First the LaRouchies, now elected Brookline Town Meeting Members. Wicked Local Brookline reports that a bunch of Town Meeting Members are participating in a fundraiser tomorrow evening for innocent-until-proven-guilty Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner.

Mike Ball reports on a Chuck Turner rally at the Park Square Radisson today that opened with the dulcet a-capella stylings of the LaRouche Jugend:

... At the Radisson before the meeting, it was clear that this was a mandated event for the LaRouche youth. They knew each other and outnumbered the rest of us considerably. Under 100 attended and the 20-somethings dominated. Each was obviously trained to engage, gathering names and contact info on the way in, offering dozens of tracts as stapled magazines or perfect-bound booklets. ...

Ball provides a summary of Turner's speech, which not only brought up the hypocrisy angle of the case against him (why is the U.S. Attorney attempting to keep Turner from speaking truth to power when the guy himself released evidence before the trial?), but even veered into LaRouchist territory, when Turner ran with some of ol' Lyndon's anti-British rhetoric.

In one of his first acts as council president, Mike Ross today asked city lawyers to stop a planned fact-finding investigation into what action, if any, the council could take against Innocent Until Proven Guilty Turner.

Previous Council President Maureen Feeney had worked with city lawyers to hire some fancy-shmancy retired judge at $500 an hour - plus an investigator at $90 an hour - for a fact-finding mission that could have cost the city $50,000. Then federal prosecutors filed a court motion that might limit what the council could learn about the bribery and conspiracy case against Turner. In a statement, Ross said:

Given the pending motion and that the city is contending with a budget gap and the possibility of additional cuts to state aid, I believe that the money spent on fact-finding can be better used elsewhere.

Although not badly enough to go public, Kevin McCrea reports.

Earlier:
City Council could spend $50,000 determining whether it can get rid of Chuck Turner.

Turns out the prestigious former federal judge who'll help the City Council determine what it can do about the innocent until proven guilty city councilor isn't doing so out of deep personal concern for the operations of municipal government. The Herald reports he'll be paid $500 an hour. Add in another investigator at $90 an hour, and it starts adding up.

PolitickerMA reports that Abrigal Forrester, a longtime Boston human-services worker, is considering a run for the District 7 city-council seat now held by Chuck Turner, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Carlos Henriquez, who ran against Turner in 2007, is also looking at a run.

In a new interview with the Associated Press, the Boston Herald reports that Chuck Turner isn't so sure that's him in the FBI affadavit video still frame. He believes the FBI may have faked the photo to implicate him. He goes on to further claim that he doesn't remember the businessman that the Feds claim he met with, he never accepted $1000 from anyone, he won't resign from City Council, and he predicts he won't spend a day in jail.

If there were a Bulwer-Lytton competition for columns, Joe Fitzgerald might have a winner with his column today on Turner, which approvingly quotes Louis Farrakhan and ends:

Even if he beats the rap, Turner has blown the chance to be what's so urgently needed today, a leader to emulate, worthy of a kid's admiration.

So even if Turner is found innocent, he's still guilty? And Louis Farrakhan is now a public figure to emulate?

Ron Wilburn, the "Cooperating Witness," talks to the Globe's Adrian Walker. Fans of Boston political intrigue need to go read the interview now, if you haven't already.

Ed. Frequent Critic of Walker Note: Adrian, this makes up for all those columns on the Red Sox and beach erosion in Winthrop.

On the steps of City Hall, Chuck Turner is saying he can't talk about his criminal case on the advice of his lawyers. But he can talk about the press:

I am not being judged by jury of my peers. I am being judged by the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Fox News, Channel 5, Channel 7, etc., etc., etc. News outlets that would not cover my work as a city councilor are now knocking at my door almost every hour, demanding that I speak to them as if I have some responsibility to their bosses. That is absurd! Their behavior has been so obtrusive, so offensive, so oppressing, that my wife and I yesterday had to call the police department to give us protection from the press! Channel 5, people, would not leave my porch even when the police came! ... Once the police were gone, they came again. They are criminals! Why aren't they being arrested? ...

I will not sit back silently and allow my reputation that I struggled to build for 45 years to be ripped to shreds by employees of rich media corporation owners who have one desire and that is to silence anybody who is willing to speak up about oppression in this city, in this state, in this country.

Also, Maureen Feeney is a meanie who is attempting to strip him of his constitutional rights by taking away his committee chairmanships:

How can she strip me of my power as a committee chair especially of education and human rights without saying I know you're guilty Councilor Turner? How does she know I'm guilty?

And then he looked at reporters:

If you can stand in front of my house 12 to 14 hours a day harrassing me and my wife ... then you have a responsibility to ask Councilor Feeney why she has determined that we are guilty.