Maine Republican Senate candidate Scott D’Amboise, who is challenging sitting Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe in the upcoming 2012 primary, called on Snowe to resign from her seat immediately.
D’Amboise issued a statement Tuesday morning calling on Snowe to resign after the U.S. Department of Justice joined a lawsuit against Education Management Corporation (EDMC), a company that has employed her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan, for the past 12 years. The suit alleges that EDMC had defrauded the government of financial aid funding.*
D’Amboise said Snowe has “directly benefited” from her husband’s financial activity, which he describes as, “defrauding of taxpayers, pocketing millions of dollars – millions of our hard earned tax dollars.” D’Amboise also said Snowe “became a millionaire with our money.”
“Olympia Snowe owes us two things – an explanation and a letter of resignation. Instead, she is in holed up in her ornate Washington, D.C. office refusing to explain what she knew and when she knew it,” D’Amboise said in his statement. “How can your spouse bring in millions of dollars without asking him how he was making all that money? Olympia is a smart lady. She had to know something was fishy about how her husband was doing business.”
D’Amboise, who considers himself a representative of the Tea Party movement, announced his official candidacy to challenge Snowe in the 2012 GOP primary in February 2010.
Snowe’s office did not immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.
*This article has been corrected. It originally incorrectly stated that McKernan was a defendant on the lawsuit.