In its Friday editions, The New York Times traced the career path of Letitia White, who, after an apprenticeship working on Capitol Hill in the offices of Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., a longserving member and now chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, found work in the private sector as a registered lobbyist. Many of her clients, the Times neatly shows in a nifty graphic, paid her firm tens of thousands for lobbying fees, and will receive many millions in earmarked contracts and grants. Your tax dollars at work. (And I should note that a lot of the digging and research was provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense.)
Continue readingAnother Probe Heats Up:
This is how it always starts. A lawmaker is said to be under investigation and then a lobbyist connected to that legislator has their clients subpoenaed. Then it snowballs. In this case the lawmaker is the powerful Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA), the lobbyist is actually three lobbyists, Bill Lowery, Jeffrey Shockey, and Letitia White, and there are four clients that have been subpoenaed. Last week two of the subpoenaed clients were revealed to be the City of Redlands and San Bernadino County. Today, Roll Call reports that Cal State University San Bernadino and Riverside County, California were both issued subpoenas as well. Saturday's New York Times ran an article profiling Letitia White, known as the "Queen of Earmarks". Her story is the classic story of the revolving door. She began as a receptionist for Rep. Lewis and worked her way up to being his gatekeeper, controlling access to him from members and lobbyists seeking earmarks. She then cashed in her connections for millions of dollars when she joined the lobbying firm of Lewis friend Bill Lowery. Today's Roll Call story states that federal investigators are looking closely at the actions of Jeffrey Shockey. Shockey is another graduate of that official lobbying university known as the United States Congress. Shockey, like White, worked for Lewis and then left to work for Lowery as a lobbyist. Unlike White, Shockey decided to come back to work for Lewis when the congressman took the Appropriations Chair. Perhaps Shockey needed another degree, or perhaps he's just a switch hitter. Either way his move back to the Hill is cause for worry considering that Lowery's law firm gave him a $600,000 severance package and hired his wife as a lobbyist as soon as he left. This is just the beginning for this tale of Congressional ethics. Since the Pulitzer Prize was bestowed onto the great investigative work of the San Diego Union-Tribune in uncovering Duke Cunningham's corruption and the Washington Post digging into Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay more newspapers will be intent on pursuing these corruption stories. The New York Times story indicates that the national media is intent on paying attention to the story. The local paper in this story is the San Bernadino Sun, which put seven reporters on the story last week. Consider this story on low, but increasing, heat.
Continue readingFeds: California. Here We Come!:
- The Associated Press has more information on the subpoena issued to San Bernadino County in relation to their lobbying contract with Bill Lowery, a close ally of Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA). The subpoena "asked for all records of the county's correspondence with Lewis and his staff and with the lobbying firm, Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton, & White, which employs former California Republican congressman Bill Lowery". The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin is reporting that Redlands city has been issued a subpoena as well. A spokesman for Lowery's law firm stated, "This work was bread and butter, run of the mill, routine appropriations. ... This kind of work happens in Washington every day, every month and every year on behalf of municipalities."
- Mother Jones has an interesting article tracing the history of Cunningham-Wilkes scandal figures Brent Wilkes and K. Dusty Foggo. It just so happens that a certain Bill Lowery pops up in the article.
San Diego Representative Bill Lowery, for example, first elected to the House in 1980 at the tender age of thirty-three, traveled in the Foggo and Wilkes Honduran road show, part of a Republican task force organized to help sell Reagan's Contra war against the Sandinistas to a skeptical Congress and public. After leaving office, Lowery, who has floated around the edges of every Republican scandal from the Savings and Loan collapse of the 1980s to the recent Jack Abramoff lobbying case, and is now reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department, went on to become a top lobbyist, skilled in the art of "earmarking."
- Rep. [sw: John Doolittle] (R-CA) is in a tight spot this year, according to Bloomberg. The northern California congressman is caught between two of the biggest congressional scandals in history as he has acknowledged friendships with both Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes. Doolittle vehemently denies any charges of wrong doing but he is "one of at least four members of Congress whom prosecutors have focused on in their questions to Abramoff".
King of Pork
One might think it's a royal title that members of Congress would prefer to avoid, but such is not the case with Rep. [sw: Marion Berry], D-Ark., who told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that "nothing would please [him] more" than to be known as the King of Pork on Capitol Hill. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Berry is well placed to vie for the crown. The article suggests something I've read before in several other places--that earmarks aren't a problem, that they don't in and of themselves increase federal spending:
Continue readingAfternoon News:
- Conservatives are in revolt against their own party as they battle over earmarks and pet projects in an attempt to reassert fiscal discipline, a concept that seems to have been thrown out the window since 2001.
- The trial of David Safavian began yesterday with prosecutors arguing that Safavian broke the law and Safavian's defense claiming that the prosecution brought the case just because Safavian was friends with Jack Abramoff. Justin Rood went and watched the court room proceedings and found it incredibly boring to listen to a case that was basically just about golf.
- Some members of Congress are not ready to assail the Justice Department for its search of Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) congressional office for fears that it would give the public an even worse perception of Congress. Can the public have an even worse perspective of Congress? What is their approval rating, 7% or something? In actuality it's 27%, which is insanely low. People do not like you guys.
- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) public move to push Jefferson off of the Ways and Means Committee has caused the Congressional Black Caucus to go into open revolt against the Democratic Leadership, according to The Hill.
- And finally, Dennis Hastert (R-IL) may sue ABC for libel over their story that is under investigation by the Justice Department in connection to the Jack Abramoff scandal. Let me tell you something Dennis, in this country, you can't really win a libel suit. It's basically impossible. Trust me.
Railroad to Nowhere Axed:
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
Top of the Morning:
- The former White House procurement official and Jack Abramoff devotee David Safavian is set to go to trial this week. Safavian, accused of lying the officials at the General Services Administration, will be the first court room test for prosecutors in the still unfolding Washington corruption case surrounding the practices of Jack Abramoff, according to Bloomberg. Prosecutors do not plan on calling Abramoff as a witness but will instead use the email exchanges between the two men to detail Safavian's actions. The former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), Neil Volz, will be called to testify against Safavian. Jury selection begins today.
- The San Diego Union Tribune reports that staffers to Duke Cunningham believed that he was a "nice guy" and that he was innocent until the day he pleaded guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes.
- Some Tennessee lawmakers are making their earmark requests public as a means of showcasing that not all earmarks are boondoggles and a waste of federal dollars, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The lawmakers, a group that includes Reps. Lincoln Davis (D-TN), Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN), and Jim Cooper (D-TN), also hope to show that transparency is the best means to insure that earmarking is not abused.
- The Los Angeles Daily News talks to the new ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA).
- Time Magazine reports that another aide to deposed CIA chief Porter Goss is under investigation in the continuing probe of Duke Cunningham and the actions of alleged briber and defense contractor Brent Wilkes. That aide is Brant "Nine Fingers" Bassett, who has been said to have attended the Wilkes run poker games at hospitality suites in the Watergate and Westin Hotels.
Spooky Appropriations Seat:
Some seats in Congress are famous and carry strong traditions. There is the Daniel Webster desk and the Jefferson Davis desk. There is the New York Senate seat currently occupied by Hillary Clinton that was previously occupied by equally well-known out-of-staters with strong personalities Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Robert Kennedy. But what about seats of infamy? I believe we may have one on the House Appropriations Committee. When Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned his seat in Congress and was subsequently sent to prison for his role in a sweeping bribery scandal he also left a seat on the Appropriations Committee, a seat from which he did a lot of his dirty work. That seat remained open until Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) resigned his leadership post after being indicted on money laundering charges. DeLay immediately took Cunningham's seat on the Appropriations Committee. DeLay later announced that he was going to resign from Congress after one of his top former aides pled guilty to charges in another Congressional scandal, the one that involved Tom DeLay's "best friend" Jack Abramoff, his former press secretary Michael Scanlon, his former chief of staff Ed Buckham, and lots of money. CongressDailyPM reports that the front-runner for this tainted seat is Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA). Who knows how the seat will corrupt Calvert? Oh wait a second. He's already involved in some dubious actions (noted previously here). From CongressDailyPM:
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Calvert made a significant profit off an empty four-acre tract bought last year after steering an $8 million earmark near the area to build a highway, and $1.5 million to boost commercial development. Those earmarks were included not in an appropriations bill, but in last's year's $286.4 billion highway reauthorization bill. Calvert and a business partner bought the lot for $550,000, and sold it for $985,000 a few months after the bill became law -- a 79 percent increase in value.Now that is a sweet deal he's got going for him. Imagine the kind of stuff that Calvert can earmark near his land holdings when he's on the Appropriations Committee. Maybe the seat doesn't corrupt people, it just attracts unseemly types. Or it could go the other way considering Cunningham seemed like an upstanding guy when he came to Congress. One of those chicken or the egg things I guess. Continue reading
Afternoon News:
- I'm confused. First, Duke Cunningham is said to not be cooperating with the federal investigation into bribery by defense contractors. Now he states, through his lawyer, that he will cooperate fully with a House Ethics Committee investigation and has been cooperating all along with the federal investigation. So, what's the deal here?
- We do know that Mitchell Wade, the contractor convicted of bribing Duke Cunningham, is talking to prosecutors. The Boston Globe looks into who he might be talking about. Two lawmakers, who both received illegal campaign contributions from Wade and tried, one successfully and the other unsuccessfully, to secure federally earmarked funds for his MZM, Inc., look like ready targets for this expanding investigation. They are Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), who successfully earmarked funds for an MZM office in his district, and Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL), who, after dining with Wade to the tune of $2,800, attempted to insert an earmark that would established an MZM site in her district.
- That loophole is so big I could fit a few hundred million dollars through it. (Wall Street Journal)
- The Torch is back! Former Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) is back in the news, and as you would expect it's bad news for the Torch. The Financial Times reports that Torricelli is now being connected to the UN oil for food scandal. Just recently I read a piece about how Torricelli was still a player and was doling out advice to Democratic Senators and consultants. That will probably stop if this report proves true. I think the guy might become even more radioactive than he used to be.
- TPM Muckraker reports on the Democrats' choice to have Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) as the top Dem on the House Intelligence Committee. "That's right: Pelosi wants to replace House Intel Committee Ranking Member Jane Harman (CA) with Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who "was forced to surrender his job as a federal judge after being indicted in 1981 on bribery charges," as the LA Times reports it. He beat the rap, but "was impeached in 1988 by the House for conspiracy and making false statement" in connection to the case."
- On the emergency supplemental front Mark Tapscott reports that there may be a victory at hand with the Senate agreeing to "cap spending in the emergency spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery to $94.5 billion."
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