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Internal Investigation Clears Donovan

Jeff Cohen/WNPR

An internal investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in the Democratic congressional campaign of Chris Donovan has cleared the state house speaker. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports.

The fundraising scandal involving Donovan began when his now former finance director was arrested and charged with conspiracy -- he allegedly tried to hide the source of campaign donations. Donovan has said he had no knowledge of the impropriety -- but he hired former U.S. Attorney Stan Twardy to do an internal investigation.

And here's what Twardy found.

"Based upon our review of documents, electronically stored materials, and interviews, we found nothing to indicate that Donovan had knowledge of either the alleged conduit contributions or any quid pro quo arrangements."

Twardy's investigation was limited to the campaign's staff -- some of whom would not participate given the pending federal investigation. Twardy says his team of attorneys sifted through several of Donovan's computers, including his iPad and iPhone, as well as various campaign email accounts. Reporters asked Twardy whether it's possible that there was a conspiracy that could have existed outside of email.

"There a bunch of kids here. They put everything in emails. I don't think that this is what you would call a group of savvy people who sit there and, okay, we're going to have this huge conspiracy and not do anything on email. We had text messages, emails we looked at -- I think it's highly unlikely there's anything out there."

Donovan's campaign is paying Twardy for his work. That said, Twardy says his report is unbiased. He says he never had a substantive conversation with Donovan before the investigation, and that he even contributed to one of his Republican opponents.

"I can say to you unequivocally, this was completely done -- no rock was left unturned on this one."

In a statement, Donovan said the report speaks for itself. Some of his Republican opponents are questioning the way Donovan runs his campaign, and they say the report leaves many questions unanswered.

For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.

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Jeff Cohen started in newspapers in 2001 and joined Connecticut Public in 2010, where he worked as a reporter and fill-in host. In 2017, he was named news director. Then, in 2022, he became a senior enterprise reporter.

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