According the the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo, Martha Barnett, former work partner of Florida Democratic Party Chair candidate Allison Tant, stated that Tant never was involved in lobbying for the voting purge system that was put in place by Database Technologies Online, Inc. According to Mr. Caputo, “ChoicePoint bought a company they were already representing, Barnett said, and Tant’s involvement with the company concerned identity-theft issues.”
What Ms. Barnett doesn’t realized that she is now saying that Mrs. Tant actually did lobby for DBT Online. If you read her statement, Barnett says that ChoicePoint purchased “a company they were already representing”. Looking into the companies that Mrs. Tant worked for, only DBT Online was purchased by ChoicePoint. Therefore, Barnett states clearly and directly that Mrs. Tant was a lobbyist for DBT Online before the purchase of the company by ChoicePoint.
This statement by Barnett conflicts with a previous statement by Mrs. Tant. A few days prior, Mr. Caputo reported that Mrs. Tant said that she “did not” work for DBT Online in 1999 and 2000. But according to Ms. Barnett’s statement yesterday, Tant did indeed work for DBT Online. Therefore, which one is it? Either Mrs. Tant is not telling the truth or Ms. Barnett isn’t telling the truth. Both cannot be correct.
Another thing that has been misreported is regarding the Secretary of State position. Database Technologies On-Line negotiated with Secretary Sandra Mortham, not Katherine Harris. It is understandable since Harris won the position in 1998 and was the center of attention during the Florida recount. But Harris wasn’t the person that hired Database Technologies On-Line, Inc., to a $4 million, no-bid contract in 1998. Instead, it was Mortham.
What makes this fact interesting is that in 1998, Mrs. Tant only donated to two candidates at the state level. One of those was a non-partisan judge race. The other was to, yes, you guess it, Sandra Mortham. In fact, according to the Division of Elections’ website, Tant only gave to one Democrat during that election cycle. Still, she was able to find $100 for Secretary Mortham, who, coincidentally, was working with DBT Online which, also coincidentally, Mrs. Tant was lobbying for, according to Ms. Barnett. Also, Tant gave this donation to Mortham after DBT Online made this deal with the Secretary of States’ office, not before. In addition, Tant has never given to any other Secretary of State candidate besides Mortham in the last 16 years.
One thing my parents always taught me is that if someone lies, it is hard to keep track of those lies. Eventually, one lie will contradict the other one and, eventually, you will be caught lying. We have, within days, two people saying conflicting statements regarding Tant’s involvement in DBT Online. Either one statement is true or the other statement is true. Both cannot be true.
Still, at the same time, both could be entirely false.
At this point it’s reasonable to assume that this blog will do its best to bring us the facts and present them in an non bias manner… Your parents are correct in their comments about lying….Sam Harris wrote an essay called “Lying.” It’s about fifty pages and worth the read…
Apparently you subscribe to your parents values…it will serve the rest of us well if we follow that lead….
Surely others who have been close to Ms. Tant at some point have reliable information as to her actions and value system within the past five years that might shed some light on her motivations for running for chair of Florida’s Dem Party. I would be curious to know whether she contributed to the campaign of Rick Scott.
It is amazing how misinformed Tant was in that first reply to Caputo. You clearly had the evidence in your initial article with the image of the 1999 DBT lobbyist registration. Yet for whatever reason she decided to lie about this. Tant could end up being another Maddox who lied all the way to getting the party’s door almost shuttered by the IRS. Remember that? Then he made a lowly staffer he had brought from the city of Tallahassee take the fall. Shameful!
No, she has not.
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