Steve Stockman

Stephen Ernest "Steve" Stockman
U.S. Representative for Texas' 36th district
In office January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
Preceded by	New constituency established
Succeeded by	Brian Babin
U.S. Representative for Texas' 9th district
In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 1997
Preceded by	Jack Bascom Brooks
Succeeded by	Nicholas Valentino "Nick" Lampson
Born	November 14, 1956 Bloomfield Hills Oakland County, Michigan
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Patti Ferguson Stockman (married 1988)
Children	No children

Stephen Ernest Stockman, known as Steve Stockman (born November 14, 1956), is a conservative former U.S. Representative from Texas, who was first elected as part of the Repubican "Contract with America" campaign in 1994. Liberals were so enraged at Stockman that they successfully targeted him for defeat in 1996, even as Bob Dole was carrying the electoral votes in Texas. In 2012, however, after a 16-year absence, Stockman was elected again to Congress but again served only one term in the House.

Background[edit]

A native of Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, Stockman opposed the RINOs by refusing to vote for Moderate Republican John Boehner of Ohio as Speaker of the House. Stockman also called for the impeachment of U.S. President Barack H. Obama.

In 2014, he was defeated in the Republican primary for the United States Senate by Moderate Republican John Cornyn, who went on to defeat Democratic opposition to win his third term. Dwayne Stovall, a school board member from Cleveland in Liberty County in southeastern Texas, divided the conservative vote with Stockman, but Cornyn had a majority in the primary anyway. By entering the Senate contest, Stockman was unable to seek reelection to the House.

Trial and imprisonment[edit]

On March 28, 2017, Stockman was indicted by a federal grand jury for an assortment of financial crimes. He is charged with having obtained $1.25 million under false pretenses from conservative donors and used that money to pay personal expenses and to underwrite his political campaigns. He faced eleven counts of money laundering, eight counts of mail and wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to make "conduit contributions" and false statements, two counts of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, one count of making excessive contributions, and another count for not disclosing his total income on his 2013 federal tax return. Stockman's trial began March 19, 2018.^[1] On April 12, Stockman was convicted on twenty-three of the twenty-four felonies for which he was charged. He reaffirmed his innocence but faces potentially ten years in prison. He is confined in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston.^[2]

He could have received as much as 283 years in prison for the 23 charges, which nearly all relate to checks that he received from two donors totaling about $950,000. A website established up by supporters attributes the prosecution in the case, which began in the Barack H. Obama Justice Department, as an example of the “deep state” in action. Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell worked briefly pro-bono on Stockman's legal team following his conviction, filing a court document calling for his release from prison pending his sentencing hearing and appeal. Powell said that justice was not served in the case.^[3]

Nationally syndicated columnist Joseph Farah called upon President Donald Trump to pardon Stockman. Farah said:

There’s not a corrupt bone in his body. Don’t believe anything else you read about this case anywhere – including Fox News, which hung him out to dry.

Steve went to Washington to do one thing – defeat the Deep State. There’s an old saying about the feds: If they want to get you, they have an unlimited budget and unlimited power to do so. Knowing what we now know in more graphic detail than ever before, are you surprised?^[4]

Patti Ferguson Stockman describes her husband as a “political prisoner ... who’s poured decades of his life toward preserving the liberties that were guaranteed in the Constitution, and he is sitting there without his own liberty. This is bigger than Steve Stockman. It’s the state of our nation. It’s Steve Stockman today; it may be your neighbor tomorrow, or even you.”^[3] In November 2018, Stockman was sentenced to ten years in prison.^[5][6]

Like Joseph Farah, conservative stalwart Richard Viguerie has defended Stockman as a victim of judicial overreach through the order of former IRS official Lois Lerner. On January 11, 2019, Stockman filed his appeal. Viguerie defends him:

Steve Stockman’s journey through the underbelly of the federal judicial system began when he filed a House Resolution demanding the arrest of Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress. Within two weeks of that constitutionally protected action the FBI was at then-Congressman Stockman’s door, and he became the subject of a three-year witch hunt.

It was not until the FBI used all their considerable resources to intimidate a former associate into pleading guilty and testifying against Stockman that a fourth grand jury indicted him on charges that could have led to 283 years in prison. … an unyielding foe of government corruption and overreach, he sits in a federal prison unable to work or even help his wife Patty raise the money necessary to pay for his appeal – and that’s part of the corrupt strategy being pursued by those who want to him out of public life – spend four years harassing the target and siphoning-off his resources, so that he is unable to defend himself."^[7]

Viguerie is seeking financial contributions on Stockman's behalf through the "Patriot Defense Fund" on the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund website. Several figures defended Stockman.^[8][9]

Trump commutes Stockman's sentence[edit]

In April 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic underway, Patti Stockman sent a personal video to President Trump asking for clemency for her husband. She noted that Stockman was vulnerable in prison to coronavirusbecause of his diabetes and other health issues, but he recovered from the virus. Trump did not reply to her plea.^[10] On December 22, 2020, however, Trump finally commuted Stockman's sentence to time served, but he still faces repayment of $1 million in restitution.^[11]

References[edit]