The Democratic senator who savaged Jon Corzine at a high-profile Capitol Hill hearing this week had another reason to go hard on her former colleague — she recently pressed him for campaign contributions but didn’t get any.
“She would literally call once every two or three weeks,” one Corzine intimate said of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (DMich.).
“She called all the time.”
Stabenow, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, had blasted the former senator and New Jersey governor Tuesday for his failure to explain what happened to $1.2 billion in missing customer money from his bankrupt firm, MF Global.
“This isn’t the Dark Ages,” she lectured. “MF Global didn’t keep their books with feather quills and dusty ledgers.”
Sources in Corzine’s inner circle said they were “stunned” and “amazed” by Stabenow’s attack.
The two had served together in the Senate, but Corzine hasn’t delivered with contributions in some time.
So far this year, Corzine’s name has not appeared on Stabenow’s campaign finance reports.
Records show he last donated to her in 2006, contributing $2,000. Corzine and his then-wife, Joanne, each gave Stabenow $1,000 in 1999.
Stabenow defended her criticism.
“Senator Stabenow’s committee is holding hearings and subpoeaned Mr. Corzine in order to get at the truth and hold wrongdoers at MF Global accountable. It doesn’t mater who the CEO of MF Global is,” said spokesman Cullen Schwarz.
Corzine weathered his third Capitol Hill grilling yesterday, denying to a House committee that he was told that MF improperly transferred $175 million in customer money out of the firm just before it went bust in October.
josh.margolin@nypost.com