Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi pens an informative and hilarious portrait of superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's career:
Continue readingHe was an amazingly ubiquitous figure, a sort of Zelig of the political right -- you could find him somewhere, in the foreground or the background, in almost every Republican political scandal of the past twenty-five years. He carried water for the racist government of Pretoria during the apartheid days and whispered in the ear of those Republican congressmen who infamously voted against anti-apartheid resolutions. He organized rallies in support of the Grenada invasion, showed up in Ollie North's offices during Iran-Contra, palled around with Mobutu Sese Seko, Jonas Savimbi and the Afghan mujahedin.
All along, Abramoff was buying journalists, creating tax-exempt organizations to fund campaign activities and using charities to fund foreign conflicts. He spent the past twenty years doing business with everyone from James Dobson to the Gambino family, from Ralph Reed to Grover Norquist to Karl Rove to White House procurements chief David Safavian. He is even lurking in the background of the 2004 Ohio voting-irregularities scandal, having worked with the Diebold voting-machine company to defeat requirements for a paper trail in elections.
He is a living museum of corruption, and in a way it is altogether too bad that he is about to disappear from public scrutiny. In a hilariously tardy attempt to attend to his moral self-image, lately he has been repackaging himself as a fallen prophet, a humbled super-Jew who was guilty only of going too far to serve God. He was the "softest touch in town," he has said, a sucker for causes who "incorrectly didn't follow the mitzvah of giving away at most twenty percent."
How Tony Rudy Bought a Think Tank:
According to Raw Story, former DeLay aide and official member of the "pled guilty" caucus Tony Rudy directed his client Stoli Vodka to donate $20,000 to the Abramoff controlled National Center for Public Policy Research. Rudy took an $8,000 cut while the head of NCPPR Amy Ridenour wrote a favorable op-ed for Stoli that is still displayed on their website. Ridenour and the NCPPR have become notorious for writing favorable pieces about Abramoff clients after those clients gave the nonprofit hefty contributions.
Continue readingNorquist to Trademark “K Street Project”:
The Hill reports that Grover Norquist, head of American for Tax Reform and a close friend of Jack Abramoff, wants to trademark the term “K Street Project” and is defending the project from critics.
Conservative activist Grover Norquist is seeking a trademark on “K Street Project,” saying Democrats and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) have wrongfully acquired the term to describe unethical practices that have nothing to do with his organization.
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Norquist’s trademark application could take up to a year and a half to be processed.
“Some people say Kleenex when they mean tissue,” Norquist said. “We will jealously guard the real phrasing the way Kleenex and Coca-Cola do. We will sue anyone who says it wrong and make lots of money.”
Norquist founded the K Street Project to pressure lobbying firms into hiring Republican lobbyists. The project was launched after the Republican revolution of 1994 and then accelerated after George W. Bush was elected President in 2000. Reps. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Dick Armey (R-TX) worked closely with Norquist on the House side while Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) ran the project’s Tuesday meetings where lists of job openings were passed around and the lobbyists and political operatives who attended would discuss which Republicans should fill the jobs.
Continue readingAbramoff E-mails Show Use of Campaign Contributions; GOP, Burns, Taylor In Spotlight
E-mails obtained by the Associated Press indicate how Abramoff’s team used the lure of campaign contributions to obtain an earmark for a school construction project desired by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan
Abramoff’s team worked with Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow to get the Senate Democrats, then in control of the Senate, to request the money. Abramoff also turned to Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) to write the earmarked provision for the money. The plan hit a snag when a lone GOP House staffer, Joel Kaplan, objected to the money. That is when the e-mails become of interest:
Aside from the Republican Party getting involved in Abramoff's contribution-for-action scheme two specific lawmakers come up for scrutiny in the e-mails:A staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee, Jonathan Poe, suggested Abramoff's team compile a list of tribal donations, comparing Republicans with Democrats, to help make the case for lawmakers to overrrule Kaplan, the e-mails state.
Poe's "suggestion for me was to have a list of money contributed by tribes broken down 'r' to 'd' so that I can make the cleanest argument that we are about to let the Senate Democrats take credit for the biggest ask of the year by the most Republican-leaning tribes," Abramoff lobbying associate Neil Volz wrote.
Abramoff's team obliged, creating a tally that showed his tribal clients overwhelmingly donated to Republicans — $225,000 compared with $79,000 for Democrats.
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The Abramoff team's pressure came the same day the NRCC, the GOP's fundraising arm for Republican House candidates, held its major fundraising dinner with President Bush. The Saginaw were a dinner sponsor, donating $50,000.
Nothing is coming up Burns these days. Continue readingIn early 2003, Kaplan's new boss, House subcommittee chairman Charles Taylor, R-N.C., ended any problems in the House when he signed onto the Saginaw money. Burns' office took up the fight in the Senate.
Both oversaw subcomittees that controlled Interior's budget, and the two lawmakers wrote a letter in May 2003 in an effort to overcome resistance inside Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was arguing the Saginaw shouldn't qualify for the school program.
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The blunt letter has caught federal investigators' interest because it referenced correspondence that had been drafted inside Interior but never delivered. Federal agents are investigating whether an Interior official leaked the draft to Abramoff's team so it could be used by the lawmakers to pressure the department.In addition, both Burns and Taylor got campaign money around the time of their help.
A month before the letter, Abramoff's firm threw Taylor a fundraiser on April 11, 2003, that scored thousands of dollars in donations for the lawmaker's campaign, including $2,000 from Abramoff and $1,000 from the Saginaw. The tribe donated $3,000 more to Taylor a month after the letter.
Burns, likewise, got fresh donations. Several weeks before the letter, Burns collected $1,000 from the Saginaw and $5,000 from another Abramoff tribe. The month after the letter, the Saginaw delivered $4,000 in donations to Burns.
The Wives Club:
Yesterday the New York Times reported on the involvement of spouses and family members in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Julie Doolittle, the wife of Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), “has been subpoenaed … and questioned by the F.B.I.” about her “marketing and events-planning work for Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying firm and for his Washington restaurant, Signatures”. Rep. Tom DeLay’s wife Christine “received $115,000 in consulting fees from 1998 to 2002” from the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit run by former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham who is currently “under scrutiny by the Justice Department because of his lobbying contacts with Mr. DeLay’s House office.” Lisa Rudy, the wife of Tony Rudy, the ex-deputy chief of staff to DeLay who pled guilty last week, “received $50,000 in consulting fees as a result of what her husband has acknowledged was a corrupt scheme with Mr. Abramoff to influence the workings of Mr. DeLay’s office and promote the concerns of Mr. Abramoff’s clients on Capitol Hill.” Wendy Buckham, the wife of Ed Buckham, “shared more than $1 million in consulting fees with her husband from the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit group tied to Mr. DeLay. The group has drawn the scrutiny of law enforcement officials because so much of its income was directed to the Buckham family and appears to have come from Russian businessmen eager to court favor from Mr. DeLay.” The Times also provides a graphic illustrating the connections to family members in this bribery scheme.
Continue readingHastert Calls for Mollohan’s Removal from Ethics Committee
According to CongressDaily PM, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is calling on Minority Leader Pelosi (D-CA) to remove the ranking Democrat Alan Mollohan from the Ethics Committee after a Wall Street Journal article stated that he is currently under investigation in a possible earmarking scandal.
Continue readingMoyers on Corruption:
Go read Bill Moyers on corruption and money in politics. Click through to get a taste (read more):
Continue readingTribe Returns Burns Earmark:
The Saginaw Chippewa tribe that benefited from a $3 million earmark written by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) will return the money to the government and ask that it be distributed to other tribes in the wake of revelations that the earmark may have been generated through a corrupt process involving Jack Abramoff. The Washington Post reports,
Continue reading"After careful consideration, our tribal council has decided not to move forward with the construction of the school, because it is not financially prudent to pursue this project at this time," tribal officials wrote in a letter yesterday to Burns and other lawmakers. They asked that Congress use the money to offset some of the cuts in the BIA's budget.
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Burns has said he sought the grant because he is interested in improving conditions on Indian reservations. A spokesman for his office had no immediate comment on the tribe's decision.
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Abramoff's lobbying team had strong ties to Burns's staff. One appropriations aide went back and forth between jobs on Burns's staff and Abramoff's team. Another Burns appropriations staffer and Burns's chief of staff were treated to a trip to the 2001 Super Bowl in Florida on a corporate jet leased by SunCruz, a Florida casino cruise line then owned by Abramoff and several partners.
Earmarks Down for FY 07; Coburn Pushes Accountability
Porkbusters has a great chart on their site showing how deep the reductions in earmarks are for the coming fiscal year. Their source says that earmarks have been reduced by 37% from fiscal year 2006, a huge drop considering that every year over the past decade they have grown exponentially. This also comes on the heels of yesterday’s Roll Call story on Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) enforcing new earmarking rules, restricting members to 5 earmark requests each.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has established a new website to push for accountability in how taxpayer funds are spent. The website states:
Each month, taxpayers "contribute" to the Federal government out of their hard-earned income. That "contribution" is taken by the Federal government under laws of Federal taxation, under threat of imprisonment and fines for those who refuse to pay their taxes. When a government wields this enormous amount of power, there is no room for any abuse of that power. Unaccountable spending of tax dollars is an abuse of power. Taxpayers have a right to demand accountability of all Federal agencies and programs.
Accountability means that an agency or program measurably achieves the mission it was created to achieve, in a cost-effective, efficient, and open manner.
As the branch of government that spends the taxpayers' money, Congress is ultimately responsible for ensuring accountability for those expenditures. When Congress fails to do its job overseeing current Federal spending, while at the same time, increasing that spending each year, citizens have been unconstitutionally deprived of appropriate checks and balances to which they are entitled as taxpayers.
Coburn's new site plans to issue reports on government waste, earmarks, and failures to account for government spending of taxpayer funds. It mirrors the House Government Reform Committee Minority Office website run by ranking Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) that regularly issues investigative reports on government actions and spending.
Continue readingRanking Ethics Democrat in Spotlight for Earmarks:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the Justice Department has commenced a probe of Alan Mollohan (D-WV), the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, for his use of earmarking projects for nonprofits in his district:
A 12-term congressman, Mr. Mollohan sits on the House Appropriations Committee, a panel that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff dubbed the "favor factory." Working with fellow West Virginian Sen. Robert Byrd, Mr. Mollohan has steered at least $178 million to nonprofit groups in his district over the past five years using "earmarks" -- special-interest provisions that are slipped into spending bills to direct money to pet projects.
The money has brought more than jobs and building projects to his district. It has formed and financed a tight-knit network of nonprofit institutions in West Virginia that are run by people who contribute regularly to Mr. Mollohan's campaigns, political-action committee and a family foundation. One of these people also invests in real estate alongside Mr. Mollohan and his wife. The network of contributors also includes private companies that get contracts through these nonprofits.
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Central to the Mollohan network is a former staffer, Laura Kuhns, who heads the nonprofit Vandalia Heritage Foundation. It is a historic-preservation group that is financed almost exclusively by earmarks backed by Mr. Mollohan. It paid her $102,000 in 2004. Vandalia is coordinating construction of the new building for the Institute for Scientific Research, or ISR, and Ms. Kuhns sits on its board and those of three other nonprofits that get funds via earmarks.
She and her husband also are partners with Mr. Mollohan and his wife in five properties in Bald Head Island, N.C., valued in local real-estate records at a total of $2 million. The Mollohans recently bought a $1.45 million oceanfront home on the island, called the Peppervine House, which they rent out for $8,555 a week, next to the Kuhns' house, known as Cape Fearless. These and other investments, including a stake in a nine-story luxury condominium complex in Washington, appear to have made the Mollohans wealthy.
Mollohan has not been accused of wrong doing but “[s]uch a pattern raises questions about whether the donations or deals might be a way beneficiaries of earmarks could influence the legislator's actions.”
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