The Washington Post article on former Bob Ney chief of staff Neil Volz's guilty plea has some key information:
Volz, who has been talking to prosecutors for three months, is providing information on other lawmakers and staff, according to a source close to the ongoing investigation.Emphasis added. So who else could Volz be dishing on? Brad Friedman at The Brad Blog has an idea. Continue reading
Volz Factual Proffer
Oy Ney! If you're a congressman you don't want to read something like this on a Monday. Here's a link to the Neil Volz Factual Proffer (courtesy TPM Document Collection), which provides an incredibly detailed account of what Abramoff, Scanlon, and company provided to Bob Ney (R-OH) in exchange for favorable action and legislation. If I were Bob Ney I could only feel that this is the Worst. Monday. Ever.
Continue readingNey Aide to Plead Guilty:
Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), already implicated in three guilty pleas in the Jack Abramoff scandal, is about to be fingered as a bribe taker in four guilty pleas. According to Reuters, Ney's former chief of staff Neil Volz is set to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and to violating the one-year ban on lobbying after leaving work on Capitol Hill. UPDATE: Josh Marshall has the plea agreement here.
Continue readingDanger, Danger Tom DeLay:
The Associated Press reports that Tom DeLay's (R-TX) office knew that Jack Abramoff, and not the National Center for Public Policy Research, was behind the funding and coordination of a controversial 2000 trip to Scotland:
Prosecutors have e-mails showing Rep. Tom DeLay's office knew lobbyist Jack Abramoff had arranged the financing for the GOP leader's controversial European golfing trip in 2000 and was concerned "if someone starts asking questions." House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting free trips from lobbyists. DeLay, R-Texas, reported to Congress that a Republican advocacy group had paid for the spring 2000 trip that DeLay, his wife and top aides took to Scotland and England. The e-mails obtained by The Associated Press show DeLay's staff asked Abramoff -- not the advocacy group -- to account for the costs that had to be legally disclosed on congressional travel forms. DeLay's office was worried the group being cited as paying the costs might not even know about them, the e-mails state.Federal investigators are looking into whether "DeLay filed false public reports to disguise the source and size of political donations, travel and other gifts he received from special interests." Both Tony Rudy and Jack Abramoff have already pled guilty and have agreed to cooperate. Kent Cooper, the former chief of public disclosure for the Federal Election Commission says, "It clearly shows some members live in a dream world of high-class living and fictional accounting. DeLay's office was part of the public deception." Continue reading
Saturday Thread:
What do you think about the news this week? Porter Goss, Patrick Kennedy, the Watergate prostitute scandal. Tell me in the comments section.
- At Daily Kos dengre posts a full letter from Jack Abramoff to then-Marianas Islands Governor Tenorio explaining how Abramoff's lobbying protected the Islands' sweatshops.
- Josh Marshall has the goods on Porter Goss and his number three: the Wall Street Journal reports that K. Dusty Foggo - handpicked by Goss to be the CIA's Executive Director - is under federal investigation in connection to the Cunningham-Wilkes bribery (hooker) scandal. Laura Rozen is a must read for a full explanation. Meanwhile, court jester at Daily Kos speculates as to whether the hookers involved are more Jeff Gannon and less Heidi Fleiss, if you know what I mean. However, the head of Shirlington Limousine has categatorically denied providing prostitutes to congressmen and defense and CIA officials, according to the Washington Post.
- Glenn Reynolds posts responses to constituent concerns regarding earmarking and the emergency supplemental from Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Patty Murray (D-WA).
- POGO Blog tells us that "it's a small world after all." Has anybody called Rep. Jerry Lewis' (R-CA) office about this?
Full Abramoff Records Will NOT Be Released:
On Monday a judge ordered the White House to turn over all Secret Service logs showing Jack Abramoff's visits to the watchdog group Judicial Watch, who had filed suit to obtain the records. Now we learn that the White House does not plan on releasing all of Abramoff's logged visits:
The White House said Tuesday the list the Secret Service has been ordered to release concerning convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's contacts with the Bush administration will be incomplete. But spokesman Scott McClellan declined to say what is wrong with the Secret Service list, why it is inaccurate and whether it includes far fewer meetings than took place. "I don't know exactly what they'll be providing, but they only have certain records and so I just wouldn't view it as a complete historical record," McClellan said.So, did Abramoff enter the White House without having to go through the Secret Service screening and signing in? There should be no reason that all of Abramoff's visits would not be recorded. Unless of course Abramoff was visiting for reasons that the White House does not want the public to find out about. The White House should release a COMPLETE version of the logs to disspell any notion of a cover-up. Do they really want the public to speculate as to why they aren't telling the truth about Abramoff's White House visits? For all we know the reason that Abramoff's visits aren't logged is because he was smuggled in by Jeff Gannon. Continue reading
Bizzaro World:
When Tom DeLay (R-TX) stated that he would file an ethics complaint against Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) I thought that this was probably one of the more absurd moments in the history of this recent Congress. But now Roll Call reports on something that is even more absurd:
In the irony-on-steroids category, guess who was defending his graduate thesis on Congressional ethics Monday? Cover your eyes and guess, then sit down for the answer. It was Michael Scanlon. Yes, that Michael Scanlon, the one who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. His topic, as Scanlon himself confirmed, was an “evaluative history of the House ethics process.” ... Our source says Scanlon got up and gave a roughly one-sentence introduction of his thesis before taking questions from the four faculty members and nine other students in the room. He says Scanlon talked about the House ethics committee and argued that the “system now is not broken, but functioning in the same manner it has since its creation.” Scanlon essentially argued that the House ethics process is “political in nature” and that Members were never expected to do a very good job at policing each other, the source says.Scanlon, when asked why he was getting his master's at such a "precarious" time in his life, responded that he finished his master's six years ago but didn't get around to arguing his thesis until now. Hmmm...six years ago. What happened to Michael Scanlon almost exactly six years ago? Oh yeah, Scanlon left Tom DeLay's office in April 2000 to work for Jack Abramoff. Bad idea. Continue reading
In Blog Daylight:
- blonde moment at Daily Kos writes that Judicial Watch has forced the White House to release the logs detailing visits made by Jack Abramoff. The Associated Press has an article up as well.
- Ken Silverstein at Harpers.org asks how a company run by a guy with a "criminal rap sheet that runs from 1979 to 1989" received a $21.2 million contract with the Department of Homeland Security to provide transportation. The company just happens to be the limo service that is alleged to have delivered prostitutes to Duke Cunningham and other unnamed congressmen and CIA and Defense Department officials.
- The Capitol Report's Tim Chapman reports that Coburns war against earmarks in the emergency supplemental bill will be "front and center this week."
Wide Probe of Ney:
At the end of last week the statute of limitations expired for prosecutors to bring charges in Florida against Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) for his alleged exchange of favorable language inserted into the Congressional Record for gifts from Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan. The Washington Post explained this weekend that federal prosecutors are looking at a wider investigation of the congressman:
Federal prosecutors signaled this week that they have decided to pursue a wide range of allegations about dealings between Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, rather than bringing a narrowly focused bribery case against the congressman. ... Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, said he has been in talks with Justice Department officials and expects to know within a month or two whether Ney will face criminal charges. He said the department asked for another extension of the statute of limitations in recent days, but this time Ney declined. ... Court papers filed in recent months show that prosecutors have lined up at least four cooperating witnesses against the Ohio congressman: Abramoff, former congressional aides Michael Scanlon and Tony C. Rudy, and businessman Adam Kidan. All have pleaded guilty to various conspiracy, fraud or public corruption charges. The court filings that accompanied the plea agreements of Abramoff, Scanlon and Rudy accused Ney of accepting "a stream of things of value" in exchange for official actions.Ney's lawyer was touting the expiration of the statute of limitations in Florida as a win for the congressman. This report shows that Ney has a long way to go before he has a chance to clear his name. Continue reading
Abramoff’s Bargain Hunting:
Jack Abramoff liked to go bargain hunting. Only he had a particular way of doing it. Instead of looking in the $2.99 bins at Filene's or driving around to garage sales that he found in the back of the City Paper he would email his buddy David Safavian at the General Services Administration to get discounted stuff sold by the government. The Washington Post provides more email exchanges between the two:
"I have a need to buy a stretch limo for the restaurant," Abramoff wrote, referring to Signatures, the downtown establishment he owned. "Are there any coming up on any of the GSA drug property sales?" Safavian, according to the documents recently filed by Justice Department prosecutors at U.S. District Court, wrote back that the GSA does not auction off seized cars. But he added that he was ready to help: "Let me call a friend at the Marshall's Service. They handle drug seizures." Abramoff replied: "I was thinking of the druggies bounty. No problem. Thanks, see you Friday."Safavian has been charged with lying about Abramoff's desire to do business with the GSA so that he could take a golfing trip to Scotland. Continue reading
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