One of the first things I do when I'm investigating something is to collect--and, of course, to read--as many relevant documents as I can. Establishing a paper trail is a useful exercise for any number of reasons, not least because it gives you a sense of the chronology, and understanding of the issues involved, leads on who to ask for more information, and government agencies put out reams of reports and documents on their work.

The "Reoriented Express" -- the effort to move a stretch of railrod track owned by CSX from its current position, somewhere between a quarter and a half mile from the beaches of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to an inland position -- has generated its share of paper. There was a 1995 report prepared for the Gulf Regional Planning Commission, followed by a report and Web site set up by the Gulf Coast Railroad Relocation Project. That latter report was the first to note the prohibitive price tag for moving the railroad inland; it offered rough cost estimates for three different inland routes:

The test alignment within Corridor 1 has a unit cost of $36.0 million per mile, and a total cost of $2,683,695,296.

The test alignment within Corridor 2 has a unit cost of $22.8 million per mile and a total cost of $1,804,661,425.

The test alignment within Corridor 3 has a unit cost of $22.8 million per mile and a total cost of $2,437,212,170.

• According to Florida Today, Florida Congressman Dave Weldon (R) said that "he had no idea that Edwin Buckham" had a stake in Map Roi when he wrote a $1.55 million earmark to Florida Tech, of which $500,000 went to Map Roi. The original Los Angeles Times story quoted a university newletter that  pronounced, "U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon was instrumental in bringing Map Roi to Florida Tech."

• The Washington Post reports on a taxpayer funded junket that Senators Arlen Spector (R-PA) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) are on right now to visit "the actual birthplace of the matzoh ball." Okay, they're also talking about drug interdiction, guest worker plans, and global warming but it's Passover so I had to go with the matzoh ball angle.

• The West Viringia media has been picking up the Mollohan story. Here's a story from the West Virginia State Journal.

Sorry for the title of this post--I was looking for a play on "the devil is in the details," (devil in the digest? Satan in the summaries?), and this one is hardly satisfactory.

Buried at the bottom of a column in today's Washington Post was a shorter version of this item:

Senator Asks Navy to Aid Shipyards Hit by Katrina

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) is pressing the Navy to pay for hurricane damage to Northrop Grumman Corp. shipyards in his home state that the firm's insurer won't cover.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, which Cochran chairs, added language to an emergency spending bill that could force the Navy -- against its wishes -- to give the company, the service's No. 1 shipbuilder, as much as $500 million.

The Navy says it is negotiating with Northrop on payment of some damage costs. The emergency spending request that the House approved directs the Navy not to pay costs that insurance may cover.

Northrop is suing Factory Mutual Insurance Co. of Johnston, R.I., for denying claims to its shipyards in Pascagoula, Miss., but says it needs the money now.

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman employs 10,000 workers at its Ingalls unit in Pascagoula.

In light of this story today's news from the Helena Independent Record seems especially interesting. In 2003 Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) received a $1,000 check from a member of Team Abramoff, Kevin Ring, on the same day that Abramoff's law firm inked a deal with Clark County in Montana at Rehberg's recommendation.

Records show Rehberg’s campaign cashed a $1,000 check on March 31, 2003, from lobbyist Kevin Ring, a close associate of Abramoff’s at the Greenberg Traurig lobby house. The same day, the campaign reported cashing a second $1,000 check from Greenberg Traurig’s political action committee. Records show the lobby house wrote the check in early February, but Rehberg didn’t cash it until the end of March.

Clark County was attempting to get the "main thoroughfare" through the county paved when Rehberg suggested that they hire Ring, a former staffer to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO). In July 2003 Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) finalized the bill that included the $9.6 million to pave the gravel road in the county. Baucus received $500 from another Greenberg Traurig lobbyist the day that Clark County inked the deal, April 3rd. However, Baucus never recommended the lobby firm or Ring to the county. Rehberg said that the campaign money didn't matter to him. But if Abramoff's emails and dealings with the NRCC tell us anything, it's that campaign contributions are the Holy Grail for lawmakers and they are willing to walk across invisible bridges to get them.

There's a lot of interesting information over at Porkbusters (just keep scrolling) on the $700 million earmark that Trent Lott inserted in an emergency appropriations bill to relocate a stretch of coast-hugging CSX rail track inland (the original AP story describing it is here).

N.Z. Bear links to some photos that Ed Frank of Americans for Prosperity took of a small section of track and the surrounding (Katrina flattened) architecture. And Alasandra Alawine, a local resident, has offered a summary of what she's gleaned of the project's history, origins and shortcomings. An opponent of moving the railroad, she also blogs at MS Gulf Coast.

At a time when most Americans are trying their best to ignore the upcoming mid-term elections, Mike Gravel, a former Senator of Alaska, is insisting we already begin ignoring his presidential candidacy.

CongressDaily PM reports that the Senate Indian Affairs Committee will finally issue a report on Jack Abramoff and his bilking of Indian tribes in the next two months. However, the report will not touch on Abramoff's dealings with lawmakers or executive branch officials meaning that "two years after news of the activities of Abramoff and his allies first came to light, there is no known congressional inquiry into whether lawmakers or administration officials took improper or illegal actions on their behalf." Congress has essentially given up its authority to investigate the matter and left it up to career Justice Department investigators and prosecutors.

Jack Abramoff and his fedora laid bare corrupt elements in Washington lobbying. It seems the feds took note and are investigating corrupt lobbying practices at the state level. First case, Missouri:

FBI agents are looking into lobbying practices in the Missouri Capitol, The Kansas City Star has learned. ... Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Missouri Democratic Party, ... said he was told investigators were asking about companies and associations being steered to hire certain lobbyists if their wishes were to be met — or at least heard. Others said, however, it would be logical to hire Republican lobbyists who would likely have more access to contacts in the governor’s office or the legislative leadership. One official who recently traded for a new lobbyist agreed that his move was just to have Republican representation in a Republican world.

Looks like the feds are looking into a Missouri "K Street Project". Oops... I better not say that or Grover Norquist will sue me.

Two Congressmen are taking political heat for allegedly unethical behavior:

• Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post's The Fix analyzes Alan Mollohan's (D-WV) response to allegations that he has seen his personal finances skyrocket over the past few years thanks to earmarks that he has provided to a business partner of his in North Carolina.

  Mollohan has smartly sought to cast the complaint filed by the NLPC in partisan terms. "The NLPC has in the past targeted Democrats with charges that later proved to be without merit," Mollohan said in a statement released by his campaign. "Obviously I am in the crosshairs of the National Republican Party and like-minded entities, such as the NLPC." In a letter sent to Reynolds and Hastert, Mollohan wrote that calls for him to resign from the Ethics Committee reveal "the entirely partisan, political nature of the attack that has been made upon me, and the reason this attack has been made." He added: "The reason is...that I strongly opposed efforts by the Republican leadership that would have seriously undermined the ability of the Ethics Committee to perform its basic function of enforcing House rules and standards."

• Over in Western North Carolina Charles Taylor (R-NC) is being challenged over his connection in the Jack Abramoff scandal, according to the Ashville Citizen-Times.

Abramoff’s firm threw the congressman a fundraiser on April 11, 2003, that scored thousands of dollars in donations for his campaign. That included a $2,000 contribution from Abramoff and $1,000 from the Saginaw Chippewa tribe, which wanted federal money for school construction.

A month later, he and a U.S. senator wrote a letter challenging the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ resistance that the Saginaw shouldn’t quality for the federal money, The Associated Press said in a report Tuesday.

The tribe donated $3,000 more to Taylor a month after the letter.

The dirt keeps piling up for ex-DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Buckham got Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) to insert a $1.55 million earmark for the Florida Institute of Technology which then turned around and signed a lobbying client and business partner of Buckham to do the work.

With the assistance of Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a DeLay political ally, Buckham had $1.55 million set aside in late 2003 in a federal appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Labor to fund a program for small businesses. The money was awarded to the Florida Institute of Technology, which promptly signed a contract with Map Roi Inc., a client and partner of lobbyist Buckham. At the time, Buckham's lobby company, Alexander Strategy Group, held options on 500,000 shares of Map Roi stock, records show.

Map Roi, a Guam-based company, enjoyed success after securing the FIT contract attracting $3 million from a group of venture capital firms. Buckham had encountered Map Roi through his dealings with Jack Abramoff in Guam. The FIT earmark was not the only one sought by Map Roi. There was an effort to obtain $20 million in earmarks from the federal government that strikes current Abramoff lightening rod Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT):

In a May 13, 2003, speech to Guam legislators and other officials, Gutierrez's successor as governor of Guam, Felix P. Camacho, said that a $20-million pact with Map Roi was in the works. In the speech, he credited Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) with pushing for the appropriation. A Burns spokesman said the project was never funded.