Norm Coleman faces hot seat even if he wins

By GottaLaff

Toker Norm better take a few more hits, because he's about to take a few more hits:

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.

Wowzers, but that's a lot of unresolved investigations. Where does he find the time... and funds?

Of all the issues facing Coleman, none is more potentially explosive than the Kazeminy investigation, and the Senate Ethics Committee also has been requested to look into the matter.

Last fall, a former associate of Kazeminy’s filed a lawsuit accusing him of trying to funnel $75,000 to Coleman’s wife, Laurie, through a Texas oil-rig company.

The FBI is reportedly investigating the claims — and the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a liberal nonprofit, has filed a federal elections complaint alleging the senator is misusing campaign funds by paying legal fees.

Coleman has dismissed the complaints as “sleaze.”

What a coincidence. We dismiss Coleman as sleaze.

But questions about the matter flared anew when another former company employee reiterated the charges in a civil court deposition made public last month.

In addition, a complaint is pending in the Senate Ethics Committee by the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington about Coleman’s $600-a-month room in the Capitol Hill apartment of another Minnesota donor and friend, Jeff Larsen.

And officials with the Minnesota Democratic-Farm-Labor Party have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging Coleman accepted soft-money donations from a group that receives corporate contributions, a potential violation of federal campaign finance law.

Now see, if a Democrat were in as much hot water as Toker Norm, he'd probably be impeached of indicted. Oh. Wait. He was. So what's holding up the works in Minnesota?