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.

Paul Magliocchetti, the former head of the now-defunct lobby shop, PMA Group, was indicted on charges that he "made hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to boost the firm's influence, power and prestige," according to the Washington Post.

The Sunlight Foundation blog and the Sunlight Reporting Group have been following this investigation over the past few years. You can read the coverage here and here.

The New York Times reports today on what could be the next great lobbying scandal. After his house and offices were raided by the FBI, Paul Magliocchetti, top lobbyist at the PMA Group, is shuttering his lobby shop. Once seen as the top earmark factory in Washington, the PMA Group fell apart weeks before the FBI raid occurred as rumors circulated that Magliocchetti was under investigation for various reasons, including making fraudulent campaign contributions and potentially trading contributions and gifts for legislative actions--earmarks--from legislators.

According to the Times, Magliocchetti was a pioneer and master of the earmarking process who skirted as close to the ethical line as possible:

[S]everal former PMA lobbyists and former Congressional staff members, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation from lawmakers close to Mr. Magliocchetti, said that for decades he sought loopholes to shower food, drink and gifts on the members and staff members of the House defense appropriations subcommittee.

He regularly arranged food deliveries for late-working committee staff members, for example, taking advantage of an exception written into the fine print of the ethics code, the former PMA lobbyists and Congressional staff members said. And each year he hosted lawmakers and their staff members at a legendary Christmas party at the Alpine or, more recently, at the Army Navy golf club, that fit into a gift-rule exception for “widely attended events.”

Mr. Magliocchetti helped pioneer the lucrative specialty of helping contractors lobby for military earmarks, the several billion dollars in pet spending items that members of the panel insert in annual spending bills, often with little oversight.

Many are beginning to question whether Magliocchetti is the new Jack Abramoff; the next lobbyist who could ensnare dozens in a corrupt conspiracy. My colleague Bill Allison offered his thoughts on the Magliocchetti-Abramoff comparison at the Real Time Investigations blog:

I’ve told a few people that while the PMA Group scandal is different from Abramoff, in many ways it’s more serious. Abramoff was a sort of Bernard Madoff character, unique in his personal excesses, corrosively corrupting, but still just one guy. PMA Group is a methodical business. It rakes in millions of dollars in lobbying fees. Its employees and PAC contributes a few hundred thousand to various congressional campaign committees and leadership PACs. Its clients get hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks and billions more in federal contracts. Abramoff’s excesses were fairly unique; PMA Group’s business model is standard operating procedure in Washington.

And for the most part I agree with this assessment. (Abramoff's operation was tightly wound up in a racket to ensure the maintanence of power by then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay. So, he wasn't quite a rogue grifter.) PMA Group's excess highlights what one could call a "culture of corruption" that exists around the Appropriations Committee, most prominently in the House.

When we look at the scandals of the last few years, these Appropriations Committee members keep popping up. Duke Cunningham, Jerry Lewis, Alan Mollohan, and now, the Magliocchetti connected John Murtha. Others have come under close scrutiny for their practices including Bill Young, Hal Rogers, Pete Visclosky, and James Moran. It really is an epidemic when this many members of a single committee bring this kind of attention (in many cases, federal investigations) to themselves.

It's doubtful that lawmakers, especially appropriators, want any sunshine shed on the relationships between appropriators and appropriations seeking lobbyists. Perhaps some stricter disclosure rules would help to stop the ethical tightrope walk that the appropriations process has become.