Democrat Walser Pleads Guilty to Crime

Fred Walser, a Democrat running for the Washington State Senate in the 39th Legislative District, pled guilty to a gross misdemeanor of providing false information this week. He had been charged last month.

A few things don't add up. He originally plead not guilty, but now he says he is guilty, and accepts all the responsibility for the "clerical error" that led to the criminal charge. But he still implies he isn't guilty: he says he couldn't afford a lengthy legal battle, and why say that if he is accepting responsibility, since he is pleading guilty anyway?

And if he can't afford the legal battle, how can he afford the $20,000 fine and 240 hours of community service? How much would the legal battle have cost?

And where will he come up with that $20,000? I think his potential Senate campaign donors have a right to know that their donations to his election bid won't go to pay off his debt to society.

Will he finish the 240 hours -- six weeks of full-time work -- of community service before the election? If not, does he plan on performing it while in office? It seems his community service would take a lot of time out of serving the community. Hm. I hope he isn't going to try to convince the judge to let him count being in office as community service.

At least he has decided to drop his $10 million lawsuit against Sultan, as "all he wanted" was "to clear his name," and his admission of guilt took care of that.

Perhaps the most puzzling question of all is: what makes Walser think the public should trust him again? He committed a crime, said he didn't do it, threatened to sue the taxpayers over it, then finally admitted he did it. All's well that ends well, right? No harm, no foul. Let bygones be bygones. Etc.