Cooper May Be in Jail, But Harris Still Running Their Racket

­­Longtime Fired Up readers will remember the names Abid Nisar and Naveed Razzaque.  Nisar and Razzaque were two clients of now-imprisoned Republican Nathan Cooper from whom Cooper raised money which ultimately wound up in the pocket of Matt Blunt's then-Appointment Secretary James Harris.  Nisar and Razzaque each received­ a gubernatorial appointment to a board or commission.­

The uninitiated might think Cooper's incarceration would mean the end of this particular racket.  They would, of course, be wrong. 

Missouri Ethics Commission records indicate that Nisar and Razzaque have been active political givers for the last year --but only to three candidates for whose campaigns Harris was heavily engaged as a consultant.­

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For instance, Nisar and his wife gave $2,000 total to Harris client Sarah Steelman in June, $1,000 to client Peter Kinder, and $575 to Harris father-in-law and house candidate Mike Lair.  

Similarly, Razzaque and his wife gave $2,000 total to Steelman's campaign, $2,000 to Kinder's campaign and $825 to Lair's house effort.

For his part, Harris got his taste of whatever he brought in from his old fee office friends.  He was a paid consultant for Steelman (where he openly attempted to trade on his having awarded some fee offices) and earned $10,000 a month in management fees from the Kinder campaign.  He even earned $1,000 in consulting fees from his wife's father's campaign. 

In some ways, Nathan Cooper's guilty plea and imprisonment may have been the best thing ever to happen to James Harris; the flow of questionable dollars hasn't ceased and now he doesn't have to share his ill-gotten loot with anyone.