Can someone here tell me what "Coingate" is?

Just the basics.

...it's a huge can of worms. They are now out of the can and crawling everywhere throughout the Ohio Republican party.

See here:


http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1387

Gov. Taft's lackey, forgot his name, runs the investments for the Bureau of Worker's Comp. He invests the premiums paid by companies into that fund. He is supposed to use the safest, most conservative investments. Instead, he invested in rare collectibles like coins, baseball cards and some other stuff. That was bad. What was worse is many of those assets are now missing and many wonder if they existed at all. Also, this investor guy gave lots of money to GOP candidates including Taft, other state officers, legislators and the state supreme court. Someone this is intertwined with our other big scandal: pay-to-play. To put it simply, if you want a state contract, you have to give money to GOP campaign funds. The quid-pro-quo nature of this violates even Ohio's campaign finance laws. Well, the AG is investigating, but is being stonewalled by Taft who insists that he needs to keep his papers private to govern effectively. Just when he plans on starting this new effective governance is anyone's guess. It is well established that there is no executive privilege in Ohio.

One of the investors who is being investigated is Tom Noe, who was one of the leading Republicans who helped George Bush's campaign in N.W. Ohio, it is estimated that 10-13 million dollars of the money he was given to invest in rare coins and collectibles including beanie babies has disappeared. There are millions of dollars that were lost out of the Ohio Bureau of Workman's Compensation funds that were improperly invested and/or stolen. We are talking major money missing here, originally there was 10-13 million thought to be lost, then it was revealed that 215 million was lost due to a "Ponzi" scheme through a Pittsburgh investment firm, then there was reported to be another 270 million lost through inappropriate loans made to the investment company. There are charges that Gov. Taft knew of losses before the 04 election and kept quiet. Jim Petro, the State Attorney General, has not released documents relating to "Coingate" although he has been ordered to so by the Court.

You may try a search under Coingate or try going to the Toledo Blade
the Ohio paper that broke the story.