Folks, last year during the special election campaign for Louisiana Lite Gov, Scott McKay at the hard line GOP resource The Hayride did some great blogging on the money behind Caroline Fayard’s candidacy. Ms Fayard is the daughter of Calvin “Calhoun” Fayard, a class action lawyer that was affiliated with the old Castano group of lawyers led by the late Wendell Gauthier in the tobacco and aborted gun litigation. He was nicked named Calhoun in honor of the shyster lawyer on the old Amos ‘n Andy show and certainly as crafty as he prospered after Gauthier passing. Politically connected he is currently on the Plaintiff’s steering committee in the BP litigation, where he stands to make another fortune. For those of you keeping track of which mansion on St Chas is involved on the back-end in an ostentatious show of accumulated wealth the Fayard’s are proud owners of the Wedding Cake House where luminaries such as Bill and Hillary Clinton have often stayed while in town. While he donated heavily to the McCain Campaign in 2008 Calhoun has been a huge donor to the democrats through time which explains the connection to the Clinton’s as well as why Michelle Obama stayed elsewhere during her visit to the city a couple of weeks ago.
With that said I’ll add that the state enforcement agency for campaign cash is the Louisiana Ethics Board, the same folks that have an open file on Aaron Broussard’s shithouse dealings as Parish President. In Louisiana, secrecy involving proceedings at the ODC and Ethics Board are mandated by statute which is why that the story has not been further updated recently save for an article in early September by the Advocate which outlined a court proceeding in the 19th JDC initiated by Fayard against the Ethic Board where Team Fayard tried to halt the Ethic investigation. Joe Gyan’s story described in detail the conduits which Calhoun used to funnel money to his daughter’s campaign and broke some new ground in the process. The implications of the ruling do not show up in that otherwise very good story folks as we might have witnessed the first cracks in Team Fayard’s legendary political influence but there is another implication that is also very important.
Linked above is the best real-time internet reporting on this topic and I also had a helpful reader prepare a synopsis that is worth having here on Slabbed as we have obtained the Ethics Board target letters, which were originally filed under seal in the 19th JDC:
In November 2010 and March 2011, complaints were filed with the Louisiana Board of Ethics alleging violations of the Louisiana Campaign Finance Disclosure Act by the DEMOPAC and the Committee to Elect Caroline Fayard, LLC. Essentially, one of the complaints alleges donations were made to the DEMOPAC by family and friends of Caroline Fayard and allegedly earmarked to cover media buys made by the DEMOPAC on behalf of Caroline Fayard during her unsuccessful attempt to be elected Lieutenant Governor. Continue reading “The failed Caroline Fayard Lite Gov campaign could cost Calhoun greatly: A follow the campaign cash update”
