A story in The Daily Progress reporting the personal financial struggles of Fifth District independent congressional candidate Jeffrey Clark has taken an interesting turn.
Clark sent out a news release on Tuesday offering to drop out of the Fifth District race if the person who made the information about Clark’s past available to the paper will come forward.
“I think that it is important for transparency sake to let the people of the Fifth District know exactly who was involved in gathering, paying for, and disseminating the information so the voters of the Fifth District can judge for themselves the intentions behind the distribution of the material,” Clark said in the release.
The story in the Progress detailed that Clark, a conservative Tea Party member, had filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and has a history of personal debt dating back to the 1980s.
Clark said in the news release that he is not considering dropping out of the race in the Fifth because the information was made public.
“I am extending this offer because the people of this country have had enough of these types of backroom dealings, corrosion and the practice of the politics of personal destruction,” Clark said. “The citizens have a right to know and assign ownership and responsibility to the appropriate party.”
Clark went on to say that he has his own suspicions “as to who is responsible and what their intensions were behind the dissemination of this material,” though he did not elaborate on that point.
“I only hope by taking this step it will provide some transparency and get people to think about what it will take before they are willing stand up and draw a line in the sand and tell their political leaders,” Clark said.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at [email protected].
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