Nathan ‘Real Deal’ tagged as Nathan ‘Sweetheart Deal’
The AJC reports that Rep. Nathan Deal intervened on behalf of a state program that benefits his business
Over the weekend, Congressman Nathan Deal, R-Gainesville, became the second major GOP candidate for governor to be dinged by an AJC investigative piece.
The first, of course, was John Oxendine, when the paper revealed back in May that our state insurance commissioner had accepted $120,000 in arguably illegal campaign contributions from dummy PACs controlled by an insurance company CEO whom Oxendine had repeatedly appointed to an influential industry board.
That didn’t look too good for Oxendine, a politician who’s long been dogged by whispered allegations of influence-peddling.
Deal, on the other hand, is a former judge who’s enjoyed a pretty clean reputation. But his free ride may have ended Sunday. Here’s the lead from the AJC piece:
U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, a Republican candidate for governor in 2010, personally intervened with Georgia leaders to preserve an obscure state program that earns his company nearly $300,000 a year.
The article goes on to describe how Deal seemed to be using his office and that of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle — his fellow Gainesvillian — to intimidate state Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham from altering a program through which Deal’s auto-salvage business had enjoyed two decades’ worth of no-bid state patronage.