Everything that happens on Earth is the work of God. Hurricanes? God. Earthquakes? God. Michele Bachmann not coming anywhere remotely close to winning the GOP nomination for president? God. Bachmann not paying her campaign staffers because they refuse to sign nondisclosure agreements? I hate it to say it, but that's God's will, y'all. Win some, lose some (to God).
Over a year after she dropped out, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has refused to pay five staffers from her failed presidential bid, according to a former top campaign official. Peter Waldron, her controversial former national field coordinator, told Salon the dispute started when former Iowa straw poll staffers refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would bar them from discussing any "unethical, immoral, or criminal activity" they witnessed on the campaign with police or reporters.
Waldron said the staffers are owed a mere $5,000, and that Bachmann has more than $2 million in her campaign account, but has refused to pay unless the staffers sign the agreement.
Waldron, for his part, is stunned that a good, devout Christian would stoop so low as to be shady with money. Who has ever heard of such a thing?
"It is sobering to think that a Christian member of Congress would betray her testimony to the Lord and the public by withholding earned wages from deserving staff," Waldron added.
The spat over signing the nondisclosure stems from a scandal over an email list that Bachmann's campaign allegedly stole from a homeschooling group and then used to fundraise. The homeschooling group is suing the campaign and Waldron confirmed to Slate in an interview that a police investigation is ongoing.
"They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michelle's attorneys, and we just refused," he told Salon. "We've been lied to at every turn."
Being lied to at every turn must really hurt. But God works in mysterious ways to better us all as a people.
[via Slate, image via Getty]