Thursday, January 31st., 2019
Prosecutors said Dougherty and his associates used the union's credit cards to buy everything from Bruce Springsteen tickets to luxury clothing gift cards to baby wipes to "men's exercise pants." They claim Dougherty dispatched a Local 98 official who is also a city councilman, to retaliate against a towing company that tried to cart off his car, and squeeze Comcast into giving millions of dollars of work to a friend's company...."
Pennsylvania Democrats rocked by indictment of top political boss
The powerful union leader known as ‘Johnny Doc’
heads ‘the single-most effective political organization’ in the key 2020
state.
The bombshell charges announced Wednesday against building trades leader John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty — a Philadelphia labor kingpin whose union is the single biggest independent source of campaign funding in the state — threaten to sap statehouse and congressional Democrats of a mega-donor, slow the party’s momentum in the Philadelphia suburbs, and sideline the man who orchestrated the Democratic takeover of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Dougherty's tentacles spread so far that Republicans already think it could be a boon for President Donald Trump’s election chances in 2020.
“Anytime there’s a vacuum, it gets filled, and I believe there's an opportunity for the Republicans to take advantage of the fact that the Democratic machinery is minus one piece,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP consultant.
