There is only one story in the blogs today and that is Tom DeLay resignation (effective sometime in May):
- Think Progress has been all over the story since MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Mike Allen of Time Magazine broke the story. Of particular interest is DeLay's statement that the Texas Legislature will remove Ronnie Earle from office:
SNOW: Okay, so at this point, you know — are you willing to let bygones be bygones?
DELAY: Absolutely not. Texas should not allow a district attorney from Travis County have this kind of power. And they can take his power away from him because there was the Texas legislature that gave him this power. And I think that will happen in the next session of the Texas legislature.
- Think Progress also finds DeLay bragging about the K Street Project:
The Democrats hate the fact that their culture of K Street has been changed from a totally dominated Democrat K Street [lobbying community] to a totally dominated Republican K Street. Nothing illegal about that at all. And we built that. When we took over in 1995, the K Street contributions to elections was 70/30—70 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican. Today it’s 60/40—60 percent Republican and 40 percent Republican. That’s a change in culture. Democrats and the left hate that, and they have worked very hard to destroy it.
- TPM Muckraker is all things DeLay today. Seriously, try and find a post that's not about him. One story in particular stands out. It appears that Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) is replacing DeLay on the Appropriations Committee. The seat that DeLay held had recently been vacated by Duke Cunningham, who is now in prison serving an 8 year plus sentence for accepting bribes. Calvert "accompanied former Rep. (and current convicted felon) Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) to Saudi Arabia. Convicted felon Thomas Kontogiannis, a pal of Cunningham's, joined the two."
- Digby takes a guess at DeLay's next act (if it doesn't involve orange suits and bars). His guess is that DeLay would go and work for Rick Scarborough, the Christian Right activist and author of the forthcoming book Liberalism Kills Kids.
More News:
- The Hill reports on the rush to return campaign contributions from the newest member of “pled guilty” caucus, Tony Rudy.
- Roll Call reports on a new Astroturf advocacy outfit Health Care America that will push for health policy desired by pharmaceutical companies, employers, and hospitals. The Executive Director Sarah Berk, a former lobbyist for the American Hospital Association and aide to Sen. Continue reading
Abramoff Sought to Aid Sudan:
We know that Jack Abramoff worked with (for) the South African apartheid government; took the corrupt kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko as a client; helped the anti-Semitic Prime Minister of Malaysia gain access to President Bush; and lobbied on behalf of the autocratic dictator of Gabon. I guess it makes sense that he would go all the way and attempt to lobby for a government actively committing genocide. The Los Angeles Times reports:
Two eyewitnesses say that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff proposed to sell his services to the much-criticized government of Sudan to help improve its abysmal reputation in the United States, especially among Christian evangelicals who were campaigning against human rights violations in the troubled African nation.
Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that Abramoff proposed a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract in late 2001 but that the proposal was "never seriously considered" by the Sudanese. He declined to elaborate.
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Two eyewitnesses say that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff proposed to sell his services to the much-criticized government of Sudan to help improve its abysmal reputation in the United States, especially among Christian evangelicals who were campaigning against human rights violations in the troubled African nation.
Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that Abramoff proposed a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract in late 2001 but that the proposal was "never seriously considered" by the Sudanese. He declined to elaborate.
Abramoff and his spokesman both deny that the meeting, which took place in Abramoff’s skybox at FedEx Field, occurred as Khidir claims. However, a former associate of Abramoff’s has backed up the Sudanese ambassador’s claims:
Continue readingAccording to the lobbyist's former associate, Abramoff sat with the ambassador in the skybox and described an elaborate and costly plan to blunt the effect of pressure from Christian groups with money and travel, two of the methods Abramoff frequently deployed in his Washington lobbying campaigns.
He said some of the money would be sent to the Christian Coalition and some would be spent encouraging Christian leaders to visit Sudan and talk with the government. Other money would be spent on a grass-roots campaign to promote a better image of the country in the United States.
The former associate said Abramoff repeatedly told the ambassador that he would arrange for his friend [Ralph] Reed to push the idea with Christian groups.
Abramoff Sought DeLay’s Help in Guam Elections:
According to the Guam Pacific Daily News:
Former Sen. Mark Charfauros, D-Agat, said he got lobbyist and friend Jack Abramoff involved in his battle with former Gov. Carl Gutierrez in 1998 because he wanted more federal attention brought to his concerns about the Gutierrez administration.
Charfauros yesterday told the Pacific Daily News that complaints by him and others to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Gutierrez weren't getting anywhere at the time, so he asked Abramoff for help. Abramoff is a friend, he said, and stayed at Charfauros' home when he visited Guam.
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Charfauros sent a letter to DeLay on Oct. 28, 1998, according to Pacific Daily News files, and DeLay the same day sent the letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Interior, calling for a formal investigation into alleged mismanagement of federal money under the Gutierrez administration.
A few days prior to the election Charfauros bought a one-page advertisement in the PDN to publish the letter from DeLay sent to the Department of Interior. Abramoff also may have attempted to affect the 2002 gubernatorial race according to allegations made by then-gubernatorial candidate Robert Underwood:
Underwood has said direct mailers printed out of a stateside business owned by a lobbying client of Abramoff undermined his first run for governor. The direct mailers, sent to about 25,000 members of Guam's Filipino community, had painted Underwood as being allegedly biased against Filipinos, a charge Underwood has said is untrue.
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One clue to the possible Abramoff connection, Underwood explained, was a fax cover letter from Preston Gates, the lobby shop where Abramoff had worked for during the Guam gubernatorial campaign season in 2002.
Underwood claimed that Abramoff stuck his neck out in this election because he did not want to lose a lobbying client in Underwood’s opponent, current Gov. Felix Camacho.
Continue readingDeLay Won’t Seek Reelection, Will Resign from Congress:
Embattled former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced that he would resign from Congress later this spring rather than seek a tough reelection battle, according to the Washington Post. DeLay told Time Magazine that he decided not to seek reelection after much deliberation because, “It was obvious to me that this election had become a referendum on me … It's obvious to me that anybody but me running here will overwhelmingly win the seat.” While DeLay insists that he is not under investigation and that he has done nothing wrong it is clear that prosecutors continue to work their way closer to him. The Post writes, “some of DeLay's official actions in Congress clearly fall within the scope of the continuing investigation: Last week's guilty plea by Rudy cites as part of the evidence of conspiracy a letter that DeLay wrote on behalf of an Abramoff client and legislation that DeLay supported on behalf of a client of Abramoff's firm.” Also noted in the Post is DeLay’s ability to “convert any or all of the remaining funds from his reelection campaign to his legal expenses … Election lawyers say one advantage of bowing out of the election now is that the campaign cash can be converted to pay legal bills immediately, instead of being drained in the course of a bid to stay in office.”
Continue readingDeLay Aide Rudy Pleads Guilty to Fraud:
Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) ex-deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from “a bribery scheme that began in 1997 and ran through 2004,” according to Roll Call. The bribery scheme is the same one that brought Jack Abramoff and former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon to justice and has ensnared numerous members of Congress, most notably Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who is mentioned in the plea deals of Abramoff, Scanlon, and now Rudy. While DeLay was not singled out in the Rudy plea his “single closest adviser” and former chief of staff Ed Buckham was implicated in the scheme. The majority of the actions noted in the Rudy plea occur from 2000-2002. Rudy’s actions from 1997 to 1999 are not detailed in the plea deal. The New York Daily News notes that the corruption probe is encircling DeLay. A “knowledgeable source” notes that Rudy and Buckham, “were Batman and Robin. Tony didn't do anything without Buckham's say-so. ... Buckham was Batman.”
Continue readingEarmark Reform Has Large Loophole:
Last week the Senate passed a lobbying and ethics reform bill that included reforms to the earmarking process that would require nonfederal earmarks to be made public 24 hours before a vote allow members to challenge any nonfederal earmark. The Kansas City Star notes that, “A mammoth loophole remains in that the restrictions would apply only to spending on ‘nonfederal’ projects: ones for local or state government or other nonfederal administrators, such as a museum or Indian tribe. Earmarks for federal agencies would not be affected.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who voted against the reform bill, is unimpressed by the earmarking reform: “We haven’t addressed the issue of earmarks, which has bred the lobbyists which has bred corruption. Earmarking is the genesis of all these egregious abuses.” McCain did state that there will be more opportunities for the Congress to enact more serious reform, “The good news is there will be more indictments, and I think we will be revisiting this issue, if not this year, the next year.”
Continue readingMore News:
- Jack Abramoff and Tony Rudy were involved in the 1998 gubernatorial election in Guam, according to the Guam Pacific Daily News:
In e-mails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Abramoff had asked Tony Rudy, Rep. Tom DeLay's deputy chief of staff, to see if he could garner any assistance in helping the 1998 gubernatorial candidacy of former Gov. Joseph Ada and then Sen. Felix Camacho, now the governor of Guam, who ran against incumbent Gov. Carl Gutierrez at the time.
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The e-mail from Abramoff, sent Oct. 26, 1998, stated, “We want to know if there is any way to get Tom to call for an investigation of the misuse of federal funds on Guam by this governor,” referring to Gutierrez.
Abramoff then said he would draft a statement for DeLay and suggested that if Rudy could "issue a press release and letter requesting an Inspector General to investigate these matters, it should have a major impact on the election next week."
Within a few hours, the report states, Rudy and DeLay aide Tom Scanlon released a statement from DeLay and a letter to the Department of the Interior's inspector general, calling for a federal investigation of Gutierrez.
- Former Pennsylvania congressman and current lobbyist Robert Walker “dismissed lobbying reforms approved by the Senate as minimal and said they would ‘have little or no impact on the way Washington actually operates,’” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Walker states that three steps need to be taken to crack down on lobbying abuses, “Credentialing lobbyists, abolishing so-called leadership political-action committees, and barring contributions by lobbyists to individual campaigns.”
- The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio Senate candidate Rep. Sherrod Brown (D), “his family, and his staff accepted 57 privately funded trips, valued at nearly $180,000, in more than a decade in the House - including flights to Finland, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Israel, Moscow, and Taiwan.” Brown opposes a proposed travel ban pending as a part of lobbying and ethics reform.
- The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s fundraising: “If money is power in politics, then Nancy Pelosi wields a lot of it.” Pelosi’s ability to raise money has also brought investigations, predominantly by a conservative named Ken Boehm. Although he tried, Boehm “failed to uncover anything that looked like a legal violation or a bona fide scandal, and he eventually got distracted and moved on to researching somebody else.”
- It seems to me that we get one of these “ethics committee sidelined” stories per week. This time it’s from Roll Call, “The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct met for several hours on Thursday but in the end only reached one public decision — to continue an investigation of a leftover complaint from the 108th Congress against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) for his leaking of an illegally intercepted phone call between Republican leaders in 1996.”
- The Washington Post reports that Maryland is having just as hard a time as Congress in regulating lobbying.
In Blog Daylight:
- One day after Jack Abramoff was sentenced to 70 months in prison House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “offered a privileged resolution today calling for an immediate investigation into Abramoff's ties to members of Congress and staffers,” according to The Fix’s Chris Cillizza. The resolution was defeated 216-193 with the vote coming largely along party lines. Six Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for the resolution, two more voted “present”, while the five Democrats on the ethics committee, “presumably to preserve them from accusations of bias as they continue to urge an investigation into ethics breaches of House members linked to Abramoff,” also voted “present.”
- Mark Tapscott at Tapscott’s Copy Desk was mighty excited about an amendment to the Senate lobbying reform legislation that was proposed by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) yesterday:
The Coburn/OBama amendment directs the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to establish a publicly available database of the more than $300 billion the federal government spends each year via contracts and grants to more than 30,000 groups, businesses and organizations.
Making public data about the recipients of that $300 billion chunk of the federal budget and how they spend the tax dollars would remove the biggest roadblock to public accountability that makes Pork Barrel spending possible - You can't track pork barrel if you don't who gets the money.
But then Trent Lott (R-MS) came along and killed the amendment:
Continue readingThe Senate's Rule 22 refers to the germaneness - i.e. relevance - of a proposed amendment. Translated from the Washington legislatese in which senators and congressmen so often hide, this means Lott thinks making sure the public can see who is getting more than $300 billion of their tax dollars has nothing to do with congressional ethics.
Put another way, Lott just told taxpayers to butt out.
Senate Passes Lobbying Reform; Bill Moves to House:
By a vote of 90-8 the Senate approved a lobbying reform bill that is being both praised and criticized from both sides of the aisle, according to the Washington Post. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) declares, “This legislation contains very serious reform.” One of the eight ‘nay’ voters, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), begged to differ, “It's extremely weak.” The most notable ‘nay’ votes came from the strongest proponents of reform: Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and McCain. The other four votes came from James Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Jim DeMint (R-SC). Roll Call reported that Obama, the Democratic point man on reform was very unhappy, “Given that Mr. Abramoff just got five years in the pokey, the notion that this is the best we can do doesn’t make any sense.” Sen. Chris Dodd, a chief sponsor of the bill, sounded triumphant proclaiming in the New York Times, “There's a sign that's now up in front of the Capitol. It says ‘Not for Sale.’” Later, he admitted that the bill does not include “true meaningful campaign finance reform that breaks the link between the legislative favor seekers and the free flow of special interest private money.” Coburn made the best analogy, “You can wash the outside of the cup all you want. If the inside is still unclean, you're going to have the same problems.”
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