Emails and documents from court files reveal corruption and "Nixonian" tactics from Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Christian Marrone when he worked as an aide to Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Fumo, the Washington Times reports.
For instance, Mr. Marrone accepted $4,000 from a publicly funded nonprofit run by Fumo to pay the cost of his bar review course. The money from the tax-exempt charity was supposed to help revive blighted urban neighborhoods.
While collecting a taxpayer salary, Mr. Marrone also gave Fumo a suggestion to disguise the true source of a proposed political donation from a developer and conceived a plan to spy on Edward G. Rendell to find dirt that could undercut the Philadelphia mayor’s campaign for governor.
"I’d like to snoop around and see if we can dig up some info," Mr. Marrone wrote in one 2001 email in which he proposed hiring a private investigator to spy on renovations at one of Mr. Rendell’s homes to determine whether he was using nonunion workers. He later asked Fumo for permission to turn over the private eye’s findings to Mr. Rendell’s political rival.
Fumo is currently serving 55 months in prison. Marrone was never charged with wrongdoing.