Could Musgrove be free of criminal wrongdoing in beef plant?

This is going to be long, so bear with me. I want us to see if it is plausible that Musgrove really has done nothing criminal in the beef plant fiasco, despite claims from Republican bloggers.

As you know from a previous post, Republicans are all giddy about Robert Moultrie's guilty plea in the beef plant case.

According to the plea, Moultrie says he is guilty of:

...knowingly and unlawfully rewarding an agnet of the government of the State of Mississippi with a gratuity...

We all know that the gratuity to which he pleads guilty of giving is the $45,000 in campaign donations to former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.

To rehash a point already made, the Clarion-Ledger and the federal authorities agree:

Ronnie Musgrove has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Even Alan Lange at Y'all Politics, who wants to spin this as a sign of Musgrove's probable guilt, admits in this post that Musgrove has been accused of nothing, nada, zero, zilch in this case.

Today, in weighs Andy Taggart -- former chief of staff to Gov. Kirk Fordice turned C-L blogger -- who says this:

A charge of conspiracy means that two or more people planned together specifically to break the law. So, for Moultrie to have pled guilty to such a charge in this case, he must have been convinced that the feds could prove to a jury that he planned with other people to use campaign contributions not simply as a way to support the candidate of his choice, but to corruptly influence the candidate of his choice, the then-sitting governor of the State of Mississippi, Ronnie Musgrove. The voters of Mississippi are going to have a very hard time believing that Musgrove himself -- now a candidate for the US Senate -- didn't know what was going on.

Well, I can fairly well believe it for a few reasons. First, there's this quote from Moultrie's attorney, as reported in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog post:

Robert Moultrie has pleaded guilty to a charge in a one-count information that he paid an illegal gratuity to a state official by a campaign contribution to the official.

This is a charge that he made the contribution intending to influence and reward the official for the performance of official duties should the public official’s assistance be needed on any potential problems on the Mississippi beef project.

In other words, he did not pay Musgrove "an illegal gratuity" in return for anything. He did it hoping that if they needed Musgrove in the future that they could remind him of this donation.

Then there is this piece of information, as provided by none other than Y'all Politics:

However, in September 2003, Musgrove contacted Moultrie for another campaign contribution of $25,000. At the time, The Facility Group was aware of potential problems in the design and construction of the plant. Moultrie and Cawood subsequently had a conversation about giving this contribution to Musgrove intending to influence and reward him for the performance of his official duties should his assistance be needed on any potential problems on the project.

Notice that it does not say, "Moultrie and Cawood subsequently had a conversation about telling Musgrove they were giving him this contribution so he would sweep under the rug the problems arising with the beef plant."

Going back to Taggert's assertion that someone other than Moultrie must know about it and that the people of Mississippi will have a hard time believing that person was not Musgrove, I ask a simple question, "Why?"

It seems entirely plausible that the other person could be Nixon Cawood, chief operating officer of The Facilities Group. After all, Cawood was indicted alongside Moultrie.

And in case you might have been misled by Lange, Taggart or the like, Musgrove ain't been indicted for squat yet. So the GOP can hold their breath and hope -- and spread a few falsehoods along the way.