FBI Still Investigating Fraudulent Eckersley E-Mail Which May Implicate Congressman Long

The Friday before the election, major media outlets in Springfield, Missouri, received an e-mail claiming Scott Eckersley had quit the Congressional race against Billy Long. One Springfield television station ran the story without confirming it with the Eckersley campaign. Within a few minutes, Eckersley quickly corrected the story, alerting the media the e-mail was a fraud. Still the damage was done as Eckersley reports many people he spoke with never heard anything but he quit the race since the story was released on a Friday.

Eckersley quickly held a press conference, and shared information abut the e-mail, citing the IP was traced to a Chicagoland Internet provider with possible ties to Billy Long. The e-mail came from Glendale Heights, home of Lakefront Political Strategies, which they noted had been communicating with the Long campaign. Long denied any connection, but of course Long did a lot of denying during the Congressional campaign with allegations following him throughout the campaign.

We have learned the FBI is still investigating the case and it has not been closed. They will not release what they have discovered, but the FBI did say they were using the grand jury process to conduct their investigation.


Now, you have evidence that the DOJ decided to pursue it by opening an investigation. The DOJ only does this with a fraction of the numerous election fraud complaints filed each year, which means something. Also, Long downplayed it as an FEC complaint which it is not. The difference is jail time.

Lastly, Billy should be forced to answer questions about comments he made saying he didn't know Patrick Binning. That might be the biggest mistake he made, especially in light of the connections to his daughter, Greenwood Laboratory Schools, where Binning, Long, and Long's dauthers graduated from, which is an exclusive school where everyone knows everyone, and the fact that Patrick's messages to Long's Facebook talked about work Binning had already done for Billy. Binning called Congressman Long by his first name on Facebook in a tone that came across as personal. Here is some additional background about the clues that led to Patrick Binning and his Lakefront Strategies.

Taxpayers are funding this investigation and I think it's time they know about it.