My co-blogger at North Decoder has written the following post. Below is the crosspost of Chad's original story.
Crossposted from North Decoder.com
This question was presented to me not too long ago: "Is there any chance Jack Dalrymple is accepting bribes from big oil in exchange for special favors and, specifically, approval of the Corral Creek Bakken Mega Unit unitization?" A couple law-trained gentlemen in Grand Forks have looked at the issue pretty closely. Until someone in law enforcement conducts a legitimate investigation, the answer has to be "I don't know." But, considering North Dakota's state government's history of ignoring (or round-filing) investigations of crimes committed by friends and donors of Republicans, we shouldn't expect such an investigation to happen. Until that happens, though, all I can say is, "Something smells rotten." Because the timing of nearly $82,000 in campaign contributions to Jack Dalrymple as he pushed a lucrative administrative proceeding along to benefit some of his oil industry donors, is nothing if not disturbing. Someone should address the question, and invite an investigation; whether by law enforcement, or by our state's weak mainstream media. If bribes are being made, this should be a national story, as one of the players in this story has been described by the New York Times as "Mitt Romney's top energy advisor," Harold Hamm. But North Dakotans might never know whether there's been any bribery here unless something drastic changes in the control of some component of our state's one-party-dominated government. We need a Democrat in a position of authority to look into things like this.