Here's a tip: If you're digging up dirt on a politician, try to find something a little filthier than Sen. Marco Rubio's brother-in-law being convicted of drug-trafficking charges when the senator was a 16-year-old kid.
This news, coming from Univision, ranks among Mike Huckabee's kid killing a dog at Boy Scout camp or the cocaine use of our nation's presidents as things that just don't pertain to anything relevant.
Here's the story on Rubio's brother-in-law anyway:
According to Univision, Orlando Cicilia -- married to Rubio's sister Barbara Rubio -- was arrested as part of an antinarcotics operation in Miami in 1987.
Federal prosecutors ordered the seizure of Cicilia's and Barbara Rubio's home on the grounds of a suspected drug conspiracy -- leading to the indictment and eventual 25-year prison sentence for Cicilia for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, the news outlet reports.
Univision says Cicilia was linked to a "crime ring implicated in the death and dismemberment of a federal
informant, as well as the bribing of several Miami police officers."
What this has to do with Sen. Rubio, we have no idea.
But Univision attempts to make that link.
"Rubio's older sister Barbara was caught up in the year's most significant antinarcotics operation in South Florida," is the way it describes it, with a later sentence -- in bold type -- stating, "Barbara Rubio was not arrested or indicted."
The response from Rubio's camp to the story was pretty appropriate, given the contrived link to the senator:
"Quite simply, the pursuit of this story and the targeting of the Senator's relatives, who are private citizens, is outrageous," said Alex Burgos in a letter to Univision CEO Randy Falco seeking to kill the story. "They do not hold public office and are unrelated in every way to his service in the United States Senate."
This story isn't really necessary, but it's not unfounded.
The Washington Post has recently contended that Rubio is a "caricature" and a "sell out" to the Hispanic community and that said Hispanic community doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly happy with Rubio at the moment.
Is this a way for the Hispanic community to get back at Rubio for turning his back to them? We'll file that under "maybe."
Was it a completely unnecessary move? That goes in the "probably" file.
Click here to watch Univision's report on Rubio's brother-in-law.
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