A spokesman for Michael S. Steele defended the new Republican National Committee chairman yesterday against claims by a convicted felon that Steele misused campaign funds from his 2006 Senate bid.

Curt Anderson, a political consultant and Steele spokesman, said the allegations had been “fabricated” by Steele’s former campaign finance chairman, who was seeking a more lenient sentence in an unrelated criminal case.

The Washington Post outlined the accusations in yesterday’s editions, including a claim that Steele’s campaign paid money to a company owned by his sister for services never performed, and the improper use of tens of thousands more in campaign money.
The accusations come from Alan B. Fabian, a former finance committee chairman for Steele’s Senate bid, as he was trying to cut a deal with Baltimore-based federal prosecutors. Fabian, of Hunt Valley, was indicted in August 2007 on fraud charges.

Steele denied the allegations through a spokesman. But attorneys said the confidential charges, which appear to have been mistakenly disclosed to a reporter, would dog Steele and endanger Fabian by branding him as a snitch.

Steele, Maryland’s former lieutenant governor, was elected national party chairman on Jan. 30, becoming the first African-American in the position. The Post described four instances of alleged wrongdoing raised by Fabian, who claimed Steele paid a law firm $75,000 for work never done, which the firm denied; improperly transferred more than a half-million dollars from a state campaign account to another account; used state campaign funds to pay for federal campaign expenses; and gave $37,262 in Senate campaign funds to Brown Sugar Limited, a defunct business run by his sister, Monica Turner.

And so it begins……Now the Repubs will have to do damage control on ALL the talk shows and will be a story for the next week…..it will be interesting to see who cover this and if it is given equal coverage by the media.