THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

From the Toledo Blade todays story has Gov. Taft digging in his heels. And we learn this:

Bill Wilkinson, an attorney representing Tom Noe, a Toledo-area rare coin dealer and prominent Republican fund-raiser, confirmed yesterday that Mr. Noe had golfed with Mr. Taft “a couple of times.”

But Mr. Wilkinson would not disclose who paid for the golf outings that Mr. Taft participated in with Mr. Noe — whom Mr. Taft had reappointed to the Ohio Board of Regents and had appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission.

The Blade reported yesterday that a source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, ran into Mr. Noe in 2002 at Toledo’s Inverness Club and that Mr. Noe told him that he was playing golf with Mr. Taft. Mr. Noe is not listed as a source of a gift on Mr. Taft’s ethics statement.

State law requires officeholders to list each source of gifts over $75. A round of golf at Inverness for a guest is about $140.

It is a first-degree misdemeanor to knowingly falsify an ethics form, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Mr. Wilkinson said Mr. Noe would only disclose information about government officials he may have entertained — including Mr. Taft — to investigators.

Mr. Noe is under investigation by state authorities in connection with $10 million to $12 million missing from a rare-coin fund he created in 1998 and then convinced the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation to invest $50 million in.

He also is under investigation by the FBI for alleged campaign finance violations in connection with an October, 2003, fund-raiser for President Bush’s re-election campaign. Mr. Noe is alleged to have laundered campaign contributions to the President by giving people money to give to Mr. Bush’s campaign so he could avoid federal contribution limits.

And lest anyone accuse me of ignoring the Mother of All Republican scandals, I give you this link to a WaPo story on Jack Abramoff.