Big-Money Corporate Squeeze: Employee Pressured to Donate to Mitt Romeny

By GottaLaff

Poor Twitt Romney. He needed more mon'-mon':

A former executive who says his boss pressured him to contribute to Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has filed an employment-bias complaint that offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain of big-money corporate fund raising.

Richard Pimentel, a former executive of Huron Consulting Group Inc., contends he lost his job as a financial-management consultant partly in retaliation for refusing the chief executive's repeated calls to contribute to the former Massachusetts governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

This comes to us, by the way, via the Wall Street Journal, of all things. But let's not stop here! There's more! They have proof:

The company denies that charge. But officials confirm the authenticity of emails showing that the CEO of the Chicago-based corporate consulting firm, Gary E. Holdren, repeatedly linked his requests for donations to Huron's business prospects. The emails were provided to The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Pimentel.

But wait, gang! There's even more! Excerpts from the emails!

"This is not about me trying to force a political candidate on you and trying to see how you vote," Mr. Holdren wrote in one email, dated Jan. 27, 2008, to Huron managing directors, the firm's senior executives. "This is just business and the way business works."

In another email, dated Sept. 21, 2007, Mr. Holdren wrote, "I wanted to thank all of you who contributed to Mitt Romney. You can't realize how much leverage this gives Huron going forward to ask various people for business."

Other emails from Mr. Holdren refer to conversations with Mr. Romney, deals Huron supposedly won from Romney supporters at other firms and promises to reward Huron executives with "business for your contributions."

Whoopsie Daisy, there, Bucko. That's pretty damning. Go here for the rest.