Hogan at Press Conference: "Clear violation of Federal and State law by the O'Malley-Brown administration and by Brown-Ulman campaign for governor"

ANNAPOLIS – September 25, 2014 – Larry Hogan held a press conference today at his Annapolis headquarters where he denounced the Anthony Brown for Governor campaign and the O'Malley-Brown administration for what he called a "deliberate attempt… to circumvent the intent" of election finance law through a shake down of state contractors to contribute to the federal Democratic Governors Association; state law prohibits contractors from making these kinds of donations to a candidate's state campaign account.

Hogan said, "As you know, the US Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General is currently conducting a federal investigation into potential fraud by parties involved with the Maryland Health Exchange…

We believe that this federal investigation needs to be widened, to determine if federal and/or state laws were broken, and to investigate the potential fraud regarding the state tax dollars that were misspent on the exchange; how and why the O'Malley-Brown administration awarded these contracts to the failed contractors, and who ultimately was responsible for the collapse of the entire system.

We have formally requested broader federal and state investigations into the health care debacle, as well as other inappropriate, clearly unethical, and potentially illegal contracts awarded to large donors to O'Malley, Brown, and groups with whom they are directly involved, including the Democratic Governors Association.

We believe that this investigation should determine whether state and/or federal laws were broken in the awarding of "emergency," "no-bid contractors" for the failed health care exchange, which Lt. Governor Brown was directly responsible for overseeing.

Specifically, the O'Malley-Brown administration awarded massive state contracts to firms that donated hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars to the DGA while Governor O'Malley served as both chairman and finance chairman of the organization.

In numerous cases, Maryland state contractors made large donations to the DGA just before or immediately after the Anthony Brown-led Maryland Health Benefit Exchange awarded large contracts to these firms or their subsidiaries, including "no-bid" contracts to "repair" the failed health exchange.

Of particular concern is whether these suspicious donations to the DGA have been funneled to and are now funding ads being run to promote Lt. Governor Brown's gubernatorial campaign."

Video of today's press conference can be found here​; view Hogan's full remarks here​​​.