In a video interview with the Washington, D.C.-based POLITICO, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) made it clear that her re-election campaign will take the high road when it comes to her opponent’s personal life.
In response to an inquiry about former Senate President Troy Jackson’s non-marital consanguineous relationship that produced two children, Collins politely demurred.
“I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin,” Sen. Collins told POLITICO.
(See the full interview here.)
Jackson, who has claimed to live primarily in Allagash but also maintains a residence in Augusta, hasn’t commented on the revelation that his co-parent partner is also his second cousin.
The pair have been keeping it in the family since at least 1988, when Fort Kent police records obtained by the Bangor newspaper recorded that Jackson burst into another man’s home and violently assaulted the man, allegedly telling the man to stay away from his second cousin, Lana Pelletier.
The Robinson Report first reported exclusively on the interwoven nature of the Jackson family tree in July following a series of tips and a genealogical investigation.
In addition to being partners in consanguinity, Jackson and Pelletier also partnered to obtain a Federal Housing Administration home loan.
Under the terms of the special low-interest FHA loan, Jackson agreed to make the home his primary residence — which would have caused a conflict with his constitutional requirement to live within his northern Maine district.
In subsequent ethics proceedings, Jackson denied ever making the Augusta house his primary residence, effectively confessing to mortgage fraud.
He has not been charged.
In his defense, Jackson told the Portland newspaper that he never bothered reading the mortgage document, despite his initials appearing on each page.
The Book of Troy: Five Tales from the Maine politics archives...
Augusta resident Troy Jackson, the former Senate President from Allagash, has secured the Maine Democratic Party’s inside nod to take over the U.S. Senate nomination, a seat vacated by his disgraced communist-socialist bestie, Graham Platner.
