Reports are coming in (via @CFHeather) that a former Obama ’08 staffer – one Zach Edwards, formerly with the 2008 Obama campaign in Iowa and currently up until the arrest working for Link Strategies*, a company affiliated with Sen. Tom Harken (D, IA) – has been arrested for identity theft. The Iowa Department of Public Safety puts it fairly succinctly: “According to the Criminal Complaint, on June 24, 2011, Edwards fraudulently used, or attempted to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz and/or Secretary Schultz’s brother, Thomas Schultz, with the intent to obtain a benefit, in an alleged scheme to falsely implicate Secretary Schultz in perceived illegal or unethical behavior while in office.” In other words: Edwards is accused of trying to pretend to be Schultz in order to get Schultz in trouble. The crime is listed as an ‘Aggravated Misdemeanor,’ but if convicted Edwards could face jail time.

Matt Schultz is a Republican, in case anybody needed to have that spelled out; he was one of the many, many people who helped kick George Soros’ Secretary of State Project in the teeth in 2010. The SoS Project is, of course, an ongoing campaign by Democrats to control the election process in individual states by controlling the Secretary of State position, which is usually the office that oversees elections: and Iowa was definitely on its radar in 2010. Losing that state hurt, particularly since Schultz both opposes Election Day voter registration and supports photo IDs for voting**: two policies that seem to infuriate Democrats all out of proportion to the importance that those people publicly ascribe to either. So it’s not surprising that some poor, misguided individual might have decided to target the Secretary of State in this fashion.

But what is surprising is this passage from the Iowa Republican (the first link above):

Interestingly, on June 24, the same day as Zach Edwards alleged crime, Under the Golden Dome, a blog connected to Iowa Democrats, launched a three-part series of articles critical of Matt Schultz. They were based on documents obtained through an open records request from “a tipster.” The blog alleged that a batch of emails from Schultz’s office “raise some serious questions about his ability to remain independent and ensure election integrity”.

If that checks out, too… well. You don’t often see the Democrats being that sloppy. Man, standards under President Obama are slipping all over.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Oddly enough, Link Strategies seems to have scrubbed Edwards from its site.

**This is usually the time when the Left starts whining about how the GOP didn’t require ID in its Presidential caucus. Oddly enough, I agree (without the whining): we should have been checking IDs. We might have had less non-Republicans sneaking in and skewing the results. One in four? – and if you’re waiting to see any of them vote Republican in the general, well, pack a lunch.