Dumping The Astroturf

Ed Markey keeps finding forged letters sent to members of Congress, sent to moderate Dems and made to look like citizen groups opposed the climate and energy bill that passed the House. So the clean coal front group who hired the astroturfers just had to fire them.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is dumping Bonner & Associates, the Astroturf firm that forged letters to Congress attacking clean energy legislation on its behalf. Bonner, an organization with a long record of deceptive practices, sent letters this June purporting to be from black, Hispanic, women’s and senior citizen’s groups to several members of Congress telling them to vote against the American Clean Energy and Security Act. ACCCE spokesman Joe Lucas told National Journal that his organization “did nothing wrong”:

"We will not be working with Mr. Bonner again. ACCCE did nothing wrong. Looking back, there would be many things we would do differently."

ACCCE did plenty wrong. They hired a known astroturf group with a history of this behavior and tried to keep quiet about it when they were informed of the forging.

I hope this doesn't stop the ongoing investigation into Bonner and Associates, nor should it stop criminal investigations (is this mail fraud?). Can't Bonner have their lobbyist registration stripped at this point?