Coleman faces hot seat even if he wins

By MANU RAJU & GLENN THRUSH | 4/3/09
Politico.com

Even if Norm Coleman pulls off a long-shot legal victory in the extended Minnesota Senate race, Democrats are vowing to make him wish that he hadn’t.

Separate and apart from the ongoing legal dispute over November’s election, the Minnesota Republican faces several unresolved investigations: a reported FBI probe into his dealings with Nasser Kazeminy, a friend and benefactor; a potential Senate Ethics Committee inquiry into his Capitol Hill living arrangements; a federal elections investigation into his use of campaign donations for legal expenses; and a possible state probe into his campaign’s handling of donors’ financial information on its website.

“Coleman would almost be better off if he lost,” said David Schultz, a professor at Hamline University in St. Paul. “Should he win, he faces a host of legal and other issues in the Senate. He would enter the Senate with the Kazeminy case shadowing him, and that would almost certainly produce an ethics investigation.”

J.B. Poersch, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says he plans to make Coleman’s problems an issue against Republican incumbents in next year’s midterm elections.

(More here.)