By Lucy Morgan, Times Senior Correspondent 
 
 In Print: Thursday, July 26, 2012 
 
 TALLAHASSEE — In a wide-ranging deposition that spanned two days in late May, former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer denounced some party officials as liars and "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies'' as he described turmoil in the months before his resignation. 
 
 Greer said some GOP leaders were meeting to discuss ways they could suppress black votes while others were constantly scheming against each other. 
 
 He blamed criminal fraud charges filed against him in 2010 on legislative leaders and other party officials who he says orchestrated an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the statewide grand jury to avoid paying him money he was due. 
 
 His statements were in response to questions from lawyers for the party, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Sen. John Thrasher. Greer has filed a lawsuit against the party and the two officials in an attempt to collect $130,000 he was promised in a written agreement shortly before he resigned. The lawsuit, pending in Leon County, is unlikely to be resolved until after a criminal trial scheduled for mid November. 
 
 Copies of the 630-page deposition and other documents were released by statewide prosecutors Wednesday. 
 
 Greer's testimony offers a window into the level of animosity that exists between Greer and the party he once ran. 
 
 • Greer said "the party was in turmoil" as officials wanted to get rid of him and former Gov. Charlie Crist because they disagreed with some of Crist's decisions, including the appointment of a liberal African-American judge to the Florida Supreme Court, Crist's endorsement of John McCain for president in 2008 and the hug Crist gave President Barack Obama in 2009. "My phone lit up with people wanting me to censure the governor,'' Greer said. "The tea party came into existence. There was a feeling within the party that the tea party was just a bunch of whack-a-dos." 
 
 • After the party's budget and audit committee started asking questions about House and Senate spending, including legislators who used party credit cards for personal expenses, Greer said he wanted to open the books and credit card records, but party officials and legislative leaders vetoed the idea. 
 
 • Greer said he warned others at the party that the budget committee was made up of "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies'' who were trying to take over because of continuing disagreements with Crist and legislative leaders. House and Senate leaders insisted that no one at the party could control their campaign finances. "We eat what we kill,'' Greer said the leaders told him. "Legislative leaders were using their party credit cards like drunken sailors and they made it clear to me I was not to interfere with their spending,'' Greer said. 
 
 Thrasher, who succeeded Greer as party chairman, called Greer's suggestion of voter suppression and other accusations "absurd, absolutely absurd'' and said Greer is making "baseless accusations on other people in an effort to divert attention from himself.'' 
 
 Thrasher said party officials had no choice but to get rid of Greer once they discovered he had secretly created a company that was getting money from the party. 
 
 Many of the questions posed to Greer were about his creation of Victory Strategies LLC, a company that collected almost $200,000 from the party while he was running it. The criminal charges stem from that contract. 
 
 Greer's animosity was evident on almost every page of the deposition as he described the inner workings of a party that has controlled Florida since 1998. 
 
 On voter suppression, Greer said he had just completed a December 2009 meeting with party general counsel Jason Gonzalez, political consultant Jim Rimes and Eric Eikenberg, Crist's chief of staff, when questions arose about fundraising. 
 
 "I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting. It had been one of those days,'' he said. 
 
 Rimes said he recalls no discussion of suppressing votes at any meeting. Eikenberg did not return phone calls. 
 
 Greer said party officials were questioning spending on fundraising trips to New York, Yankees games, limos, expensive cigars and other items when Gonzalez asked him if he had any ownership in Victory Strategies. Greer said he initially denied owning any interest in the company but later admitted it when he and Gonzalez were alone. Gonzalez told state investigators that Greer did not own up to his involvement in the business and threatened to sue anyone who made the accusation. A number of other party officials told state investigators they were unaware of Greer's involvement in the company. Contacted this week, Gonzalez said he could not publicly discuss the case. 
 
 Asked about his failure to tell other officials, Greer said they didn't ask. 
 
 Asked if he told party finance chairman John Rood, a Jacksonville businessman, Greer said Rood was "basically useless as finance chairman.'' 
 
 By late December 2009, Greer found himself under pressure to resign. He said he agreed to leave for the "betterment of the party'' and in January 2010 signed a severance agreement that was to pay him the rest of his $130,000 for the year. 
 
 Greer said he got concerned when Haridopolos and Thrasher, who had both signed the agreement, began to publicly deny knowledge of it. Haridopolos later admitted signing it, insisting he had not read it. 
 
 "Around the party most people considered President Haridopolos to be not the brightest person, but I would assume he would have read the agreement before he signed it,'' Greer said. 
 
 Greer had good words only for House Speaker Dean Cannon, saying the Orlando Republican tried to get others to live up to the severance agreement and promised to help him find a lobbying job and clients. 
 
 After others at the party refused to honor the severance agreement, Greer said Cannon and Haridopolos contacted his friend Jim Stelling to say that political consultants Pat Bainter and Marc Reicheldfer were going to pay Greer $200,000. 
 
 Despite promises of payment and a request from Bainter for information on where to wire the money, none was ever paid, Greer said. After he left the party, Greer said he heard that Thrasher was telling people they were going to have him arrested. A short time later, Greer was indicted by a statewide grand jury on charges of money laundering and fraud. 
 
 The charges and the party's failure to pay him have ruined his life, Greer said. 
 
 "They took everything I worked for my whole life,'' he added. Now his family is on food stamps, some of his possessions have been repossessed and his children watched their father being arrested. 
 
 "Any good thing I did at the Republican Party has been destroyed by these people,'' he said. "I want my life back. I want them to say they are sorry for what they did to me.'' ||||| In the debate over new laws meant to curb voter fraud in places like Florida, Democrats always charge that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote of liberal voting blocs like blacks and young people, while Republicans just laugh at such ludicrous and offensive accusations. That is, every Republican except for Florida’s former Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble, blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies'' in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote. 
 
 In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. "I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,'' he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said party officials discussed how “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party," according to the AP. ||||| Jihan Nassar, a homemaker in Corona, Calif., is listed as a $500 donor to the campaign of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But she insists she never gave a dime. 
 
 ''I can't make any donations, financially,'' Nassar said Friday. "We never made any donations, sir. I have no idea what you are talking about.'' 
 
 Nassar and her husband, Waleed, are among more than three dozen California donors listed as giving to Crist's campaign on June 19, 2006 -- donations bundled by a controversial Delray Beach defense contractor now under scrutiny for contributions to GOP presidential candidate John McCain. 
 
 On Thursday, the McCain campaign said it would return $50,000 in donations tied to businessman Harry Sargeant III, finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a college buddy of Crist's. Sargeant has said the California donors were solicited by a business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a Jordanian with an apartment in Miami-Dade, records show. 
 
 McCain -- a champion of campaign-finance reform in the U.S. Senate -- said he would return the donations after news articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times raised questions about their legitimacy. 
 
 In a letter to the donors, the campaign warned that foreign nationals cannot donate money to U.S. campaigns and contributors cannot be reimbursed by another donor as a way to get around contribution limits. 
 
 Some donors whose contributions are being returned by McCain's campaign were also listed as contributors to Crist on June 19, 2006. 
 
 That day, Crist received more than $25,000 in contributions from California, records show, including $500 checks from two stereo stores and two Wienerschnitzel hot-dog restaurants outside Los Angeles. 
 
 Zouhair El Srouji, a 40-year-old accountant in Wildomar, Calif., initially told a reporter on Friday that he had no memory of a $500 donation to the Florida governor. 
 
 After reviewing campaign records, however, he said he recalled that a campaign contribution was requested by his employer -- though he couldn't recall who asked him to give. 
 
 ''It took a lot of convincing, but they said he was a good man and needed our help, and I guess I'm a sucker for helping good people,'' El Srouji said. 
 
 Reached briefly to talk about his just-announced Dec. 12 wedding date with fiancee Carole Rome, Crist said he wasn't familiar with the specifics and referred questions to his former campaign manager, George LeMieux. ''It's all good,'' Crist said. 
 
 Earlier in the week, he called Sargeant "a great patriot.'' 
 
 LeMieux said he would review the donations highlighted by The Miami Herald. 
 
 He said every effort was made during the campaign to verify all donations and make sure they did not exceed campaign finance limits. Crist received more than 18,000 checks in the Republican primary, he said. 
 
 ''With that volume of checks, we're not going to know everyone who gives money,'' LeMieux said. "I remember many a long weekend trying to look up information about donors on the Internet.'' 
 
 The controversy over the donations comes at an awkward time for Crist, one of several politicians auditioning to be McCain's vice-presidential candidate. 
 
 Sargeant, a fraternity brother of Crist's at Florida State University, was one of the governor's biggest supporters in the 2006 campaign, and he has emerged in recent months as a top fundraiser for McCain as well. 
 
 Sargeant is among 63 McCain fundraisers nationwide who have bundled more than $500,000 in checks each. Donations to presidential candidates are capped at $2,300, but bundlers get around the limit by collecting checks from friends, business associates and relatives. 
 
 Sargeant also donated $30,000 of his own money to a joint McCain-GOP fund in May, records show. Before turning his attention to McCain, Sargeant also raised money for presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. 
 
 On March 5 -- the same day President Bush received McCain at the White House as the GOP's presumptive nominee -- Sargeant hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his $8.3 million Delray Beach home. 
 
 Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, attended the affair at the waterfront home. He said McCain is ''bending over backwards'' by returning contributions. 
 
 ''By giving the money back he is raising flags that weren't even there,'' Dinerstein said. "John McCain puts the ethics bar higher than anyone in national politics.'' 
 
 Sargeant could not be reached for comment on Friday, and a lawyer for his company did not respond to a list of e-mailed questions. 
 
 Tallahassee lobbyist Brian Ballard, a top fundraiser for both Crist and McCain, said the reason Sargeant took the position as the state GOP's finance chairman was simple: Crist asked him to do it. 
 
 Sargeant was not involved in President Bush's campaigns, which took the practice of bundling to new heights by designating its biggest givers as ''Rangers'' and "Pioneers.'' 
 
 ''Harry does politics now only because his friend of 30 years asked him to take this role,'' Ballard said. "He's very much apolitical. He runs tankers and ports.'' 
 
 Under Sargeant's leadership, the Republican Party of Florida raised $15 million in 2007, a record for a nonelection year. Chairman Jim Greer said he has no reason to review the checks Sargeant has delivered to the party. 
 
 ''He continues to have my full support and appreciation for his service,'' Greer said. "He's very dedicated and exhibited a high degree of integrity.'' 
 
 For someone at the top of the fundraising heap, Sargeant has kept a low profile. Several activists and fundraisers who have been involved in Republican politics for years said they had never met him. 
 
 But Sargeant's business has received some unwanted attention. 
 
 Sargeant is a partner with Abu Naba'a in International Oil Trading Co., a Boca Raton firm with Defense Department contracts to ship oil to the military in Iraq. Federal records show the company received $601 million in the 2007 budget year. 
 
 In June, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., head of a congressional oversight committee, sent a letter to Sargeant seeking records in a probe of alleged overcharging of the military for fuel costs. 
 
 Sargeant and Abu Naba'a have also been accused of fraud by the brother-in-law of the king of Jordan, who filed a lawsuit in West Palm Beach in April saying the pair cut him out of the Pentagon contracts after he helped them secure the deal. 
 
 The ex-partner, Mohammad Al-Saleh, said he helped the company win the blessing of the Jordanian government to ship the oil through that country to Iraq -- a requirement of the Pentagon contracts, according to the suit. Al-Saleh said Sargeant and Abu Naba'a failed to pay him at least $13 million. 
 
 In court papers, lawyers for Sargeant and Abu Naba'a denied any wrongdoing and said the suit should be moved to Jordan. Sargeant and his family also own domestic shipping and asphalt companies, records show.
– Liberals have been accusing recent GOP-led voter ID laws of aiming to disenfranchise minorities, who tend to vote Democrat. Now former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer is saying on record that, yes, those laws are actually about stopping black people from voting, reports Salon, picking up on a story in the Tampa Bay Times. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” Greer said, recalling a 2009 meeting with party officials. Greer also said the party's budget committee had been taken over by "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies." Greer is hardly without an axe to grind, though. His statements came from a 630-page deposition made in May as part of his trial on corruption charges. Greer paid a company he owned nearly $200,000 from GOP coffers while he was the chairman, although he contends it was authorized and made for services rendered. Florida state Sen. John Thrasher, who succeeded Greer as party chairman, called Greer's comments about voter suppression "baseless accusations on other people in an effort to divert attention from himself.''