TPMMuckraker

Texas Paper On Cornyn and Sessions’ Stanford Ties: “What Were They Thinking?”

Are lawmakers who took those Antiguan junkets on Allen Stanford’s dime paying a political price back home?

It’s hard to say. But John Cornyn and Pete Sessions, the Texas GOP senator and congressman respectively, can’t be psyched about this Dallas Morning News editorial.

“What were they thinking?” asks the piece in its lead, pointing out that Cornyn and Sessions must have known when they accepted those trips that Stanford would have been looking to curry favor.

The editors conclude, a bit lamely:

Sessions and Cornyn have donated $9,000 of those funds to charity. They would be wise to donate the rest - and to use better judgment next time.

The paper might have added that Sessions would also be wise to ensure that his staff doesn’t misinform reporters about the nature of the congressman’s relationship with Stanford.

Still, it’s a start.

Allen Stanford, John Cornyn, Pete Sessions, Stanford Financial Group

Editor & Publisher

Josh Marshall

Managing Editor

David Kurtz

Senior Associate Editor

Paul Werdel

Associate Editor

Tom Lane

Assistant Editor

Igor Bobic

Reporters

Brian Beutler

Carl Franzen

Sahil Kapur

Eric Kleefeld

Nick Martin

Evan McMorris-Santoro

Jillian Rayfield

Ryan J. Reilly

Benjy Sarlin

Front Page Editor

David Taintor

News Writers

Kyle Leighton

Pema Levy

Video Editor

Michael Lester

Research Interns

Christopher Hohmuth

Tom Kludt

Publishing Intern

Christopher O’Driscoll

General Manager & General Counsel

Millet Israeli

VP, Ad Sales

Bruce Ellerstein

Waldo Tibbetts

Bob Edmunds

Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support

Versha Sharma

Deputy Publisher

Callie Schweitzer

Director of Technology

Eric Buth

Designer/Developer

Ni Mu

Matthew Wozniak