Not so good. Looks like [sw: Bob Ney] (R-OH) isn't holding up so great under the pressure of the media focus due to his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Ney verbally attacks a reporter for pursuing the story and says that the reporter doesn't care about the people of Ohio (is Ney running against this reporter in November or something?). Justin Rood asks Ney a few questions on whether Ney's actions were helping the people of Ohio: "how does Ney think the people of Ohio benefited from him inserting glowing testimony into the Congressional Record about the shady Abramoff-linked gambling outfit, SunCruz Casinos? How did he think they would benefit from relaxing sanctions against Iran, which he pushed former Secretary of State Colin Powell to do at the behest of a convicted felon? And how did Ohioans benefit from his efforts to force the reopening of an indian tribal casino in Texas after the tribe -- an Abramoff client, natch -- gave him $32,000?" We can expect the answer to come in a shrill, uncapitalized email sent from the congressman's Blackberry. Or not.
Continue readingMorning News:
- [sw: Tom DeLay] (R-TX) gave a "pugnacious defense of the iron-fisted partisanship that defined his decade in power" in a farewell speech to Congress last night, according to the Washington Post. DeLay defended partisanship saying, "You show me a nation without partisanship, and I'll show you a tyranny." DeLay, who is resigning under a cloud of controversy surrounding his ties to a number of convicted lobbyists and his indictment in Texas, stated the he is proud of the controversial K Street Project, "I helped build the largest political coalition in the last 50 years. The K Street project and the K Street strategy I am very proud of."
- DeLay can exit -- "stage right" as he says -- but the controversy never ends. Today the Washington Post looks into the private travel of DeLay's former chief of staff Susan Hirschmann. Hirschmann racked up $85,000 worth of travel -- her husband, a lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce, accompanied her on a number of these trips -- provided by private interests in just two years. She comes in as the number two recipient of private jet travel over the past five years in just two years and 18 flights. The number one recipient is the current chief of staff to Majority Whip [sw: Roy Blunt] (R-MO) who racked up $87,000 in 39 trips.
- Adam Kidan, Jack Abramoff's business partner in the Sun Cruz Casino purchase, knows who killed Gus Boulis, the man they bought the business from. Kidan, who has previously stated that he knew nothing about the gangland-style murder, told police that John Gurino, an associate of John Gotti, killed Boulis. Gurino has since been killed and the three others associated with the murder have been arrested in connection with the murder. One of those arrested was Anthony Moscatiello who Kidan hired to work as "security" for Sun Cruz Casinos.
- The Democratic Steering Committee has recommended that Rep. [sw: William Jefferson] (D-LA) be removed from his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. They will wait until next week to move forward from the recommendation to action. The Congressional Black Caucus still strongly opposes such action against the New Orleans congressman.
Peeling Back the Curtain:
Oh, so that's how appropriations bills get written. More info on the Tom Casey allegations against [sw: Jerry Lewis] from the San Diego Union Tribune:
Casey's firm, Audre Inc., had about 35 employees when it began lobbying for federal contracts in the early 1990s. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, because of a fractious divorce battle in which Casey's wife tried to gain control of the firm. In 1992, Casey hired Wilkes to help him find government contracts. Wilkes' recommendation, according to former Audre employees, was to make campaign contributions to key members of Congress, including Lewis. Although Casey said he never provided Lewis' friends with any stock options, he and his associates gave $9,253 in political contributions to Lewis in 1993: $2,253 in early April, as the Appropriations Committee prepared its first draft of the fiscal 1994 budget, and $7,000 in mid-September, as the budget process neared its conclusion. Casey and his associates made similarly timed contributions of $2,750 to Cunningham, $3,600 to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine – who would become Audre's chief champion on Capitol Hill – and $5,000 to Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn. Ten other politicians received smaller amounts totaling $21,100. ... According to sources familiar with his story, Casey said that after he made the contributions, he met with Lewis' chief of staff, Letitia White, in the basement cafeteria of the Rayburn Building. In the cafeteria, Casey and White drafted the language to add a document conversion project to the Pentagon's budget. White now works for Lowery's lobbying firm, Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & White.Continue reading
The Ties That Bind:
POGO's Blog provides an additional important point to the Titan-[sw: Duncan Hunter] story line. Turns out that Titan's lobbyist is none other than Letitia White, the "Queen of Earmarks".
Continue readingJefferson Showdown Continues:
The Democratic Steering Committee looks headed towards stripping Rep. [sw: William Jefferson] (D-LA) of his perch on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The Congressional Black Caucus voted again to back Jefferson's continued stay on the Committee at least until an indictment is filed. The CBC has opposed the Democratic Caucus taking any action against Jefferson until he has been formally indicted. Two of the most powerful CBC members, [sw: Charlie Rangel](D-NY) and [sw: James Clyburn] (D-SC), have remained quiet so far.
Meanwhile the Washington Post reports that the FBI was prepared to pick the lock of Jefferson's congressional office if the acting U.S. Capitol Police chief refused to open it. Leaders in the House want the raid to be ruled unconstitutional.
Reverse California Gold Rush:
What we are seeing here is a reverse California Gold Rush. We have politicians who are from California coming back east to Washington, DC to find gold. These politicians discovered that they didn't need to find gold, they could create it. They could hide their gold inside of cavernous Appropriations legislation or in Armed Services bills, where nobody would dare look -- the site of thousand page bills can turn-off the most daring spelunker. And thus we have come to the point where almost an entire party's delegation from one state, the great state of California, is tied up in scandal. From [sw: John Doolittle] to [sw: Duke Cunningham], from [sw: Jerry Lewis] to [sw: Richard Pombo], and now we have [sw: Ken Calvert] and [sw: Duncan Hunter]. CongressDailyAM provides the goodies on Hunter, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee:
Despite strong objections from the Navy, House Armed Services Chairman Hunter added $25.7 million to the FY07 defense authorization bill to upgrade an experimental high-speed vessel based in San Diego and developed by one of his biggest political donors. ... From 1998 to 2003, Hunter received $47,200 in campaign donations from Titan Corp., more than any other lawmaker, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Cunningham, whose district adjoined Hunter's, came in third -- just behind another Southern Californian, House Appropriations Chairman Lewis -- with $43,050 in Titan donations.Titan was bought up by L-3 Communications last year. L-3 Communications has contributed a total of $34,350 to Hunter's campaign committee and his political action committee in this cycle alone. Calvert turned up in the Roll Call article that contained information on the investigation into [sw: Jerry Lewis]. It turns out that investigators are also looking at Calvert's earmarking practices:
In Calvert’s case, the search of his financial disclosures came eight days after the Los Angeles Times reported on earmarks that went to redevelopment of land around an airfield near where he had invested in a parcel of land. The paper reported that in one instance, after a $1.5 million earmark for fixing up the closed air base, Calvert and a partner sold the land for a nearly 100 percent profit a year after its purchase.Looks like these reverse gold rushers had their day in the sun, but now the party's over. I think I found a motto for these California Reps. to live by. From Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre's song "California Love": It's all good, from Diego to tha Bay Your city is tha bomb if your city makin pay I'm sure that Hunter and Calvert could agree. No doubt. Continue reading
Scared Stiff
If I was Rep. [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA) that's what I'd be. Today the Lewis case has officially became a serious matter. After the revelations of Lewis' step-daughter's work for the Small Biz Tech PAC, whose offices reside in a house co-owned by a recipient of Lewis' earmarks and a former aide to Lewis turned lobbyist, and the NBC News revelations about Audre, Inc. Lewis looks set for a busy summer of fundraising, not for an election, but for a legal expense fund. Now Roll Call, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times bring us new information about the Lewis case. First let's start with the Roll Call piece:
In one of the clearest signs yet that Lewis is himself under the investigative microscope, the FBI retrieved the chairman’s financial records late last month even as federal prosecutors in Southern California were issuing a series of subpoenas to towns and counties in his Congressional district, all of which were represented at one time or another in lobbying activities by a current or former Lewis staffer. ... The investigators are in particular examining the relationship between Lewis and a lobbying firm he enjoys a very close relationship with, Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton and White. The records search in the Legislative Resources Center in Cannon was the latest sign of that, as the FBI examined the records of Jeff Shockey and Letitia White.The FBI is also searching through the financial disclosure forms of Lewis' wife, Arlene Willis, who works as his chief of staff in his personal office. The Los Angeles Times tells us that Letitia White is at the center of the allegations made by Tom Casey, the head of Audre, Inc.
Casey said he had told investigators that in 1993, Lewis' top appropriations aide, White, escorted him and Wilkes to a basement room in the Capitol where House Appropriations Committee staffers drafted legislation. There, according to Casey, he was seated in front of a word processor and was asked to type a paragraph into the defense bill that would be so specific that it would limit competition. ... The final bill included much of the language Casey wrote, although the earmark was slashed to $14 million, he said.And the kicker to the Audre earmark deal comes at the end of the Times piece:
The obscure trade journal also uncovered in financial disclosure reports that White, then Lewis' aide, had bought stock in Audre on Nov. 3, 1993, one week before the passage of the final bill.Lewis is another example of the power of K Street melded into Congress. Just like Jack Abramoff, Mitchell Wade, and Brent Wilkes the Bill Lowery-Letitia White-Jerry Lewis connection showcases how Congress and K Street have corrupted each other by combining their operations. When lobbyists and defense contractors are writing language into bills the public interest is not being served. When a member of Congress receives over ONE THIRD of his campaign contributions from one lobbying firm and their clients, as Lewis has, then that member will not be serving the public interest. What we have here is a system that has been created by certain members and certain lobbyists that subverts democracy and public participation in government while abusing institutions and the First Amendment rights to give money to a candidate and to lobby Congress. Continue reading
Lewis Is In a Heap of Trouble:
Last night NBC News reported that the CEO of Audre, Inc. was told by Rep. [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA) that he needed to pony up campaign contributions to members and that he hire Lewis' friend Bill Lowery as a lobbyist and provide Lowery with stock options before he could get federally earmarked money for his business.
In an exclusive interview, Casey tells NBC News that after he made campaign contributions to House members of both parties, Lewis informed him the Pentagon would get $14 million for the testing, and that Casey even could write the language. Lisa Myers: You were allowed to write language for an appropriations bill yourself? Casey: Yes, I did. That was Congressman Lewis' suggestion. Casey says Lewis repeatedly urged him to hire a lobbyist, former U.S. Rep. Bill Lowery, Lewis' close friend, and when that didn't happen, pressed for another favor. Casey: Congressman Lewis asked me to set up stock options for Bill Lowery in our company. Casey says Lewis suggested he issue the stock options in Canada — in someone else's name. Myers: Did you view it as an effort to hide what was really going on? Casey: It was intended to conceal his participation, yes.As Justin Rood notes, Casey started the contracting career of Brent Wilkes at Audre, Inc. Wilkes is said to have aggressively urged Casey to spend more money on lobbying and campaign contributions as a means to gain the support of members. Wilkes eventually became fed up with Casey and jumped ship to start his own contracting business, ADCS, Inc. Continue reading
Lewis Case Becomes Family Affair Thanks to Shady House Deal:
What is it with investigations into Southern California Representatives and house deals? Yesterday Harper's Ken Silverstein and TPM Muckraker both ran stories on the former aide to Rep. [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA) and current "Queen of Earmarks" Letitia White's Capitol Hill townhouse that she purchased with the owner of Trident Systems. White is said to have advocated aggressively for Trident while she worked for Lewis and, as soon as she left to become a lobbyist at the firm of Lewis' buddy Bill Lowery, she not only jointly purchased the townhouse with Nicholas E. Karangelen, an owner of Trident, but she also took Trident on as a client.
So Letitia White, a former staffer for Jerry Lewis, now a lobbyist, is the co-owner of a home with Nicholas Karengelen, a client of her lobbying firm. Karengelen's firm is the recipient of $2 million (and likely more) disbursed by a committee headed by Lewis. Surely these connections merit the attention of those looking into the Lewis case.
One of the tenants of the townhouse is a technology PAC named Small Biz Tech PAC, which is chaired by Karengelen and run by a woman named Julia Willis-Leon. According to TPM Muckraker, the PAC has taken in $100,000 while only disbursing $6,000 to candidates and members of Congress. The PAC has, however, paid Willis-Leon $40,000 for fundraising, "retainers", "commissions", and so on. Who is Willis-Leon? Well she is Lewis' step-daughter! And to make matters worse the Small Biz Tech PAC retained the services of the same lawyer as Lewis, Barbara Bonfiglio. Bonfiglio is infamous for also working for [sw: Tom DeLay]'s ARMPAC and [sw: Duke Cunningham]'s American Prosperity PAC.
Today Justin Rood went down to the townhouse and found that the door bell line was cut and that there are few signs that anyone lives or works there. What is with these Congressmen and politicians getting their families involved in strange corrupt schemes. There's Julie Doolittle, Christine DeLay, Lisa Rudy, [sw: William Jefferson]'s daughters, and now Lewis' step-daughter.
QUICK UPDATE: Laura Rozen points out that Jerry Lewis secured a $2 million earmark for Trident Systems despite the fact that Trident does no business in his district. "If a member of Congress is giving an earmark, it is almost always in his district." Not this time. Continue readingQuote of the Day:
"When all is said and done, you will see that there is an honorable explanation for everything you are reading about." --Rep. [sw: William Jefferson] (D-LA) in today's New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Continue reading
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