Public Citizen released a new report yesterday with some breathtaking figures in about lobbyist campaign contributions.
Major findings include that lobbyists and their political action committees have given over $100 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress since 1998 and that the top 6 percent of lobbyists -- those giving a total of at least $10,000 each over eight years -- gave 83 percent of all the money. Nearly three-quarters of all registered lobbyists had given no campaign money above the limit of $200. Many of the top recipients of the money are on the appropriations committees. Thirty-six members of Congress have received a half-million dollars or more from lobbyists and their PACs since 1998. Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have each received more than $1 million. Of the 36 members in the half-million dollar club, 21 are Republicans and 15 are Democrats.
Continue readingAnother Quote of the Day:
Yet again from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:
No one has mastered the art of fundraising like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D), "whose campaign fund has amassed more than $45 million in his two bids for governor," reports the Chicago Tribune. "Blagojevich has said fundraising helps keep him independent. By raising money, he contends he is able to avoid pressure from special interests."Continue reading
Railroad to Nowhere Axed:
Resign (A Rant):
So, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) will not resign his office, has declared the allegations "outrageous", and says that, while there are two sides to the story here, now is not the time to give that other side. Well, like James Carville and Dana Milbank, I'd like to know what that other side is. Seriously, you were videotaped by the FBI taking $100,000 in cash from an FBI agent as a bribe and then the FBI found $90,000 of that cash in your freezer. Now, Milbank in today's Washington Post gives even more detail to the FBI sting:
He said it would be "extraordinarily foolhardy" to talk about the case. But, then again, it would not be the only foolhardy thing Jefferson had done lately. Didn't he know that the Pentagon City complex where he was stung was an FBI favorite? Both Monica Lewinsky and Pentagon official Larry Franklin (of the AIPAC espionage affair) were undone by agents in the same place Jefferson put the $100,000 in his Lincoln Town Car while "video taped by the FBI from several vantage points."And now the congressman is claiming that the separation of powers has been violated in the search of his congressional office. Sorry congressman, but it's not the time for indignant statements about the Constitution. It's time to resign. And for all the other members of Congress who are claiming that this is some intrusion on the separation of powers I will let Justin Rood put you in your place:
Wow. After sitting largely silent for more than five years of assaults against citizens' constitutional rights, our legislators have been moved to protect the Constitution because one of their own -- a man who meets contacts in hotel parking lots to accept briefcases full of money, and actually kept $90,000 in cash bundled in his freezer -- had his offices searched by the FBI.Unbelievable. What ever happened to "law and order" politicians? A sitting Congressman acts like a drug smuggler and then the FBI gets attacked after they treat him how they have been told to treat alleged criminals. Congress has been dishing out criminal justice legislation that supports these kind of heavy handed techniques that are aimed at deterrence of future crimes and now it gets turned on them and they can't take it. Boo hoo. Jefferson's lucky he was just involved in an international bribery scheme that involves corrupting a public office and violating the public trust, further tarring the political process in the eyes of many Americans. If he was doing drugs he'd have been carried off to jail along with his belongings, which would then be sold at a profit for the police. Continue reading
Quote of the Day:
From Political Wire:
"I have been racking my brain all day and calling people, wanting to know what could be the other side of the story for a congressman having $90,000 of cash in his freezer. And the collective wisdom of my friends have not been able to come up with anything. But if he can come up with a reason for this, I'm waiting here, man. I want to hear it, because I can't think of it." -- Democratic strategist James Carville, on CNN, discussing the bribery probe of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA).Continue reading
A Round-Table Discussion on Hiding Your Money in Washington:
In Washington people are always dealing in information, money, and secrets. Sometimes you need to peddle information to get a seat at the table or to help write bills for your lobbying clients. Other times you need to throw money around, ingratiate yourself with the locals and take them out to a skybox and watch Gilbert Arenas score 40 points. Throw a fund raiser for your favorite legislator (i.e.: the guy who's vote you need to switch). How else are you going to stop that bill that would help millions of people but hurt your client? Usually you tout these accomplishments and get patted on the back. But sometimes, you do something that you don't want anyone to know about and you need to hide your information, or your money, somewhere. Anywhere. Where do you hide it? Well, we gathered up a group of Washington insiders with first hand experience in hiding stuff and asked them how they would go about hiding money or information in Washington (follow the link):
Lewis Case Grows “Knottier”:
Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker delves deeper into the Feds investigation of Appropriation Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Of particular interest is the role of one Letitia White:
For over two decades White worked for Lewis, and was reportedly known as his "gatekeeper." His allies were her allies. For instance, Lewis fought for a decade on behalf of San Diego contractor General Atomics, forcing the Pentagon to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on GA's Predator UAV, which the generals didn't want. ... Over the next three years, GA paid White’s lobby firm -- Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez -- over $300,000. They weren't alone: from 2003 through 2005, the firm billed over $4.6 million to White's clients, nearly all defense contractors, according to records at politicalmoneyline.com. "People know that if you keep Letitia White happy, you keep Jerry Lewis happy," government watchdog Keith Ashdown told the Copley News Service in December. White -- and her husband, who made a sudden career switch to defense lobbying when Lewis took over the Defense Appropriations chair – have kicked back their share to Lewis, usually giving the maximum allowable to Lewis and his PAC. So do her clients: General Atomics has given $15,000 to Lewis' campaign and PAC in recent years. What’s the net result? A circle of pork: General Atomics gets hundreds of millions of dollars in business, Lewis gets hefty campaign donations, Lowery’s firm gets fat, and White pulls down megabucks. Hakuna Matata.Hakuna Matata indeed. Continue reading
Stashing the Cash
The news that FBI agents found some $90,000 in cash paid to Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., wrapped in tinfoil and secreted in the refrigerator of his Washington-area home, suggests a disturbing lack of financial acumen. In the 1970s, sources told Alan Block, author of Masters of Paradise: Organized Crime and the Internal Revenue Service in the Bahamas, that Castle Bank & Trust numbered Watergate conspirators and big Nixon campaign contributors among those who used its untraceable accounts. One investigator told Block about a document that suggested that perhaps then-President Nixon himself may have had money secreted away in the tax haven.
Continue readingRoll Call: At Least Seven Other Schemes
Roll Call reported yesterday on the FBI raid on Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) congressional office. What stands out in the Roll Call article is this short paragraph:
But the Justice Department and FBI agents are also looking at “at least seven other schemes in which Congressman Jefferson sought things of value” in return for official acts, the affidavit states. That suggests that additional avenues for prosecuting Jefferson could be revealed soon.Apparently this iGate-Nigeria deal is not the first in which Jefferson may have abused his position for personal financial gain. What could these other deals be? When they are all accounted for will Jefferson have deposed Duke Cunningham as the king of congressional corruption? Continue reading
Are They Out Of Touch?
One of the things that drives the public nuts is when their elected representatives forget their roots. That's one reason that the golfing junkets, the fancy dinners, and trips on corporate jets that master lobbyist Jack Abramoff routinely provided Reps. Tom DeLay and Bob Ney (among others) drove people crazy.
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