New contribution disclosure rules provide some transparency in the world of “soft” influence seeking. In this case, these disclosure rules require the disclosure of contributions made “in honor of” a covered official, a lawmaker, executive branch or military official. A Seattle Times article looking into these contributions in honor of Washington state lawmakers shows Rep. Norm Dicks, a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, as a frequent honoree for contributions made by corporations seeking defense contracts.

Boeing gave $10,000 earlier this year to one of Congressman Norm Dicks’ favorite charities, the National Guard Youth Foundation.

So did Boeing’s archrival, EADS, the parent company of Airbus.

But that’s small change compared to another defense contractor, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which gave $100,000 to the youth foundation’s gala dinner in February honoring Dicks, a Bremerton Democrat, for his staunch support of the charity.

TriWest followed that up with a $50,000 contribution to another charity event hosted by Dicks and four other members of the powerful defense-appropriations subcommittee that doled out $459 billion in contracts this year.

Giving money to a charity favored by a lawmaker isn’t quite like giving to their campaign committee, but it will likely gain you brownie points when money for your business is on the table. In this case, the desire to influence behavior, while denied by all parties involved, is plain as day for anyone looking from the outside.

Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense is quoted in the article saying, “There’s nothing outrageous at all about giving to something that helps a National Guard entity … I think it’s a soft lobbying tactic that can make lawmakers think you’re in their camp and loyal to their interests.”

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The chief witness in the investigation into former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham may have spilled the goods on more lawmakers than the now imprisoned San Diego Republican. According to Seth Hettena, the author of a book about Cunningham’s crimes, Mitchell Wade’s sentencing memo contains new revelations about his cooperation with federal authorities:

A 42-page sentencing memo filed by Wade’s attorneys says he aided the government in its investigation “of at least five other members of Congress” who were under investigation for “corruption similar to that of Mr. Cunningham.” These no doubt include Virgil Goode and Katherine “Pink Sugar” Harris. Wade wanted to open facilities in their districts and made $78,000 in “straw” contributions  to grease the wheels. Neither Harris nor Goode has been charged with wrongdoing.

Prosecutors drop tantalizing hints about an even bigger, ongoing investigation. Wade was debriefed in 2006 and provided “moderately useful” background information in another “large and important corruption investigation” that also has not yet resulted in any charges.

Who are the other 3 members of Congress? And what is this “even bigger, ongoing investigation”? Ken Silverstein has some speculation on who the 3 unmentioned members of Congress are.

Of particular interest is the way in which Wade revealed the information to law enforcement: he released a searchable, electronic database of 150,000 documents.

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Three makes a trend, right? Today, there are three news stories on presidential bundlers - campaign contributors who solicit money from other contributors and bundle it together - and their activities. All of these stories highlight the need for bundling disclosure rules from the Federal Election Commission. But two of these stories pinpoint the potential for abuse in the bundling system.

The Washington Post looks at the odd practices of one Harry Sargent III, the owner of an oil trading company with billion dollar defense contracts. Sargent has raised over $50,000 for Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid from a collection of Arab-Americans who refuse to discuss why they gave money to the Republican’s campaign: (more…)

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What would you say if the Defense Department outsourced the arming of our allies in Afghanistan to a company run by a serial stalker and a licensed masseur? The New York Times reports that the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s fledging military and police forces, AEY, Inc., has been sending 40 year old munitions acquired from former Soviet bloc countries that do not work. AEY, Inc., is headed by Efraim Diveroli, a young man who used his position as a defense contractor to try and weasel his way out of court appearances regarding stalking charges filed against him by a girlfriend who alleged abuse and was nearly convicted of felony battery. The entire story really must be read in total. The AEY story is reminicent of the great movie Lord of War, except the protagonist here, Diveroli, is a bumbling, corrupt fool and not a successful enabler of mass murder like the Nicholas Cage character.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

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Two federal officials involved in contracting in Baghdad said AEY quickly developed a bad reputation. “They weren’t reliable, or if they did come through, they did after many excuses,” said one of them, who asked that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

By this time, pressures were emerging in Efraim Diveroli’s life. In November 2005, a young woman sought an order of protection from him in the domestic violence division of Dade County Circuit Court.

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Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.”

Diveroli and AEY’s track record, and lack of experience, act as yet another example that failure to provide transparency and an open bidding process when award national security/defense contacts is a recipe for failure. There is an over reliance on hiding information from the public solely based on national security or defense concerns. In many, or perhaps most, cases the public revelation of information would likely protect national security by preventing goons like Diveroli from being involved in the nation’s defense policy, particularly as it relates to a difficult situation like Afghanistan. At the Change Congress launch, Matt Stoller brought this issue up and has since blogged about the over reliance on government secrecy based on national security at Open Left

There have been a number of bills submitted over the past year that seek to reform the contracting world. Congress needs to get together and fix this mess or else the next President will have to.

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• The company ESRI verified that it was issued a subpoena in the [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.) investigation. The San Bernardino Sun also reports that the documents released by another subpoena recipient, San Bernardino County, show Lewis recommending "in 2002 that the county hire The Tom Skancke Co., a Las Vegas firm that lobbies Congress and does public-relations work." During the aftermath of the Duke Cunningham conviction when the spotlight turned to Lewis the congressman bluntly declared, "It is an ironclad rule in my office that we do not recommend lobbyists, even if a constituent asks for that recommendation."
• A district aide to [sw: Bob Ney] (R-Ohio) was subpoenaed in the federal investigation into influence peddling by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. According to the Associated Press, "The subpoena for Matthew Parker, director of Ney’s district office in St. Clairsville, was issued by a federal magistrate in Washington and announced Thursday."
• Former DeLay chief of staff Tony Rudy is seeking to escape Washington, DC and move to California. Rudy, who pled guilty in the Abramoff investigation, must get an okay from a judge before he can escape the city that was his undoing.
• Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) was found guilty of "trading government favors for campaign donations". That makes Siegelman the third Governor to be found guilty by a court over the past few years and the second to go to jail. Kentucky’s Governor Ernie Fletcher has also been indicted and will face trial.
  

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Room 8’s story on Iraq War opponent Rep. [sw: Gary Ackerman]’s war profiteering made it to print today in Newsday.

Additionally, the records - reported on www.r8ny.com, a New York City political Web site - show Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) accepted a “personal loan” last year for as much as $100,000 from Selig Zises, a large investor in a California-based company that Ackerman called Xenonics Options. However, Ackerman, who denies any improprieties, said the alleged loan was actually a sale of stock that he accidentally misreported.
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On March 9, 2002, Ackerman, a senior member on the International Relations Committee, purchased between $1,001 to $15,000 of stock in Xenonics, which is today valued at between $100,000 and $250,000, according to financial records.

The stock had ballooned to as much as $1 million as Room 8 had previously reported. It has since fallen to level reported by Newsday. Ackerman’s attempt at playing dumb — “If I was smart or really knew something, I would have sold it then” — is pretty lame since, as Gur at Room 8 points out, “said questionable dude not only sits on the House Financial Services Committee, but also on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets - which has oversight on the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Ackerman says that he “played no role in steering federal dollars to Xenonics.”

The real, moral question remains: how does one square opposition to a war with profiting from it? If you oppose said war what would the ethical use of the profits be? Should he give it away to charity? Perhaps an organization trying to bring peace and understanding to said war-torn nation. Or should he spend those war profits on an absolutely awesome bat mitzvah for his little tatalah? It’s decision time Ackerman: mensch or schlemeil?

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• According to the San Bernardino Sun, the top technology firm ESRI has received a subpoena in the ongoing investigation into Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.) and his ties to Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, the lobbying firm representing ESRI and numerous municipalities that have received subpoenas. From 2001 to 2006 Lewis "earmarked more than $90 million for ESRI projects that included defense intelligence systems such as database mapping to assist in rebuilding war-torn Iraq." From 2000 to 2005 ESRI paid the Lowery firm $360,000 in fees to lobby Congress.
• TPM Muckraker reports that Bernard Kerik, the first choice to head the Department of Homeland Security for President Bush’s second term, will plead guilty to accepting "improper gifts totaling tens of thousands of dollars while he was a city official in the late 1990’s".
  
• The Wall Street Journal profiles the Han Solo of the Congressional Pork Wars, [sw: Jeff Flake] (R-Ariz.). Flake is "a ringer for actor Owen Wilson who crashes not weddings but his own Republican Party" by asking "colleagues to come to the House floor and explain why taxpayers should pay for pet projects in their districts." He has twice targeted Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.) — the Sith Lord if we are to keep with the Star Wars theme — and even targeted an earmark inserted by none other than the Speaker of the House [sw: Dennis Hastert] (R-Ill.). Flake questions the culture that underlies much of the corrupt behavior in Congress, "What’s just mystifying is the sense of entitlement now: You have the right to have your projects and to ask for it through the process without anyone else knowing about it or being able to challenge it. That’s your inherent right as a member of Congress."

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• An official at the Interior Department will plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge in connection with the Jack Abramoff investigation. Roger Stillwell was "the desk officer for the Mariana Islands at the U.S. Department of the Interior" and dealt often with Abramoff, who lobbied for the Islands. Stillwell is charged with "[f]ailing to report gifts from a ‘prohibited source.’" I’ll second Paul Kiel in saying that investigators are most likely starting with a small fish and working their way up. There is certainly a lot of dirt — and a lot of lawmakers — involved in the Marianas Islands angle in the web of Abramoff scandals. TPM Muckraker and Think Progress have more.
• Our buddies at Room 8 NY did some digging into the personal finances of [sw: Gary Ackerman] (D-N.Y.) to find that his stock options in the defense contractor Xenonics have skyrocketed over the past four years as the U.S. has been engaged in two wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq. Ackerman purchased stock in Xenonics back in 2002 after the invasion of Afghanistan at a worth of $1,000-$15,000. That stock is now worth between $500,000 and $1,000,000! Since Ackerman’s stock purchase and the invasion of Iraq Xenonics has received numerous contracts and multi-million dollar earmarks pushing their stock to higher and higher. Did Ackerman earmark these funds? Well, we don’t know because there is no transparency in the process. Perhaps someone should ask.
• Sen. [sw: John McCain] (R-Ariz.) makes his first foray into the blogging world at Porkbusters to assail Congress’ use of earmarks and his own party’s failure to live up to their ideal of limited government. The conservative blogosphere has picked up on McCain’s post. Check out Instapundit, Freeman Hunt, Tim Chapman, and Ankle Biting Pundits. National Journal’s Beltway Blogroll also has more.
  

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• Rep. [sw: William Jefferson] (D-LA) has a lot of friends and Ken Silverstein at the Harper’s.org blog has brought them all together in one place. His friends in the Capitol may be dwindling as the Democratic Caucus is voting right now to decide whether Jefferson will be removed from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee. Two of the most powerful members of the Congressional Black Caucus, [sw: Charlie Rangel] (D-NY) and [sw: John Lewis] (D-GA), have broken ranks with the CBC, staunch backers of Jefferson, and will vote to remove the troubled congressman from the tax-writing committee.
• The Hill documents the powerful defense industry lobby and their congressional connections. The PMA Group stands out for honorable mention as one of those lobby shops that is filled with former congressional staffers. Don’t forget this little piece about [sw: Pete Visclosky]’s ties to PMA.
• What you say on the campaign trail, stays on the campaign trail. That seems to be the motto for the newest Congress critter, [sw: Brian Bilbray] (R-CA). According to the Club for Growth blog, Bilbray, who holds the infamous Duke Cunningham seat, denounced earmarking on the campaign trail and called for greater transparency. But yesterday Bilbray voted against all of Jeff Flake’s challenges to earmarks in the Transportation-HHS Appropriations bill.
• Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt likes to fly. Mike Leavitt likes to fly on luxury jets that are only intended to be used for emergency purposes. Did I mention Mike Leavitt likes to fly?

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POGO’s Blog provides an additional important point to the Titan-[sw: Duncan Hunter] story line. Turns out that Titan’s lobbyist is none other than Letitia White, the “Queen of Earmarks”.

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