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The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Mitchell Wade’s Five Congressmen
Seth Hettena spills the beans on the names of the five lawmakers that Mitchell Wade provided information on to federal investigators. They are:
- Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hi.
- Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, D-W. Va
- Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.
- Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va.
- Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla.
As Hettena explains, Inouye and Lewis are more directly related to deals that Wade’s former partner Brent Wilkes was seeking from the government. Harris, Goode, and Mollohan all received large campaign contributions from Wade and his company MZM, Inc. as he sought to locate his operations in their respective districts.
Both Harris and Goode are no longer in Congress; Goode having lost his seat this year. Mollohan and Lewis have both been under investigation by the Justice Department for some time. This is the first word that the Justice Department has been looking at the actions of Sen. Daniel Inouye, the incoming chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
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Boom Shaka Laka – Justice
The San Diego Union Tribune, without whom this would not have happened, is reporting that corrupt contractor Brent Wilkes was found guilty by a jury on 13 of 13 counts related to his bribery of imprisoned ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham. The story of Brent Wilkes is perhaps one of the more telling tales of political corruption for our time. Here is a man who set up a series of bogus companies, many which appeared to be nothing but a name with similar addresses, and received million dollar contracts for important work including the bottling of water for troops in
So far, what we refer to as the Duke Cunningham scandal has brought down one sitting member of Congress, Cunningham; three contractors, Wilkes, MZM head Mitchell Wade, and Robert Fromm, the former program manager at the Army’s
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Bali Hai!
Out of all the congressional corruption scandals that have engulfed Washington since 2005 my personal favorite was and still is the Duke Cunningham bribery case. This scandal had it all, a bribery menu, a yacht named "Buoy Toy" illegally gifted to a member of Congress, quid pro quos of hookers for earmarks, and of course a cartoonishly corrupt contractor who liked to randomly yell "Boom shaka laka!" That contractor, Brent Wilkes, pled "not guilty" to the bribery charges that both his underling Mitchell Wade and the bribed Cunningham have admitted to, leading to the only trial in the sprawling corruption investigation. The trial has led to some terrific moments including testimony from the hookers hired by Wilkes for Cunningham and the ludicrous argument by the defense that all Wilkes was engaged in was aggressive lobbying. Now we get treated to this hilarious video of Wilkes and his team hosting Cunningham for a scuba diving trip. Wilkes is seen at the end doing his random shouting thing. Bali Hai!
The best places to follow the Cunningham case and the trial are TPM Muckraker, Seth Hettena’s blog, and the San Diego Union Tribune. Hettena and the writers from the Union Tribune have both written their own books about Duke’s corruption.
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Two N.M. Lawmakers May Have Pressed Attorney Purge
Back at the beginning of the year the Justice Department announced that it was replacing seven U.S. Attorneys in an unprecedented move. The Attorney ‘purge’ was able to take place due to a provision allowing the Justice Department to unilaterally replace U.S. Attorneys for any reason that was snuck into the PATRIOT Act reauthorization by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). McClatchy Newspapers reports today that one of those Attorneys, David Iglesias, U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, was pressured by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to bring down indictments on local Democratic officials prior to the 2006 midterm election. Iglesias refused and has since been purged by the Justice Department. If Wilson and Domenici did attempt to pressure a sitting U.S. Attorney for the political benefit of the oft-endangered Wilson it would be a serious ethical violation.
Wilson’s history with Domenici is integral to this story. Wilson was one of the top Democratic targets in the 2006 election and faced her toughest competition in years from New Mexico Attorney General Patsy Madrid. She barely eked out a victory after a late gaffe by Madrid during a debate. Wilson’s continuing victories are essential to the aging Domenici as he views the Albuquerque Republican as his heir. Domenici is an institution in New Mexico. He has served since the 1970s and represents a more moderate strain of Republicanism than those elected in the 1980s or 90s. Wilson was brought up through the system by Domenici and clearly the heir apparent to his Senate seat, much to the chagrin of the more conservative Southern New Mexico Republican Congressman Stevan Pearce. This explains why Domenici, the second of the two to pressure Iglesias, was “more persistent than Wilson … When Iglesias said an indictment wouldn't be handed down until at least December, the line went dead.” Meanwhile the White House is choosing between four potential replacements for Iglesias, all of whom were hand picked by Domenici. Domenici is up for reelection in 2008.
The Democrats in the House issued their first subpoenas to the purged U.S. Attorneys since taking control of the investigative powers of the committees. This case goes well beyond the potentially serious unethical actions of the two New Mexico Republicans when looking at the other Attorneys who have been purged.
Purged U.S. Attorney Carol Lam has been the lead prosecutor in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham case that has led to the indictments of Cunningham (also convicted and sentenced to over 8 years in prison), Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, and K. Dusty Foggo. Lam was purged immediately after she indicted Wilkes, a top government contractor with ties to many California Republicans including Appropriations Ranking Member Jerry Lewis and Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter, and Foggo, the former number three at the CIA. TPM Muckraker has been following this case diligently and as they point out, the Iglesias revelations make the removal of Lam incredibly suspect. Perhaps she was getting too deep; this San Diego Union-Tribune article from today notes that the case is incredibly sensitive as it could potentially reveal the identities of CIA operatives because the indictment alleges that Foggo gave the confidential information to the contractor Wilkes. It should be noted that Wilkes was a 2004 Bush “Ranger” (he raised more than $200,000).
Another purged Attorney, Bud Cummins, U.S. Attorney from Arkansas, stated that he was pushed out to make way for a protégé of White House strategist de jour Karl Rove. The Rove protégé, Tim Griffin, was formerly an opposition research specialist at the Republican National Committee, a purely political position. Griffin has since withdrawn his name from consideration for a full time position blaming the politicization of the process by Arkansas’ two Democratic Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln. He is currently the interim U.S. Attorney from Arkansas.
Playing with justice for political reasons is a serious violation of the public’s trust. That two Members of Congress may have done this to further their careers or legacies is abominable. The Ethics Committees in both Houses of Congress have just been handed a chance to prove if they work or not. If Members wish to insist that they do not need an Independent Oversight Board to investigate wrong doing they must begin with the cases of Wilson and Domenici to prove that they can and will police their own. On the grander scale, the Justice Department has serious questions it must answer in what may be an attempt to stifle or distort justice for purely political reasons.
If you want to follow this case, or get the history of it, I’d keep up with Josh Marshall and his muckraking team. Here’s the link for all related posts.
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How to win contracts and influence Congress
Somewhere in America a lobbyist, or maybe a contractor, is writing a book with that title. Lobbyists, freely seeking contracts with little or no restraint, appear to have perfected a system, with their clients, of winning contracts and gaining influence. TPM Muckraker — posting about yesterday’s Vanity Fair expose on the seedy world of defense contracts (“a window into Babylon or the last stages of Rome”) — explained the business model of companies seeking contracts in Washington: “First you get the congressman, then you get the earmarks, and then you get the money.”
Brent Wilkes, now the focus of the ongoing Duke Cunningham investigation, was at the birth of the earmark boom in Washington. Wilkes’ first lesson in politics came as a Central American pimp for anti-Communist conservative congressmen visiting the brutal death squads that the President was illegally funding. His lesson: congressmen will be your friend if you give them what they want. Wilkes went on to work for Audre, Inc., a document converting company, and began to press Audre’s CEO Tom Casey to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions and set up an office, headed by Wilkes, in Washington. Casey didn’t like the idea so Wilkes started his own competing firm, ADCS, Inc., and began showering [sw: Duke Cunningham] with money like the congressman was a breathing ticker-tape parade. Unlike Casey, Wilkes saw results. By lining the pockets of his local representatives Cunningham, [sw: Duncan Hunter], and [sw: Jerry Lewis] Wilkes found his firm with multimillion dollar contracts and a trio of congressmen willing to fight for more money.
“First you get the congressman, then you get the earmarks, and then you get the money.”
Some companies aren’t as lucky as Wilkes’ to have two high-powered Appropriations members and a powerful member of the Armed Services Committee in their region. Others have to go out and find friends like these. A recent article in Bloomberg showcases a new business model for companies sucking off the federal teat. ProLogic, Inc. is one of a “growing number of companies” that “locate facilities in lawmakers’ districts and shower them with campaign cash” to obtain earmarks. ProLogic, Inc. maintains offices in the districts of five members of the Appropriations Committee, Reps. [sw: Alan Mollohan] (D-W.Va.), [sw: John Murtha] (D-Pa.), [sw: David Obey] (D-Wis.), [sw: Pete Visclosky] (D-Ind.), and [sw: Frank Wolf] (R-Va.).
Ken Silverstein at Harper’s blog wrote a concise post about the close relationship that Visclosky and Mollohan share with both ProLogic and their lobbying firm, the PMA Group.
Consider here the tangled tale of Representative Pete Visclosky, an Indiana Democrat and a powerhouse on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and a Washington lobby shop called The PMA Group. In November 2004, Visclosky secured a $900,000 earmark—the final tranche of $6.9 million in federal funding he won—to build the Purdue Technology Center, a high-tech “business incubator” in Merrillville, Indiana. Two months later, Visclosky participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the inauguration of the center.
According to the Bloomberg article, Visclosky has received $101,750 in campaign donations from the PMA Group since 1989. Visclosky’s former chief of staff is a lobbyist for the firm. Visclosky also received $16,000 from ProLogic during the 2003-04 election. In January of 2005 Visclosky “obtained $6.9 million in federal funds to build a technology center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, and then helped recruit ProLogic to set up shop there”. Since then the congressman has received $37,500 from ProLogic. There are similar trends with Congressmen Murtha and Mollohan. Both of these congressmen have ties to the PMA Group, Murtha especially, and receive large campaign contributions from ProLogic and from PMA.
On the lobbying side of the equation the PMA Group’s story of influence is the same as any lobbying firm. They hire highly competent former congressional aides and executive branch lobbyists who have relationships with powerful members of Congress. There’s Visclosky’s former chief of staff, a former staffer for Murtha, a close friend of Murtha’s, and numerous former Pentagon lobbyists. PMA’s PAC has also "doled out more than $250,000 to federal candidates" this election cycle.
A more recent case of ProLogic’s business model is happening right now in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. In December 2004 ProLogic announced that it was opening an office on Stevens Point’s Main Street. The congressman representing Stevens Point is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee [sw: David Obey]. Prior to the office opening in Obey’s district the congressman had received a total of $5,000 in his PAC’s account from ProLogic. However, this cycle, after the opening of the office, ProLogic has donated $21,000 to Obey’s campaign committee and $10,000 to Obey’s PAC. What comes next? “…then you get the earmarks, and then you get the money.” (For what it’s worth Obey has decried the excessive earmarking going on stating, “It turns the appropriations process into an ATM.”)
And ProLogic’s business model works too. A 2004 news article states that ProLogic has grown 400 percent since it was founded in 1995. That’s thanks to your tax dollars and their genius plan to move into your congressman’s district. Other companies are following the ProLogic business model. Miltec has all five of its offices located in districts of Appropriations members and ManTech recently opened up shop in House Minority Whip [sw: Steny Hoyer]’s (D-Md.) district.
Lobbyists are also practicing new techniques to gain more clients and more money. A New York Times article from last week noted the growing employment of lobbyists by towns, schools, cities, and municipalities to influence congressman who are obstensibly already supposed to represent them. According to the Times "the number of public entities hiring private firms to represent them in Washington has nearly doubled" since 1998 from 763 to 1,421. Many of these new clients had never sought, nor heard of earmarks until a lobbyist — acting like a lawyer chasing an ambulance — arrived at their doorstep "essentially offering big pots for a pittance." In many ways this shows a complete failure of government on all levels. The Times quotes Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, saying, "If you’re a mayor or a city councilman and you have to hire a lobbyist, what a gross admission of failure on your part … they’re elected to be, really, the lobbyist for the people." And on the other end congressmen must be so out of touch with their district’s needs — despite spending unprecedented amounts of time away from Washington — and so incapable of writing legislation that they need lobbyists as a go between. In the midst of this failure is a windfall for lobbying firms. Last year, corporations, trade associations, and interest groups broke another record for spending on lobbying topping $2.4 billion.
The ProLogic business plan, combined with the undue influence of lobbyists in today’s Washington, is a symptom of a much-larger problem than just earmarks or manipulative lobbying practices. I believe that Ellen, writing earlier about the Campaign Wikia and the vision of participatory politics, ran up against the same problem when considering the possibility imagined by Jimmy Wales: “the power of money in our political system is still the overwhelming determinative of who runs for office and who wins. Until that is changed, what candidates say and what they do will be driven by who finances their campaigns.”
Ultimately to get the earmarks you have to get the congressman. For some getting the congressman involves paying a lobbyist who already has the congressman. Than you can shower money on your local congressman or Senator or, if you need a particular representative, follow the ProLogic model and move into the districts of key Appropriators and then shower them with money. With this dynamic there will always be one constant: money showers. The earmarks don’t stop until the money showers do. Brent Wilkes knew that. And so did [sw: Duke Cunningham].
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What Next in Cunningham Investigation
Vanity Fair reports on the ongoing Cunningham investigation and where it will go next. The article notes that Cunningham was seeking bribes days before he pled guilty; Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor at the center of the investigation, made connections in Washington by introducing congressmen to women in Honduras; Bill Lowery, the former congressman and current lobbyist embroiled in the scandal, introduced Cunningham to Wilkes. So who goes next in the investigation: Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, [sw: Katherine Harris] (R-Fla.), Wilkes, Lowery, or Rep. [sw: Virgil Goode] (R-Va.)?
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Scandal Firm Failed to Report $2 Million in Fees:
The firm at the center of the [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.) scandal apparently failed to report $2 million in lobbying fees, according to TPM Muckraker.
Now a review of the firm’s reporting shows that, just weeks before Copeland Lowery’s status as a target of the investigation became publicly known, the firm filed more than 90 revised disclosures to Congress, alerting officials that they had misreported income from dozens of clients from 1998 to 2005.
Over three-quarters of the corrections disclosed previously unreported income totalling approximately $2 million; others corrected over-reported income of roughly $500,000.
Justin Rood points out that the revisions came in only a few key clients. One of those clients is ADCS, the defense contractor at the center of the Duke Cunningham bribery case:
From these four key clients, Copeland Lowery failed to report …
- at least $260,000 from ADCS, the San Diego-based defense contractor owned by accused briber Wilkes;
- at least $270,000 from the San Diego-based Foundation for the Improvement of Math and Science Education;
- at least $210,000 from the Rochester Institute of Technology;
- at least $210,000 from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD).Lowery’s lobbying firm is “in serious legal jeopardy” according to money in politics expert and Washington lawyer Brett Kappell. Rood lays out a possible outcome, “The likely charge — making a false statement, a felony — has been used by prosecutors in recent corruption investigations to win plea bargains.”
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Lewis Is In a Heap of Trouble:
Last night NBC News reported that the CEO of Audre, Inc. was told by Rep. [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-CA) that he needed to pony up campaign contributions to members and that he hire Lewis’ friend Bill Lowery as a lobbyist and provide Lowery with stock options before he could get federally earmarked money for his business.
In an exclusive interview, Casey tells NBC News that after he made campaign contributions to House members of both parties, Lewis informed him the Pentagon would get $14 million for the testing, and that Casey even could write the language.
Lisa Myers: You were allowed to write language for an appropriations bill yourself?
Casey: Yes, I did. That was Congressman Lewis’ suggestion.
Casey says Lewis repeatedly urged him to hire a lobbyist, former U.S. Rep. Bill Lowery, Lewis’ close friend, and when that didn’t happen, pressed for another favor.
Casey: Congressman Lewis asked me to set up stock options for Bill Lowery in our company.
Casey says Lewis suggested he issue the stock options in Canada — in someone else’s name.
Myers: Did you view it as an effort to hide what was really going on?
Casey: It was intended to conceal his participation, yes.
As Justin Rood notes, Casey started the contracting career of Brent Wilkes at Audre, Inc. Wilkes is said to have aggressively urged Casey to spend more money on lobbying and campaign contributions as a means to gain the support of members. Wilkes eventually became fed up with Casey and jumped ship to start his own contracting business, ADCS, Inc.
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Feds: 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".
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Over the Weekend:
- The San Diego Union-Tribune gives an inside peek at the infamous Brent Wilkes poker parties in the Watergate and Grand Westin Hotels. The article also mentions that Wilkes was increasingly interested in obtaining CIA contracts and had received one contract to provide clandestine air transport to the CIA. Clandestine air transport…? Can somebody say "extraordinary rendition"?
- Jeff Birnbaum writes in the Washington Post Congress is not moving to reform ethics despite the multiple scandals that have rocked the Capitol. An ethics reform package is unlikely to be passed this year.
- Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Democratic Minority Leader, accepted boxing tickets from the Nevada State Athletic Commission while he was working to create a federal boxing commission. It doesn’t appear that Reid changed his behavior or his actions in the wake of receiving the tickets. Two Senators, John McCain (R-AZ) and John Ensign (R-NV), accompanied Reid to the matches. McCain reimbursed the NSAC for his tickets while Ensign and Reid did not.
- Finally, Newsweek has its own profile of Brent Wilkes, who is fast becoming to defense contracting what Jack Abramoff was to lobbying. The article notes that Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Tom DeLay (R-TX) all had dealings with Wilkes. Hunter and Lewis have been tied up in some of the same contracts that Duke Cunningham was involved in while DeLay was a very frequent flier in Wilkes’ company jet.
