Follow up on Curt Weldon’s Russian ties and the Pentagon contracts he tried to secure, a “dead beat congresswoman,” one Pennsylvania lawmaker gets sick of earmark criticism, and, yes, this is the Summer of Abramoff 4 (I know, more sequels; don’t the investigators at the FBI have any new ideas). This is your congressional news:

Former Rep. Curt Weldon’s dalliances with Putin-linked entities and Russian mobsters are back in the news as the federal investigation into the ex-congressman’s activities heats up. Sharon Weinberger and Nathan Hodges, writing at Wired’s Danger Room, show that Weldon facilitated a contract with Putin-linked IEG and the Pentagon for an “anti-missile project.” That contract was ultimately scuttled by Doug Feith. (more…)

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Bribes, congressional wives, lobbyist children, far-flung countries, and jet-setting congressmen. Add it all together and you’re reading the ingredient label of a old fashioned congressional scandal, circa 2004-2006. Hot off the shelf is the investigation into former-Rep. Curt Weldon’s dealings with Russia companies with ties to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal added new dynamite to an investigation that led to FBI raids on Weldon’s offices, the lobbying offices of his daughter - a lobbyist, and the offices of her employer, the shady Russian energy giant, Itera. One of Weldon’s ex-staffers, Russell Caso, is currently cooperating with the Feds after pleading guilty for failing to disclose payments made to his wife from a firm “helping American businesses operate in Russia.” That firm is now identified as the International Exchange Group, an organization with deep ties to Weldon. (more…)

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The mid-term elections are over and the people have decided that they want their corrupt members of Congress to come back home. In a Bloomberg article today, Rep. Rahm Emanuel states that eight seats flipped due to the corrupt activities of the current, or recently resigned/indicted/plead guilty, occupant. After reviewing the Bloomberg article and the members of Congress tied to congressional scandals it seems that Rahm has presented a lowball number of congressmen sent home. So let’s take a look at these members of Congress who will no longer be wearing the congressional uniform of solid blue suits, American flag lapel pins, and an unfailing arrogance of power.

* Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.): Hayworth’s claim to corruption fame is that he “took at least $56,200 from” Jack Abramoff and used Abramoff’s skyboxes for five fundraisers since 1999. Hayworth did show his sweet side by giving $2,250 of the money he received from Casino Jack to help relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina (because they weren’t getting the money from anywhere else). But Hayworth’s greatest moments came during this, his final election campaign. In a book about illegal immigration that Hayworth released this year he advocated for the “Americanization” program that Henry Ford proposed in his essay “The International Jew.” Then, Hayworth dispatches his aides to a debate at a synagogue where Jonathan Tratt, one of the aides, stated that Hayworth, a Christian, is a “more observant Jew” than any of the actual Jews present. Tratt’s wife was confronted by some of these not-as-observant-as-J.D. Jews and told them, “No wonder there are anti-Semites.” No wonder you’re not a Congressman anymore.

* Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.): Does this guy even need to be profiled? Pombo, chairman of House Resources Committee, which oversees tribal concerns and U.S. protectorates, refused to investigate Jack Abramoff’s corrupt dealings with Indian tribes and the Northern Marianas Islands. Could it have been all the cash Abramoff stuffed into Pombo’s political action committee and campaign coffers? Or maybe it was the skybox tickets for his staffers? Rhetorical questions aside Pombo was known as an instrument of energy corporations and a favorite of former Rep. Tom “Make-my-day” DeLay. Voters got sick of Pombo, the classic Astroturf politician, and his schtick and decided that they’d rather not send a congressman to Washington who is already bought and paid for by.

*Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.): Taylor’s problems did not stem from sharing the name of a genocidal dictator. Taylor did, however, share his signature to help out Jack Abramoff. (Notice a pattern here.) Bloomberg’s Salant writes, “Taylor and [Sen. Conrad] Burns wrote a letter to the Interior Department in May 2003 seeking a $3 million grant for of one of Abramoff's clients, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. They then included the allocation in a congressional spending measure.” Plus, Taylor seemed more concerned with friends in Russia than about the jobs in his district. Maybe he can look for work in one of those manufacturing factories that Western North Carolina is known for…oh wait, those don’t exist anymore?

*Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.): I think everyone expected Sherwood to choke on Tuesday after he, well, paid a hefty sum to a former mistress who had accused him of choking her. Not much else to say here. The guy’s acting like Wayne Brady on the Chapelle Show; who’s going to vote for that.

*Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.): When your nickname is “Crazy Curt” you know that you’re in electoral trouble. Just weeks before the election Weldon’s lobbyist daughter’s offices were raided along with the offices of a Russian energy company that Weldon had been helping out in his official role in Congress. Weldon has also made wild accusations about the war on terror and about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He even almost went on his own fact-finding mission to Iraq, Indiana Jones style, after refusing to believe that no weapons were found. Weldon’s next stop: a federal court house.

*Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.): Someone had to pay for the Mark Foley scandal and Sue Kelly wound up being that someone. Kelly, who sat on the page board when Foley was acting like Austin Powers on the Internet, refused to answer questions about Foley’s behavior, ran away from television reporters, and did not show up to a televised debate.

*Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.): Burns was the top recipient of corrupt cash from Jack Abramoff and penned a letter with fellow Abramoff pal Charles Taylor to help secure a $3 million grant for Abramoff’s client, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. Burns also decided to spend his reelection race attacking and cursing out firemen, declaring, a la Nixon, that President Bush has a secret plan to win in Iraq, and making generally racist and stereotypical comments about immigrants. Burns will now get to spend more time with his little Guatemalan friend.

*Reps. Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, and Mark Foley: These guys all already resigned their seats and one them is on the way to jail. Their late replacements all lost their respective elections and there’s no need to go back and review the various misdeeds of these three stooges.

That’s ten seats, nine in the House and one in the Senate, which flipped because of the member’s less than responsible activity. Don’t worry guys; your roster is likely to expand. A December 9^th run-off between Dollar Bill Jefferson and Karen Carter should bring a Democratic member to the team. And let’s not forget the on-going federal investigations into seven members who are going to be sticking around.

I’d like to say it ain’t so, but this team is only going to get bigger.

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Rep. Curt Weldon can’t seem to catch a break. First, he found out that he was under federal investigation after his lobbyist daughter and her client, Itera, had their offices raided by the FBI. Then, to much ridicule, he attempted to blame the entire FBI raid on a liberal conspiracy involving Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and Jamie Gorelick. Now the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times have decided to pile on with stories that are textbook examples of what is wrong with Washington. They describe an Italian defense contractor fêting Weldon at a five-star hotel in Italy and a $2 million earmark to another defense contractor, Dynamic Defense Materials.

Both contractors hired the same lobbyist, Weldon friend Cecilia Grimes, while the Italian company, Finmeccanica, also had a contract with Curt’s daughter Kim Weldon (not the daughter whose offices were raided). The case of Dynamic Defense is the clearest example of a pay-for-play system of the two new stories on Weldon. Dynamic Defense employs Weldon’s friend Grimes as its lobbyist, they dish out $11,000 in campaign cash for Weldon, and, ta-da, Weldon slips a $2 million earmark into the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill.

These earmark for contributions and lobbying contracts are hard to prove to be anything other than unseemly and unethical. Weldon is, however, under investigation for allegedly using his position to help his daughter, Karen Weldon, obtain consulting and lobbying contracts from companies that he in turn aids. The Russian energy giant Itera has already had its offices raided in America and Weldon’s actions for the Serbian Karic brothers have also come under public scrutiny. The Finmeccanica story closely resembles these two examples that have already gotten Weldon and his daughter Karen into deep trouble.

This time around Finmeccanica’s subsidiary AugustaWestland hired Weldon’s other daughter, Kim Weldon, for public relations and to promote for them at trade shows. The Times story states that investigators have not said whether they are or are not looking at Weldon’s ties to Finmeccanica.

Now for the worst news of all, from the Associated Press: “Signaling retreat, House Republicans are scaling back television advertising in three highly contested races, officials said Tuesday, including Rep. Curt Weldon's bid for an 11th term in Pennsylvania and open seats in Colorado and Ohio.” Maybe Weldon should have gone on his Indiana Jones adventure to Iraq after all.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at another one of the members of Congress currently under investigation. To see this list refer to this Congresspedia page.

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Maybe the HBO show The Wire should have focused on congressional wheeling and dealing in Washington rather than the inner city drug trade in Baltimore. Just after I wrote a post about corruption and scandal tilting over a dozen congressional races yet another congressman, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., finds himself the subject of an FBI investigation with a grand jury already impaneled, wiretaps monitoring cellphones, and raids on six locations in Pennsylvania and Florida. Bill Allison has already discussed some interesting tidbits of the case and Weldon’s page at Congresspedia covers the details and history of the investigation and Weldon’s connections to the Russian energy giant Itera and the Serbian brothers who previously were tight with mass murderer Slobodan Milosovic. But just today we got a taste of how Weldon has been trying to suppress discussion of this whole matter by being, um, less than transparent.

Since the Los Angeles Times initially reported on Weldon’s shady deals with these foreign business interest Weldon has repeatedly claimed that he asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate and that, ultimately, they cleared him of any wrongdoing. The Philadelphia Daily News (ht: War and Piece) reports today that this is completely false. You see the "letter of exoneration" that Weldon contiuously points to wasn’t given to him until Septemer 29th of this year! That was three weeks ago, not two years. Weldon also refuses to release the letter of supposed "exoneration" leading many to believe that he was never let off the hook. Laura Rozen reports on speculation about the letter given to her by an attorney, "what the letter likely says is the Ethics committee has been asked not to pursue the Weldon case while the Department of Justice completes its investigation." Weldon has been getting away with this little exoneration fib for about two years now. Perhaps we could make the process a bit more transparent. You know, for the voters and what not.

Meanwhile, the public’s least favorite Jerry Lewis, the House Appropriations Chairman, is working his ass off to be even less transparent in his work than Weldon. According to Congressional Quarterly and also reported by TPM Muckraker, Lewis has found a way to solve all of those investigations into Appropriations Committee for "possible improprieies in how he oversaw Congress’ spending of $900 billion annually." Fire all the investigators! Lewis let go of 60 contract fraud investigators who had been brought on to help root out the massive level of fraud and waste in the appropriations process. Lewis is already under investigation by the Justice Department in connection to the Duke Cunningham case. He probably didn’t want anybody else picking around his work. This is probably what he looked like when he saw what these investigators might be dredging up.

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• Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) likes to spend his campaign cash on himself, according to Harpers.org. Over the past eight years Weldon has spent $80,000 of his campaign funds on meals, $30,000 on hotels, purchased a personal computer, and went to a number of spas, to name just a few of Weldon’s indulgences.
• Ken Silverstein also has more (see updates) at Harpers.org on Shirlington Limousines, the limousine company that allegedly delivered members of Congress, defense and CIA officials, and prostitutes to "hospitality suites". TPM Muckraker has more updates on this "play for pay" scandal. You can read it here, here, and here. Josh Marshall also has more here.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) after a second associate of Jefferson’s pled guilty yesterday, according to MyDD. Of course, a member of Congress has to refer Jefferson to the ethics committee since outside complaints are not allowed to be considered anymore. Somebody? Anybody? (crickets chirping)
• Out of touch Representative of the day: Mary Bono (R-CA). (from Raw Story)

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• If you’re looking for a job you might want to become friends with Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), says Ken Silverstein at the new Harpers.org blog. Or you could become one of his daughters.
• Another U.S. contractor in Iraq pleads guilty, this time for bribery. According to the Washington Post, "Philip H. Bloom admitted his part in a scheme to give more than $2 million in cash and gifts to U.S. officials in exchange for their help in getting reconstruction contracts for his companies. Bloom’s firms won $8.6 million in reconstruction deals, with an average profit margin of more than 25 percent."
• Tom DeLay is like Waldo. He’s in every page (scandal) - you just have to look hard enough to find him. From the Houston Chronicle.

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