In case you needed a dose of the absurd for your Monday take a look at the case of ex-lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti.

On Friday an announcement was made that Magliocchetti, the former head of the now-defunct PMA Group, would plead guilty later this month on charges that he organized the widespread fraudulent donation of campaign contributions to members of the House Appropriations Committee. The PMA Group was an earmark powerhouse, backed by Magliocchetti's long ties to his former boss the now-deceased former appropriator John Murtha.

A coterie of lawmakers on the appropriations committee were lavished with campaign contributions from PMA Group lobbyists and clients, as well as the fraudulent contributions organized by Magliocchetti. These lawmakers also provided a number of earmarks to the clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers tied closest to the PMA Group's earmark lobbying include, but are not limited to, Murtha, Pete Visclosky, Jim Moran and Bill Young.

Earlier this year the House Ethics Committee dismissed ethics complaints against members of the appropriations committee stating that no member or staffer had acted inappropriately in awarding earmarks to campaign contributors. The independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) seemed to signal their disagreement with the ethics committee when they sent the details of their investigation to the Department of Justice for further action.

Now we have the lead lobbyist in the conspiracy to funnel campaign contributions to appropriations committee members pleading guilty and possibly providing information to the Department of Justice. Politico reports, "there is specualtion that [Magliocchetti] may assist prosecutors looking into how lawmakers awarded hundreds of millions in spending earmarks to defense contractors."

A lobbyist will plead guilty to, essentially, bribing a number of lawmakers to win contracts for his clients. He may then turn around and provide information to the Department of Justice on how he traded contributions for earmarks, despite the ethics committee in Congress having already exonerated the lawmakers of all ethics charges in relation to the investigation.

And so the mind-boggling self-policing by Congress continues.

I ham-handedly tried to explain why Tom DeLay got off-the-hook yesterday when I stated that his ideology overlapped perfectly with the corrupt actions of former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. What I meant is that it was impossible to distinguish whether DeLay's positions, for example, on labor laws for the Marianas Islands, were influenced by the trips and dining he was provided by Abramoff--via money laundered through a nonprofit--or whether that position stemmed from his conservative belief in free markets with little to no regulation. Prosecutors couldn't figure it out and there was no evidence to go by except for DeLay's statement that he was simply following his ideological beliefs. The money spent on him held no sway over his ultimate decisions, he argued.

A similar argument can be made for lawmakers who receive campaign contributions from lobbyists and employees of firms who receive earmarks from said lawmakers. Take deceased Rep. John Murtha as an example. Murtha could repeatedly state that all that concerned him was getting jobs and infrastructure into his economically depressed district. Same goes for Rep. Don Young, former Sen. Ted Stevens and former Sen. Robert Byrd. All the campaign contributions they were getting didn't matter when they signed off on earmarks for their contributors because they were just looking for viable job-creating projects. You can't necessarily prove that anything illegal happened.

All of that brings us to the Op-Ed by author and lawyer Scott Turow in today's New York Times. Turow does the best job possible explaining the dysfunctional ways in which our legal system views and deals with campaign contributions. One person can be convicted of bribery for offering a $1,000 contribution in exchange for a vote while Rod Blagojevich walks free on a hung jury over charges that he held up funding for a children's hospital over campaign contributions and so on and so on.

Our legal system accepts that the transmission of campaign contributions in exchange for official acts is illegal bribery, yet it fails to properly police this practice. This is mainly due to the circumstances described above. How do you prove that a contribution was intended as a bribe when the action may have taken place despite the contribution? It's impossible. So you get a system where we scold people for the appearance of corruption or improper influence, but don't do anything about it. Take this example that Turow lays out:

For example, in June 2009, the court decided a case involving Massey Coal and its chief executive, Joe Blankenship. (Coincidentally, Massey was the operator of a coal mine in West Virginia that exploded in April, killing 29 miners.) In 2004, after Massey had lost a $50-million fraud verdict to a rival coal company, Mr. Blankenship spent $3 million supporting the successful candidacy of Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, where Massey’s challenge of the fraud verdict was going to be heard. Although Mr. Blankenship’s spending eclipsed the contributions of all of Judge Benjamin’s other donors put together, the judge subsequently refused to remove himself from Massey’s appeal. Unsurprisingly, the court voted to overturn the verdict against Massey, with Judge Benjamin providing the deciding vote. The case eventually came to the United States Supreme Court, which by a 5-to-4 vote decided Justice Benjamin should have recused himself because of the “disproportionate” influence Mr. Blankenship’s money had in the election. Nonetheless, the court pointedly refused to require the same from other judges who received less grandiose campaign assistance from lawyers and litigants with cases before them. Moreover, the court appeared persuaded that nothing criminal had occurred, even though its ruling concluded that it was “reasonably foreseeable” at the time that Mr. Benjamin would decide the Massey case and that Mr. Blankenship had a “vested interest” when he spent the money. Given that logic, who can blame Mr. Blagojevich — or Wanda Brandstetter — for asking, “Why me?”

The court ruled that the judge was corrupted, but that no law had been broken. This is the sort of dysfunctional world of campaign funding that we live in.

Last week, the cable news networks were blanketing their shows with stories about the leaking of a report from the House Ethics Committtee detailing the nearly 30 lawmakers under investigation by the committee. Despite all of the bombast of cable news anchors over the investigations, the totality of the leak is less than meets the eye. Seventeen out of the twenty-nine lawmakers investigated by the committee have already been reported on and a number more had been connected to investigations previously, but their investigation had not previously been reported. In total, only seven investigations were released that were previously unreported, mostly for what would be minor infractions. This amounts to a pretty small amount of unknown investigations for what has turned into a big story.

Importantly, as many are highlighting, the leaked report does show that the Ethics Committee is doing its job. For years, the committee has taken heat for failing to investigate lawmakers and slow-walking those investigations when it does. Despite early clashes, it appear that the new, independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has prompted the committee to investigate and review a number of cases regarding potential ethical misconduct by lawmakers. This is a positive development, however, the leaking may cause problems as many lawmakers are now associated with ethical problems despite the fact that they have not had a full hearing and could well find these ethics complaints dismissed.

On the actual investigations, the biggest information from the leak is that half of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee is under investigation for allegedly trading earmarks for campaign contributions. Previously, the public was aware that federal investigators and the committee were likely looking at Reps. John Murtha, Pete Visclosky and Jim Moran. Now we know that the committee is investigating those three lawmakers plus Reps. Bill Young, Marcy Kaptur, Norm Dicks and Todd Tiahrt. Aside from the probe of Rep. Charlie Rangel, this investigation involves the most serious allegations and could cause trouble for this bipartisan cast of lawmakers. Furthermore, it continues to show that the appropriations process, particularly for defense spending, is a failed process. This is now the third major investigation into defense appropriations in the past five years. Previously, Rep. Duke Cunningham was sentenced to prison for trading earmarks and appropriations for goodies and Rep. Jerry Lewis has been the subject of a similar federal investigation.

The other investigations involve four lawmakers probed for improperly receiving a tax break on their homes in Maryland or the District of Columbia; North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler is under investigation for a land swap deal; Florida Rep. Connie Mack is under investigation in connection to an earmark for Coconut Road that was submitted by Rep. Don Young; Rep. Joe Barton was under investigation for gifts given to a non-profit that he operates by companies with business before his committee, but he has since been exonerated. All the other lawmakers under investigation have been previously publicly reported.

The above image is of the Connecticut legislature hard at work. I spot one game of free cell, one game of solitaire and one guy reading ESPN.com. This may be why they don't allow computers on the floor of the House or Senate. Then again, you can always play crossword puzzles during committee hearings.

The New Republic has an excellent profile of Rep. John Murtha and the city of Johnstown, PA. This is one of the better pieces about the scandals swirling around the powerful Defense Appropriations Chair. This section stood out to me:

After much trial and error, in the mid-1980s, Murtha and Johnstown’s civic and business leaders finally arrived at an effective economic rescue strategy: leveraging Murtha’s position on the defense appropriations subcommittee to build a defense industry in Johnstown. For Murtha, it was a perfect solution--resolving the tension between foreign policy and local politics that had come to define his career. And it turned out to be a pretty good deal for Johnstown as well. “I remember being at some kind of party around 1983, and I met the head of economic development for the Pittsburgh region. And I said to him, ‘What would you do if you were running economic development here?’ ” recalls Mark Pasquerilla, who was then working for his father Frank, a shopping mall and hotel magnate and the richest man in Johnstown. “And he said--I remember this quote--‘I’ll tell you one thing that I would do: I’d grab onto Murtha’s coattails so tight, and I’d never let go.’ ”

A Bloomberg attempt to pry open the Federal Reserve moved forwards this week as Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled in favor of the FOIA request for certain documents related to the Fed's emergency lending. The Project On Open Government (POGO) lays out the story behind the case and explains that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke will have to answer questions about the Fed's transparency when he faces the Senate for his renomination hearing.

While President Obama and Defense Secretary Bob Gates have laid out a moderately ambitious plan for defense acquisition reform, Mother Jones finds that lobbyist-turned-Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn is standing in the way of further changes.

Public Citizen used Sunlight's Party Time data to show that no one is throwing for fundraisers than the banks bailed out by the federal government. The influence lives on.

In a mind-boggling ruling, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will allow Rep. Pete Visclosky, under investigation for potential earmarking abuses in PMA Group scandal, to use campaign funds to pay the legal fees of his staff -- including former staff. This means that Rep. Visclosky can pay the legal fees of PMA lobbyist Rich Kaelin because he is a former Visclosky staffer. As Zach Roth writes at TPM Muckraker, this also means that Rep. John Murtha could potentially pay for the legal fees of Paul Magliocchetti, the founder of the PMA Group, as Magliocchetti is a former Murtha staffer. Now you know where your campaign contributions are going.

What do top earmarkers talk about in Congress? Does our money go where their mouths are?

In the case of the top ten earmarkers for FY 2008, the top words they used from 2007-2008 (110th Congress) do often align with their duties in either the Appropriations Committee or in bringing home the bacon to their home state. Six of the top ten use appropriations-related language in their top words and three use their state's name in their top words.

The top ten earmarkers for FY 2008 were, in descending order with top word in parentheses, Rep. John Murtha (Billion), Rep. Jerry Lewis (Appropriations), Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young (Defense), Rep. Pete Visclosky (Indiana), Rep. David Obey (Billion), Rep. Norm Dicks (Million), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Trade), Rep. Harold Rogers (Kentucky), Rep. Ike Skelton (Military), Rep. Chet Edwards (Veterans). Only one of these lawmakers (Rep. Skelton) is not on the House Appropriations Committee.

Three of these lawmakers -- Reps. Lewis, Murtha and Visclosky -- are either under federal investigation or have been mentioned in connection to an investigation in relation to their earmarking practices.

Check out the following word cloud visualization to see what these earmarking lawmakers are talking about. Below the visualization is a list of the Appropriations committee assignment for the nine lawmakers on the committee.

Note: Earmark data comes via Taxpayer.net. Word data comes from CapitolWords.org. Only House lawmakers were used due to less than stellar earmark disclosure by the Senate. And thanks again to Kerry Mitchell for the visuals.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Saturday evening, Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, appeared on CNN talking about Recovery.gov. She made the point that Recovery.gov needs to be updated in real time so people can keep government accountable as it happens, instead of after the fact. Below is the video of the segment:

The New York Times published an editorial calling for Congress to provide Congressional Research Service reports online for all Americans to access free. The Times ran the editorial a week after Ellen met with an editorial writer at the paper. Last week, The Times published an article about the campaign being waged by Open CRS, a project of the Center for Democracy and Technology, OpenTheGovernment.org and Sunlight to get Congress to agree to release all CRS reports to the public.

Cyrus Sanati wrote a post on The Time’s “DealBook” blog that highlighted and linked to SubsidyScope’s county-by-county analysis of how the government is distributing Troubled Asset Relief Program funds throughout the country. The Atlantic’s Chris Good, on their “Politics” blog, also wrote about and linked to SubsidyScope’s map.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian’s “Politics” blog wrote about Sunlight grantee MAPLight.org launching their Los Angeles site,  where they reveal campaign contributions to Los Angeles City politicians. MAPLight.org’s new site shows how much interest groups like real estate developers, teachers unions and others contribute to city officials and to candidates running for city office. The site is the first of its kind for any U.S. city.

As always, journalists used Center for Responsive Politics’ data to uncover how Washington works. The Wall Street Journal reports that Lockheed Martin, the country’s largest defense contractor, doubled the amount of money spent on lobbying in first quarter of 2009 as it did during the previous three months ($6.41 million during the first quarter, up 97% from the prior quarter's $3.26 million), all in an effort to prevent defense spending cuts. The “Environment Blog” at the U.K.’s guardian.co.uk highlight CRP in a post about how to follow the fossil fuel money on Capitol Hill. The New York Times editorialized that “It is time to follow the money — all of it,” in light of CRP’s report that U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and two subcommittee colleagues, Peter Visclosky of Indiana and James Moran of Virginia, received more than $4 million in campaign contributions from PMA Group clients.

In its June issue, Harper’s Magazine published an article by Nancy Watzman, director of Sunlight’s Party Time project. Nancy breaks down, bit-by-bit, a congressional lawmaker’s fundraising event invitation, revealing to those of us not accustom to writing politicians $2,500 checks what we’re missing. Speaking of Party Time, the Politico’s Chris Frates used data from the project to identify some of the bars and restaurants within easy walking distance of the U.S. Capitol where congressional lawmakers meet with lobbyists and other to raise campaign cash.

Jose Vargas at The Washington Post compiled the second of his monthly report cards where he has a group of five online political observers grade WhiteHouse.gov. Last month’s report card produced an average grade of a C+. In this second round the group gave the administration an average of a solid B, with the individual graders giving a range from C to A-. Ellen and Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, participate as graders, and both gave WhiteHouse.gov a B-. If they were to grade the site on the basis of transparency alone, they would have given the site a C-, Vargas reported.

Thanks! See you next Friday.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration's site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, "This occasional use of interactive tools" is impressive, but "90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush." Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal's poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it's "the view from 30,000 feet," as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has "more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we'll eventually see on Recovery.gov," Micah explains. "I don't think it's fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it's just weeks old," Micah added. "Let's take another look in three to six months, OK?"

Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration's technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first "tech president" is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, "their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they've been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision," he said.

Declan McCullagh at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" blog also wrote about how President Obama's follow through on his transparency vow is receiving mixed reviews. In the post McCullagh highlights how Sunlight's Our Open Government List is allowing users to vote on what's most important to see in the 120-day review. McCullagh reports that the winner so far is formal data standards, which would allow programmers to extract government databases to be incorporated in their own applications. McCullagh also mentions that Sunlight hosted TransparencyCamp.

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote about how some of the nation's largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are forging an alliance to try to stop the Obama administration from cutting certain weapons programs. They are arguing that the proposed cuts would threaten 100,000 or more jobs. Eggen cites Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) data to show the defense sector’s influence in Washington, where it gave nearly $26 million to congressional candidates last year and spending $150 million on lobbying.

The New York Times republished Robin Bravender’s piece from Greenwire exploring President Obama’s regulatory actions taken during his first 100 days in office. Bravender quotes Gary Bass, OMB Watch’s executive director, "In most instances, the administration has moved away from a presumption of government secrecy to one of government openness, and Obama has scrapped some of the most damaging revisions of the regulatory process that Bush and his team imposed on the nation." The article highlighted OMB Watch’s “Advancing the Public Interest through Regulatory Reform” report (pdf), which is one of two reports, both released on Tuesday, assessing the Obama administration’s work on government transparency and regulatory reform at the 100-day mark. The second report, titled “21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda” (pdf) looked at the administration’s follow through on transparency and openness. Overall, the reports state that the president and his team have made significant progress in both the right-to-know and regulatory areas, but much more work needs to be done.

Carol D. Leonnig with The Washington Post reported that U.S. Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), chair of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, got the Pentagon to spend about $30 million on “the little-used airport named for him so it can handle behemoth military aircraft and store combat equipment for rapid deployment to foreign battlefields.” Most of the improvement, Leonnig writes, were funded through appropriations approved by Murtha's subcommittee, and have not been used for their intended purpose. The article includes comments by Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  "Nobody wants to say no to Congressman Murtha or make him mad because he controls defense appropriations," she said. "Murtha wanted an airport, and he knew he could get one. It's like he's a billionaire, except it's not his money."

Robert O'Harrow Jr., writing at The Washington Post's "Government Inc." blog, writes about a new report from the Inspector General for TARP, which says the bailout is growing more complex and costly, and is operating with no clear leadership. O'Harrow highlights and extensively quotes from Anu Narayanswamy’s Real Time Investigations report that found the program is shrouded in secrecy, making it difficult to determine who is managing it.

USA Today published an editorial about how the federal government, when faced with the option of making information public or hiding it, is predisposed toward concealment. Federal Web sites are usually full of data, the editorial says, but are also notoriously hard to navigate. It mentions Google's new tool, Google Public Data, it launched this week to make it easier to search federal sites. Congressional sites can be even more inscrutable, they write, and mentions and links to Sunlight’s Senior Fellow Bill Allison's Real Time Investigations report regarding U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers disclosing their earmark requests, and how many responded by burying the links or posting unreadable pdf files. Kim Hart with The Washington Post also wrote about Google’s new tool, and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, saying he’s encouraged by it.

Joab Jackson with Government Computer News wrote about how through mashups and Web apps, third parties are remixing and making innovative use of government agencies' information. Jackson quotes Clay as saying there are a lot of developers who are eager to get access to government data. "The nongovernmental sector will likely always have more talent and artistic capability than inside the government," Clay said. The article discusses Sunlight Labs' Apps for America contest, as well as Sunlight’s role in developing OpenCongress.org, OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, CRP’s OpenSecrets.org and EarmarkWatch.org. Jackson also highlights Josh Tauberer's work at GovTrack.

Federal News Radio interviewed Clay about Data.gov, new federal CIO Vivek Kundra's soon to launch central repository for government data and research, and links to Sunlight Labs' mock up of the site.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!

In 2008, the PMA Group was hired by forty clients as their lone lobbying firm. These clients, largely seeking earmarks, secured a huge return on their investment in the PMA Group. After paying the PMA Group a combined $4.065 million in lobbying expenses, these forty organizations, a mix of companies and nonprofits, received $113.9 million in earmarks in 2008 -- a 2,703% return on investment.

Since falling under investigation for the alleged improper use of campaign contributions and possible favor trading in Congress, the PMA Group disbanded, leaving many of their lobbyists to flee for other top firms or create their own new firms. These lobbyists should come as prized possessions to any new lobbying firm as evidenced by the amount of money they can bring to a firm seeking earmarks.

The Windber Research Institute, performing research studies on women's breast cancer, received the largest return on investment, 59,900%. After paying the PMA Group $20,000 for the year, the military research hospital received a $12 million earmark from Rep. John Murtha. The Winder Research Institute, located in Rep. Murtha's district, has for years relied on federal funding through federal grants and the earmarking process to continue its research missions. According to an earlier report by my colleague Anupama Narayanswamy, Rep. Murtha earmarked $15 million in the previous year and his support was promoted by the Institure on their Web site.

Many of the other PMA Group clients receiving a large return on investment include recipients of earmarks from the three lawmakers believed to be under the most scrutiny in the PMA investigation, Reps. Murtha, Pete Visclosky, and James Moran. Of the clients in the top ten on return on investment, five of them received earmarks from Rep. Murtha, three received earmarks from Rep. Visclosky, and one received an earmark from Rep. Moran.

In the search for earmarks, lobbying expenses must be considered the principal investment for firms seeking funds. As one can see in the chart below -- listing the top ten returns on investment for PMA Group clients -- small lobbying expenses consistently translated into much larger returns. For the full forty clients that only retained PMA Group lobbyists, none received lower than a 525% return on investment.

Three lawmakers closely linked to the PMA Group lobbying and earmarks investigation have seen their collective campaign fundraising drop by 58% compared to the first quarter of 2007, according to the Washington Post. Reps. John Murtha, James Moran, and Pete Visclosky all were top recipients of campaign donations from the PMA Group -- before it disbanded -- and its clients.

Visclosky is the only one of the three to renounce campaign donations from former PMA Group lobbyists and former PMA Group clients. He has also forgone all earmarks for private firms. Unfortunately, this makes the connection between the contributions and the earmarks all the more clear, raising more questions about the Indiana congressman's prior actions than in quelling the potential pay-to-play questions. As my colleague Bill Allison writes, "Let’s see…could there be a connection?"