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Former state Sen. Dean Tran faces ethics charges

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BOSTON — The former Fitchburg state senator and Republican 3rd Congressional District candidate Dean Tran was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on charges of violating state ethics laws.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office announced on Friday that Tran, 47, was charged with two counts of use of an official position to secure unwarranted privilege when he used his Senate staff to campaign for him on state time and payroll.

The AG’s Office said the violations occurred during Tran’s 2018 and 2020 reelection campaigns. The alleged campaign activities included organizing fundraisers, knocking on doors, and putting together campaign mailers. The alleged activities occurred during official work hours at the MassGOP campaign regional field office in Fitchburg.

The matter was referred to the AG’s Office by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance following a report from the Senate Committee on Ethics in 2020.

Within the 15-page report it states Senate President Karen Spilka’s office first received anonymous letters in October 2019, addressed to the Ethics Commission, alleging the misdeeds.

One letter stated staffers were allegedly told by Tran they must campaign for him and that doing so was part of the job. Another letter stated staffers “are always asked to do all fundraising, always asked to put constituents on invite fundraiser list,” according to the report.

Following the conclusion of a preliminary investigation in early January 2020, the report states Tran was approached about the allegations, which he denied, while asserting his staff was “totally autonomous.” Tran said, according to the report, that staff members may have attended campaign events, but they never touched any campaign fundraising.

A formal investigation was opened in late January 2020. The investigation included interviews with Tran staffers, review of text messages and other documents supplied by witnesses, email records for Tran and his staff, and personnel records. The report states the content of the investigation supported the allegations contained in the letters received in October 2019.

In March 2020, the report states the Senate Committee on Ethics met with Tran, who asserted all personnel and office management issues were under “the purview” of a former senior staffer. Tran said all his employees performed their responsibilities appropriately, based on their job descriptions.

Tran told The Sun on Saturday that he was made aware of the indictment late Friday night when a friend contacted him after reading about the allegations on social media.

In a statement to The Sun, Tran said, “I served in the Senate with integrity and honesty and worked hard to serve the people in my district. I successfully completed the ethics training and I had my chief of staff conferred with the Ethics Commission on their responsibilities and actions. As a Republican and the first Vietnamese and Asian born American elected to the Senate, I was very aware to adhere to every rule and protocol set by the senate for senators and their offices. At no point in time during my service did I perform unethically.”

Tran came up short in his reelection bid against Democrat John Cronin in 2020. Two years later, Tran was again unsuccessful when he challenged U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan for the 3rd Congressional District.

In the midst of his congressional campaign, Tran was indicted by a Worcester County grand jury in connection with the alleged theft of a firearm from an elderly constituent.

The office of then-Attorney General Maura Healey stated at the time that while visiting an elderly constituent in June 2019, Tran allegedly used his position as a state senator to intimidate the constituent into parting with her dead husband’s firearms.

Tran pleaded not guilty and proceeded to file a federal lawsuit and injunction claiming Healey was motivated by partisan politics when she filed the charges against him. His lawsuit was later dismissed.

For the latest indictment, Tran will be arraigned in Suffolk County Superior Court at a later date.

Follow Aaron Curtis on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aselahcurtis

Former state Sen. Dean Tran faces ethics charges

by

BOSTON — The former Fitchburg state senator and Republican 3rd Congressional District candidate Dean Tran was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on charges of violating state ethics laws.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office announced on Friday that Tran, 47, was charged with two counts of use of an official position to secure unwarranted privilege when he used his Senate staff to campaign for him on state time and payroll.

The AG’s Office said the violations occurred during Tran’s 2018 and 2020 reelection campaigns. The alleged campaign activities included organizing fundraisers, knocking on doors, and putting together campaign mailers. The alleged activities occurred during official work hours at the MassGOP campaign regional field office in Fitchburg.

The matter was referred to the AG’s Office by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance following a report from the Senate Committee on Ethics in 2020.

Within the 15-page report it states Senate President Karen Spilka’s office first received anonymous letters in October 2019, addressed to the Ethics Commission, alleging the misdeeds.

One letter stated staffers were allegedly told by Tran they must campaign for him and that doing so was part of the job. Another letter stated staffers “are always asked to do all fundraising, always asked to put constituents on invite fundraiser list,” according to the report.

Following the conclusion of a preliminary investigation in early January 2020, the report states Tran was approached about the allegations, which he denied, while asserting his staff was “totally autonomous.” Tran said, according to the report, that staff members may have attended campaign events, but they never touched any campaign fundraising.

A formal investigation was opened in late January 2020. The investigation included interviews with Tran staffers, review of text messages and other documents supplied by witnesses, email records for Tran and his staff, and personnel records. The report states the content of the investigation supported the allegations contained in the letters received in October 2019.

In March 2020, the report states the Senate Committee on Ethics met with Tran, who asserted all personnel and office management issues were under “the purview” of a former senior staffer. Tran said all his employees performed their responsibilities appropriately, based on their job descriptions.

Tran told The Sun on Saturday that he was made aware of the indictment late Friday night when a friend contacted him after reading about the allegations on social media.

In a statement to The Sun, Tran said, “I served in the Senate with integrity and honesty and worked hard to serve the people in my district. I successfully completed the ethics training and I had my chief of staff conferred with the Ethics Commission on their responsibilities and actions. As a Republican and the first Vietnamese and Asian born American elected to the Senate, I was very aware to adhere to every rule and protocol set by the senate for senators and their offices. At no point in time during my service did I perform unethically.”

Tran came up short in his reelection bid against Democrat John Cronin in 2020. Two years later, Tran was again unsuccessful when he challenged U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan for the 3rd Congressional District.

In the midst of his congressional campaign, Tran was indicted by a Worcester County grand jury in connection with the alleged theft of a firearm from an elderly constituent.

The office of then-Attorney General Maura Healey stated at the time that while visiting an elderly constituent in June 2019, Tran allegedly used his position as a state senator to intimidate the constituent into parting with her dead husband’s firearms.

Tran pleaded not guilty and proceeded to file a federal lawsuit and injunction claiming Healey was motivated by partisan politics when she filed the charges against him. His lawsuit was later dismissed.

For the latest indictment, Tran will be arraigned in Suffolk County Superior Court at a later date.

Follow Aaron Curtis on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aselahcurtis

Former state Sen. Dean Tran faces ethics charges

by

BOSTON — The former Fitchburg state senator and Republican 3rd Congressional District candidate Dean Tran was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on charges of violating state ethics laws.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office announced on Friday that Tran, 47, was charged with two counts of use of an official position to secure unwarranted privilege when he used his Senate staff to campaign for him on state time and payroll.

The AG’s Office said the violations occurred during Tran’s 2018 and 2020 reelection campaigns. The alleged campaign activities included organizing fundraisers, knocking on doors, and putting together campaign mailers. The alleged activities occurred during official work hours at the MassGOP campaign regional field office in Fitchburg.

The matter was referred to the AG’s Office by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance following a report from the Senate Committee on Ethics in 2020.

Within the 15-page report it states Senate President Karen Spilka’s office first received anonymous letters in October 2019, addressed to the Ethics Commission, alleging the misdeeds.

One letter stated staffers were allegedly told by Tran they must campaign for him and that doing so was part of the job. Another letter stated staffers “are always asked to do all fundraising, always asked to put constituents on invite fundraiser list,” according to the report.

Following the conclusion of a preliminary investigation in early January 2020, the report states Tran was approached about the allegations, which he denied, while asserting his staff was “totally autonomous.” Tran said, according to the report, that staff members may have attended campaign events, but they never touched any campaign fundraising.

A formal investigation was opened in late January 2020. The investigation included interviews with Tran staffers, review of text messages and other documents supplied by witnesses, email records for Tran and his staff, and personnel records. The report states the content of the investigation supported the allegations contained in the letters received in October 2019.

In March 2020, the report states the Senate Committee on Ethics met with Tran, who asserted all personnel and office management issues were under “the purview” of a former senior staffer. Tran said all his employees performed their responsibilities appropriately, based on their job descriptions.

Tran told The Sun on Saturday that he was made aware of the indictment late Friday night when a friend contacted him after reading about the allegations on social media.

In a statement to The Sun, Tran said, “I served in the Senate with integrity and honesty and worked hard to serve the people in my district. I successfully completed the ethics training and I had my chief of staff conferred with the Ethics Commission on their responsibilities and actions. As a Republican and the first Vietnamese and Asian born American elected to the Senate, I was very aware to adhere to every rule and protocol set by the senate for senators and their offices. At no point in time during my service did I perform unethically.”

Tran came up short in his reelection bid against Democrat John Cronin in 2020. Two years later, Tran was again unsuccessful when he challenged U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan for the 3rd Congressional District.

In the midst of his congressional campaign, Tran was indicted by a Worcester County grand jury in connection with the alleged theft of a firearm from an elderly constituent.

The office of then-Attorney General Maura Healey stated at the time that while visiting an elderly constituent in June 2019, Tran allegedly used his position as a state senator to intimidate the constituent into parting with her dead husband’s firearms.

Tran pleaded not guilty and proceeded to file a federal lawsuit and injunction claiming Healey was motivated by partisan politics when she filed the charges against him. His lawsuit was later dismissed.

For the latest indictment, Tran will be arraigned in Suffolk County Superior Court at a later date.

Follow Aaron Curtis on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aselahcurtis

Trump says he expects to be arrested, calls for protest

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By MICHELLE L. PRICE, JILL COLVIN and ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest is imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.

Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.

His message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of supporters in advance of widely anticipated charges. Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising solicitations to his supporters, while influential Republicans in Congress and even some declared and potential rival candidates issued statements in his defense.

In a later post that went beyond simply exhorting loyalists to protest about his legal peril, the 2024 presidential candidate directed his overarching ire in all capital letters at the Biden administration and raised the prospect of civil unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

It all evoked, in foreboding ways, the rhetoric he used shortly before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hearing from the then-president at a Washington rally that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and tried to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s White House victory, breaking through doors and windows of the building and leaving officers beaten and bloodied.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eyeing charges in the hush money investigation, and recently offered Trump a chance to testify before the grand jury. Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.

In an internal email following Trump’s statements, Bragg said law enforcement would ensure that the 1,600 people who work in his office would remain safe, and that “any specific or credible threats” would be investigated.

“We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York,” he wrote, and added: “In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate.”

There has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say “illegal leaks” from Bragg’s office indicate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s post was “based on the media reports,” and a spokesperson said there had been “no notification” from Bragg’s office, though the origin of Trump’s Tuesday reference was unclear. The district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Trump’s aides and legal team have been preparing for the possibility of an indictment. Should that happen, he would be arrested only if he refused to surrender. Trump’s lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, meaning he would likely agree to surrender at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to Bragg’s office.

It is unclear whether Trump’s supporters would heed his protest call or if he retains the same persuasive power he held as president. Trump’s posts on Truth Social generally receive far less attention than he used to get on Twitter, but he maintains a deeply loyal base. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, in which hundreds of Trump loyalists were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened the passion among supporters for confrontation.

The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings.

Even as Trump pursues his latest White House campaign — his first rally is set for Waco, Texas, later this month and he shook hands and took selfies with fans during a public appearance Saturday evening at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — there is no question an indictment would be a distraction and give fodder to opponents and critics tired of the legal scandals that have long enveloped him.

Besides the hush money inquiry in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.

A Justice Department special counsel has also been presenting evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate. It is not clear when those investigations will end or whether they might result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the ongoing gravity – and broad geographic scope – of the legal challenges facing the former president.

Trump’s post Saturday echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his Florida home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.

News of that search sparked a flood of contributions to Trump’s political operation, and on Saturday, Trump sent out a series of fundraising emails to his supporters, including one that claimed, “I’m not worried in the slightest.”

After his post, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to prosecute Trump as an “outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA” whom he claimed was pursuing “political vengeance.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, issued a statement with a similar sentiment.

The grand jury has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican’s 2024 campaign. Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and has accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.

Bragg’s office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump’s company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations quiet.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.

Cohen has said that at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.

Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump’s company paid him $420,000 as reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other supposed expenses. The company classified those payments internally as legal expenses. The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which kept her story from coming to light.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer’s corporate parent in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to impermissible, unrecorded gifts to Trump’s election effort.

Cohen pleaded guilty, served prison time and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors never charged Trump with any crime.

News that law enforcement agencies were preparing for a possible indictment was first reported by NBC News.

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Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina and Sean Murphy in Tulsa, Oklahoma — contributed to this report.

MassGOP picks Amy Carnevale to steer party’s future

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Massachusetts Republicans nearly stuck with party chairman Jim Lyons for another two-year term, despite disastrous election results over his four-year tenure, but instead narrowly decided Tuesday night to give Amy Carnevale a shot at running the shrinking party.

Members of the Republican State Committee voted 37-34 to pick Carnevale as the MassGOP’s next top leader, placing the job of restoring the Grand Old Party’s diminished influence on Beacon Hill and among voters in the hands of a longtime lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staffer.

Republicans needed two rounds of voting to make a final decision after no candidate earned the needed 37 votes on the first ballot, according to POLITICO, a reflection of the tense fight that had played out in the weeks and months leading up to the leadership shuffle.

“Congratulations are in order for the newest chair of the party, Amy @CarnevaleMHD!” the official MassGOP account tweeted Tuesday night. “Best of luck to Amy, a very capable leader, who will work to unite the MassGOP!”

The vote boots Lyons, a former state representative and conservative hard-liner, from the party chair role after a four-year stint during which he repeatedly clashed with popular moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and fellow state committee members.

In that span, the Republican super-minority in the House and Senate shrunk even smaller, the party’s finances fell into disarray, and Democrats seized back the corner office with the election of Gov. Maura Healey, giving them trifecta control atop Beacon Hill.

Carnevale spent a decade working for former U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt, a Washington Republican who entered office in 1995 after unseating House Speaker Tom Foley, eventually as his chief of staff.

Since 2005, she has worked in both state and federal government affairs for K&L Gates, an influential firm, according to her LinkedIn. Baker appointed Carnevale to the Governor’s Commission on Intellectual Disability in 2017.

The Boston Globe reported that Carnevale pitched fellow state committee members Tuesday on rebuilding and professionalizing the party’s operations.

“By every metric, we are failing,” Carnevale said, according to the Globe. “For the sake of the conservative policies we advocate, our remaining officeholders, members of our party, and future candidates, we need a fresh start.”

Like Lyons, who made his vocal and repeated support of former President Donald Trump a central theme of his chairmanship, Carnevale was a backer of the Republican president. She helped campaign for Trump in 2016 and praised him during his time in office.

She condemned the violent Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s election, calling the intrusion “a serious crime” and arguing that Trump “should have made absolutely clear that he was committed to the orderly transfer of power.”

Carnevale criticized Lyons’s approach as chair, telling talk show personality Howie Carr in December that he was “a distraction to Republicans running for office and a hindrance to raising money.”

Methuen billboard targets Lori Trahan after she recalled her support for term-limit pledge

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LOWELL — U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan is in the spotlight for having “reneged on her promise” to support term limits, according to one political advocacy group.

The organization, U.S. Term Limits, recently contracted a billboard in Methuen on Interstate 93 at 55 Hampshire Road that reads, “Rep. Lori Trahan is breaking her U.S. term limits pledge.”

That pledge, which the group sends out to candidates for Congress, is a commitment to support an amendment that would limit House terms to three terms and Senate terms to two, according to their website.

About 133 federal legislators have signed the pledge, including 113 in the House and 20 in the Senate, said Nick Tomboulides, executive director of U.S. Term Limits.

Trahan, who recently began her third term representing the 3rd Congressional District, signed the pledge in 2018, while she was first running for Congress in the Democratic primary, but now views that support as somewhat of a mistake.

“I ran for Congress because I thought Washington wasn’t working and wanted to make things better,” Trahan wrote in a statement. “I honored my pledge in my first term and cosponsored this legislation. Now that I’ve learned more, I have chosen not to continue cosponsoring a bad bill.”

The current proposed legislation, reintroduced this term by U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, states that representatives should be limited to three two-year terms, or six years, and senators to two six-year terms, or 12 years, and no longer limits.

Instituting congressional term limits requires an amendment to the Constitution, meaning it needs two-thirds support in the House and Senate.

The potential amendment has attracted 58 co-sponsors, all but one of whom are Republicans.

The goal of the billboard is to inform voters that Trahan is “not keeping her word” and is an effort toward “public accountability,” Tomboulides said.

Tomboulides, who describes himself as an independent, said he’s “puzzled” by that party divide, since the vast majority of Americans, both Democrat and Republican, support term limits.

“I think perhaps what they don’t realize is this is a super unique issue,” Tomboulides said. “It’s the most popular bipartisan issue in the country, so it should be viewed differently, I think, than everything else up there on the hill.”

About 82% of Americans support term limits for senators and representatives, according to a 2016 Quinnipiac University poll.

Tomboulides said U.S. Term Limits is “totally nonpartisan,” but its superPAC counterpart does not appear to be. In the 2018 and 2022 election season, Term Limits SuperPAC spent a total of $555,855 against Democratic candidates and $202,353 in support of Republican candidates, according to OpenSecrets. The PAC spent no money for Democrats or against Republicans, according to that data.

The PAC is “a separate entity” from the advocacy organization, Tomboulides said, and he could not speak to those decisions. He said the PAC had endorsed a progressive Democrat in Texas, but The Sun could not find evidence to confirm that claim.

While she is not against term limits, Trahan stated that efforts to call her out lack context.

“I think term limits of some length make sense, but I will not be bullied by a partisan group to continue supporting a proposal that is too rigid and would make it harder to get results for working families like the one I grew up in,” she wrote. “I remain committed to enacting reforms that will finally make government work better.”

U.S. Term Limits also recently put up a similar billboard in San Francisco against U.S. Rep. Young Kim, R-California, who apparently broke the pledge as well.

Philip Blumel, president of the organization, wrote in a statement that he hopes “Rep. Trahan has a change of heart and decides to keep her promise.”

“Lori Trahan made a promise to the voters of her district to support the U.S. Term Limits amendment,” Blumel stated. “Yet, once she was elected, she decided to ignore the promise she made to her constituents.”

Term limits allow underrepresented groups, including women, to be elected, Tomboulides said, bringing “new ideas, new faces” to the table. It also allows constituents to establish stronger connections with their representatives, who will not be tied to lobbyists and special interests, he added.

“Ordinary people can run for office and win when a seat is open. Nobody really has a shot at challenging an incumbent who’s been there for 20 or 30 years, that person is just too powerful and has too much money,” Tomboulides said. “Term limits, it brings down the barriers to entry and allows more people to run for office.”