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Jesse Benton, a longtime ally of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who is heading up a super PAC supporting his presidential campaign, has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the Justice Department said Wednesday, on charges that he concealed payments made to a former Iowa state senator during the 2012 presidential campaign in order to win his support.

The indictment marks a new complication for Paul, whose political future is on the line in 2016. He is hoping to hold onto his U.S. Senate seat, which is up for reelection, if he does not win the GOP White House nomination.

The charges against Benton, a member of the Paul family by marriage, stem from an endorsement-for-pay scheme during the 2012 campaign of former Republican congressman Ron Paul of Texas, which Benton chaired.Two other former Ron Paul campaign officials were indicted, including John Tate, who was Ron Paul's campaign manager and is now also involved with heading up the pro-Rand Paul super PAC; andDimitri Kesari, who was Ron Pauls deputy national campaign manager.

The indictment charges the defendants withconspiracy, causing false records to obstruct a contemplated investigation and causing the submission of false campaign expenditure reports. It alleges they paid more than$70,000 to then-Iowa state senator Kent Sorenson in exchange for his support. The indictment accuses the men ofconcealing their payments from the Federal Election Commission and the FBI.

Federal campaign finance laws are intended to ensure the integrity and transparency of the federal election process, said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell in a statement announcing the indictment. When political operatives make under-the-table payments to buy an elected officials political support, it undermines public confidence in our entire political system.

Both Ron Paul and a spokesman for Rand Paul issued statements accusing the Justice Department of a politically-motivated attack.

"I am extremely disappointed in the government's decision," Ron Paul said in a statement. "I think the timing of this indictment is highly suspicious given the fact that the first primary debate is tomorrow. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those involved."

Rand Paul's campaign, through an unnamed spokesman, offered similar criticism of the timing."Senator Rand Paul is disappointed that the Obama justice department chose to release this just prior to the highly anticipated first Republican presidential debate," the campaign said. "It certainly appears suspiciously timed and possibly, politically motivated. Additionally, these actions are from 2012 and have nothing to do with our campaign."

Benton's attorneyRoscoe C. Howard, Jr.said in a similar statement that his client would be vindicated. "Mr. Benton is eager to get before an impartial judge and jury who will quickly recognize this for what he believes it is: Character assassination for political gain," he said.

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Rand Paul super PAC head indicted over alleged 2012 ...

After years of investigation by the Department of Justice, three top Rand Paul associates, including the senator's nephew-in-law, were indicted for their role in an alleged attempt to buy an influential Iowa state senator's endorsement of Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential campaign. None of these operatives, who served as top Ron Paul campaign aides, is currently on the payroll of Rand Paul's presidential campaign. But two of themJesse Benton, who is married to Paul's niece, and John Taterun a pro-Rand Paul super-PACs that has raised $3.1 million to support Paul's presidential campaign.* The third man indicted, Dimitri Kesari, has served as an aide to both Rand Paul and his father.

Last year, former Republican Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges accusing him of helping to cover up a scheme for the Ron Paul campaign to pay him more than $70,000 to switch his endorsement immediately before the 2012 Iowa caucus, from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul. Sorenson has been awaiting sentencing pending his cooperation in a further investigation, but it hasn't been clear who on Ron Paul's staff would be caught up in the scandal. At the time Benton served as the campaign's chairman, Tate as the campaign manager, and Kesari as the deputy campaign manager.

All three men were charged with criminal conspiracy and federal charges related to falsification of government records. Tate and Benton face charges of making false statements to federal investigators; Kesari was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to persuade Sorenson to deny the scheme when pressed by prosecutors.

According to the indictment, Sorenson negotiated with the Paul aides and eventually met with Kesari in an Iowa restaurant, where the Paul aide passed him a $25,000 check. The check was never cashed, however, and eventually wound up in the hands of an Iowa special prosecutor investigating a possible breach in ethics rules by Sorenson. Under federal law, the campaign could have legally paid Sorenson openly, but Iowa Senate rules prohibit lawmakers from receiving compensation for their endorsements. According to prosecutors, the campaign instead routed the payments through a Maryland audio-visual company connected to Kesari's brother. During the course of the Iowa investigation, Sorenson acknowledged receiving $73,000 from the Maryland company but couldn't explain why that was. Paul campaign records show the campaign paid the Maryland company roughly $82,000. Though Sorenson pleaded guilty to taking the money and lying to investigators about where it came from, his indictment did not name who authorized the payments.

The federal investigation has been spun by Paul insiders as the result of complaints by a disgruntled former Ron Paul supporter, Virginia conservative operative Dennis Fusaro. Fusaro certainly stoked the investigation by leaking emails to reporters showing Benton, Tate, and Kesari corresponding with Sorenson associates, as well as an audio recording of Sorenson admitting his role. Last summer, a leaked grand jury subpoena showed that that Justice Department investigators were casting a wide net in their pursuit of the case, demanding email records from much of the 2012 staff and even Ron Paul himself.

The indictment makes clear that investigators found incriminating correspondence. Included in the indictment are details of email conversations between the Paul aides about authorization of the payments to the audio-visual equipment company. Other emails show them responding to others on the campaign staff about the payments. In one email exchange described in the indictment, from June 2012, an invoice from the AV company led Tate to ask Kesari, "What is this? What is it for, who is it? Why do we keep paying them? The last payment was supposedly the last."

Kesari responded: "This is the last payment for kent Sorenson [sic]. The deal jesse agreed to with kent."

Tate approved the payment.

After media reports about the brewing scandal broke in September 2013, the indictment alleges, Kesari flew to Nebraska and then drove to Iowa to meet with Sorenson. Kesari allegedly asked Sorenson to prove he wasn't wearing a recording device and then demanded he return the $25,000 check he had earlier given to him. Kesari also allegedly tried to convince Sorenson not to discuss the campaign's role in the payments with federal investigators.

While Kesari, Benton, and Tate are not working for Rand Paul's campaign, their indictment creates a major controversy for the candidate on the eve of the first GOP debate. In a statement to BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray, Ron Paul questioned the timing of the indictment against his former staffer: "I think the timing of this indictment is highly suspicious given the fact that the first primary debate is tomorrow." Rand Paul's campaign raised a little more than $7 million in the second quarter of the year, and the three super-PACs supporting his presidential bid have raised some $6 million. The largest, America's Liberty PAC, is run by Tate and Benton, who also leads Campaign for Liberty, a politically active nonprofit founded by Ron Paul. With $3.1 million in cash on hand, the super-PAC is a major part of Paul's campaign apparatus and has already released videos attacking his opponents.

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Three Top Rand Paul Associates Were Just Indicted | Mother ...

DAVENPORT, Iowa The first Republican debate of the 2016 presidential campaign, said Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, will be between him and people who want to blow up the world. The showdown Thursday night will pit him against opponents who will send half a million of your sons and daughters back to Iraq. He vowed that he will ask his Republican presidential rivals, face to face, whether they want to always intervene in every civil war around the world.

I want to be known as the candidate whos not eager for war, who thinks wars the last resort, Paul said on a weekend swing through Iowa. When we fight, we fight to win, but much of our involvement has led to consequences that made us less safe. Youll see that come into sharp distinction.

Pauls approach almost ensures that there will be a vigorous debate Thursday night over foreign policy, an issue that many Republicans see as a major distinction between them and Democrats. It also marks a shift back toward Pauls roots and, he hopes, a winning coalition of voters after months in which he seemed to slide toward a more traditional Republican foreign policy as the Islamic State and other global dangers grew more worrisome.

The libertarian wing of the Republican base has been waiting and waiting and waiting for Paul to do that. Any of the declared candidates can talk tax cuts. A few, such as former Texas governor Rick Perry, can match Paul on criminal-justice reform. They all want to defund Planned Parenthood. But no one else is positioned to attack a generation of intervention in the Middle East. Libertarians want the Rand Paul who mocked former vice president Richard B. Cheney and neoconservatives to show up at the debates.

Hes the only candidate of the 15 who has a position like this, said Michael Hager, 23, after seeing Paul speak in a suburb of Chicago over the weekend. I figure, hell, why not swing for the fences on this? Why not separate himself from the pack?

Pauls potential base is larger and talkier than anyone elses, built on the legacy of his fathers 2008 and 2012 presidential runs. When Rand Paul has moved away from that Ron Paul legacy, he has walked into a wall of flames.

He co-signed a letter sent by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and other senators to the Iranian mullahs, and he offered an amendment that would have upped defense spending with offsets in cuts to foreign aid. Paul insisted that he did it to forge peace. His reward: columns, blog posts, and podcasts that branded him a sellout.

He sides with Bibi and other death merchants, wrote longtime Paul ally Lew Rockwell, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The really naive people are the ones who thought that by doing things like this, Rand would win over the people who despise him, said Tom Woods, the co-author of Ron Pauls best-selling books.

Rand Pauls Iowa message to the critics: Hey, lay off and wait for Thursday. Im one of the few Republicans who has a litany of people whose job is to be full-time critics of mine, Paul said. Nobody else seems to have as much sniping going on. But I think the debates will put things in sharp relief.

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As debate looms, Rand Paul sees a chance to be the GOP ...

One of the big mysteries of the Koch brothers lavish gala this past weekend is the fact that Rand Paul was not in attendance. Youd think that the Kochs would at least insist that Paul come to the fete to do a dramatic reading of John Galts Atlas Shrugged speech for the billionaires in attendance, but he didnt show. Some reports suggest that he was invited, but declined. Perhaps his feelings are hurt that they also invited Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and even Carly Fiorina, when he believes that he should have been anointed by all the rich men in the world by acclamation. He is, after all, the One True Libertarian of the bunch.

Or is he? Paul has been spending so much time in recent days talking about the horrors of Planned Parenthood, youd think he was a Catholic priest or a member of Ralph Reeds Bible study group. In fact, both of the Pauls, father and son, have always played fast and loose with their libertarian principles when it comes to reproductive health; the only individual property right they dont recognize is a womans ownership of her own body. Since the followers of the Pauls tend to be those who find such concerns irrelevant to their own freedom being that they are mostly young, white males that may make some sense from a practical standpoint. Rand has to build a coalition withsomeone,so why not the religious right, since their main concern in life is keeping women in their place, and the Paulites seem to find this to be a position they can work with.

And so it is becoming clear that for all the former Beltway excitement over Pauls alleged magical ability to transform the Republican Party from its aggressively hawkish global ambitions and theocratic, authoritarian domestic aspirations into an isolationist, tolerant, pluralistic party, he just cant seem to make any headway. He cant raise much money and nobody, it turns out, is very interested in his ideas.

Thus, the true believers are depressed. One of them wrote a piece for Politico about whats gone wrong, titled,Why Im tired of defending Rand Paul.The piece was written byJonathan Bydlak, someone whos been with the Paul family for years, serving as director of fundraising on Rons 2008 campaign; a loyal lieutenant who truly believes that Rand Paul could be president. But unfortunately for Bydlak, it turns out that Rand Paul also believes that, which means that these days hes acting like just another Republican.

Bydlak writes:

After months of skepticism of U.S. involvement in Syria and Iraq, Rand Paul called for airstrikesauthorized by Congress. He later sought to declare war on ISIL and put boots on the ground. Hes done a complete 180 on the threat from Iran, signing the Tom Cotton letter opposing the recent nuclear deal. And while being one of the more nuanced voices opposing the deal, hes still relied on the sort of fear mongering and misleading rhetoric his father rejected.

Ron Paul proudly thumbed his nose at Republican orthodoxy, fearlessly voicing his beliefs no matter how hated his position might make him among the GOP. His son, of course, cannot win a primary by following that exact model. But he has failed to make the Republican base trust him, while risking losing his own.

He said gay marriage offends him, and called for tent revivals to combat Americas moral crisis while simultaneously supporting ending marriage licenses altogether. He supports lowering sentences for drug offenses, and is publicly courting the marijuana industry, while very consistently making clear he opposes legalization. And in recent weeks, hes gone so far as to apparently jump onto the Trump bandwagon in seeking to defund sanctuary cities.

He spent months reaching out to minority communities and branding himself as a different kind of Republican on police brutality and criminal justice reformbut when Baltimore was burning following Freddie Grays suspicious death in police custody, Paul couldnt have been more tone deaf, scoffing how glad he was his train didnt stop in Baltimore, and offering what seemed to be 1990s-era Moral Majority musings on the downfall of the family.

Now, its hard to have pity for this fellow. While Paul may be out there talking about outreach to African Americans and Hispanics, his views on race have never exactly been obscure. Up until last year, he employed someone known asThe Southern Avenger in his inner circle. But you do have to feel a little bit of sympathy for him about the rest of it. The incoherenceon foreign policy and national security is downright dizzyingcoming from the man who made his national reputation delivering scorching speeches against the drone war and NSA surveillance. He couldnt even bring himself to defy freshman warmonger Tom Cotton and refuse to sign on to that daft Iran letter. And refusing to support marijuana legalization even as the country is moving rapidly in that direction is as cowardly as it gets. If a libertarian cant even stand up for the stoners, you have to wonder if he has any rationale for his campaign at all.

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Rand Paul is basically doomed: How the man who was ...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says that he can stand out from the other Republican candidates for president at the first GOP debate by being the one candidate who doesn't "want to blow up the world."

Paul told The Washington Post that he plans to challenge the other candidates who would "send half a million of your sons and daughters back" to Iraq, by asking them if they "want to always intervene in every civil war around the world."

"I want to be known as the candidate who's not eager for war, who thinks war's the last resort," Paul said while in Iowa. "When we fight, we fight to win, but much of our involvement has led to consequences that made us less safe. You'll see that come into sharp distinction."

The Post notes that the Kentucky Republican's plan is to make this a debate issue, ensuring that the debate on foreign policy will certainly be vigorous.

While many of the candidates have similar positions on issues such as taxes, criminal justice reform and defunding Planned Parenthood, Paul is the only candidate who wants to see a generation of intervening in the Middle East come to an end.

It's also a position that those in the libertarian wing of the party are longing for Paul to talk about.

The first Republican presidential debate is scheduled for Thursday on the Fox News Channel. It will include the top 10 candidates, according to an average of the five most recent national polls.

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