Beebe's Involvement in Nick Wilson's Corruption Scam

El Dorado, Ark. - Governor Mike Huckabee today disputed claims by Attorney General Mike Beebe that he was Nick Wilson's "biggest opponent" when Wilson was bilking the state of millions, a corruption conspiracy that resulted in felony convictions for Wilson and his accomplices in 1999. Huckabee pointed out that Beebe helped to override the Governor's veto of the legislation setting up the scam; opposed efforts to censure Wilson and other colleagues in the Senate; and opposed efforts to evict Wilson and the others after they were convicted.

Huckabee was particularly disturbed that Beebe is now trying to claim he was actively involved in trying to stop Wilson, "Mike Beebe helped ensure that this scam became law. Today he claims he didn't know what he was voting for. I don't know what that says about his leadership, but even Nick Wilson says everyone knew. How could somebody who is campaigning on his record as a leader of the Senate also claim he was utterly oblivious to one of the worst political scandals in the history of the Legislature taking place right under his nose?"

Huckabee was also surprised by Beebe's latest claims, issued yesterday, to have led the effort to evict Wilson and the other guilty senators from the Senate. Beebe opposed calls to censure Wilson and the other senators, and, after their felony convictions were handed down two years later, opposed calls to evict the senators from the Legislature immediately. "Back then, Beebe said it was 'un-American' to censure Wilson and his gang," Huckabee said. Beebe said that "evicting Wilson from the Senate after he was convicted would be like running up the score in the football game." Today he says he was Wilson's biggest opponent. This is revisionist history at its best - or worst."

Huckabee noted that while Nick Wilson emerged as the most notorious of the senators in the fraud, he wasn't the only one. Other senators included friends and colleagues of Beebe's when he was in the Senate. "There was a powerful political machine that dominated the Senate, and Beebe wanted to control that machine. He ruffled as few feathers as he could."