the White House what they think about the wife of one of his filibustered judges giving $10,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to help them spread lies about John Kerry's military service in Vietnam. 

On August 31st of 2004 Rush Limbaugh said "if you really dig deep, you might find some Clinton PAC [political action committee] money, laundered three or four different ways, found its way to the Swift Vets. But that's just me."  As usual, it was just Limbaugh.  In reality, you don't even have to dig that deep to find money getting to the Swift Vets straight from the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan home of a filibustered Bush judicial nominee.

Comments

[Sal]

go down the page on that link ... another contribution looks suspect ... same day, same hometown, same last name

Gudrun Letica
1567 Island Lane
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
Information Requested/Information Requested
5,000 11/23/2004

[DHinMI]

NOTE ON THE SOURCES: to confirm their common address, follow the link for "home address" and scroll down the page to "contributor info", and under the line for "last name/PAC or other," just type in "Saad" and hit "search." Henry and Mara Letica Saad are about halfway down the page.

[Lil Jesus]

I found this list of Ms. Mara Letica Saad's contributions to be by far the most comprehensive.

Enjoy.

[muledriver]

As interesting as your main point was, I found looking at the contributions and expenditures of the Swift Boat Dupes for the Far Right to be most interesting. Bob Perry, Texas homebuilder who basically bought the Texas Legislature - not that they were very expensive - gave over 5 million dollars to this effort. They spent over 25 million dollars on media buys.

Is this country great or what?

[joan]

Here are links to Saad's own donations to GOP candidates — and to Spencer Abraham's Senate campaign. (That is interesting, because Abraham held open seats on the 6th Circuit by putting blue-slip type holds on Clinton's nominees to the 6th Circuit from the state of Michigan.)

Michigan Circuit Judge Saad gave $6,350 since 1994 to GOP causes, including $2000 to Bush in 2003, and also

includes $3,250 to Spencer Abraham's campaign from Henry Saad since between 1994 and 2000 (in 8 donations in amounts between $250 to $1000)

- - found here and here.

That's in addition to $14,000 to Abraham from Saad's wife Mara (in 1994, 1995 and mostly in 2000), and $11,000 more to Abraham from Saad's inlaws (in 1994, 1995, 1999 and 2000). Details below.

His wife Mara Letica gave to Spencer's campaign in 2000, shown here. This campaign summary for Abraham's Senate campaign shows her as perhaps his #1 contributor for 2000, top of the list, with one donation of $10 K, and a second one further down for $2 K. She contributed to Abraham in years before 2000 also --->

Letica's family, too, gave to the Abraham campaign, another $6,000, (from her brother Anton and her parents (Ilija and Gudron) in 1999-2000. And another $9,000 in 1994 and 1996 from the family, including from Mara.

All in all, $25,000 from Mara Letica's family to Abraham's campaign -->>> with $14,000 of that coming straight from Mara. PLUS, $3,250 direct from Henry Saad to the Abraham election effort.

[Halo]

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