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"Gov. Charlie Crist and ex-aide George LeMieux cleared in federal probe"

That's the headline from Jay Weaver's story about the Mutual Benefits case, which keeps taking stranger and stranger turns:

Gov. Charlie Crist and former chief of staff George LeMieux -- the subjects of a federal public corruption investigation -- have been cleared of allegations that they tried to thwart a state criminal probe into a Fort Lauderdale insurance company, according to sources familiar with the ongoing case.
Crist's selection of LeMieux to replace U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez would not have been possible had LeMieux still been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors investigating alleged influence-peddling by Mutual Benefits and its former top executive.
LeMieux was in the cross-hairs of the investigation after a major Republican fundraiser working with the FBI made a secretly recorded phone call to LeMieux at the governor's office in 2007, trying to get LeMieux to implicate himself, sources said.

Our prior coverage of the case and all the secrecy and failed snitching and set-ups is here. It's really amazing to me that the government would rely on criminals to try and set up well-respected and law-abiding citizens without real proof. LeMieux did the right thing:

But the phone call backfired: LeMieux immediately reported it to Crist's general counsel, who called the FBI. Still, LeMieux remained under investigation through much of 2008, along with Crist and several other members of his inner circle from his tenure as Florida attorney general and then as governor.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on August 29, 2009 (boomark / email).