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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Members of the House Appropriations Committee appear to be balking at the prospect of change in House rules that would attach the names of lawmakers to the earmarks they’ve inserted into spending bills. As the Times article notes, this rather modest change would apply only to the House (not the Senate), and would exempt defense earmarks (where the real money is) from scrutiny. I’ve noted before that there are ways around the disclosure provisions proposed in the rules change, which potentially could make it harder to identify who’s getting earmarks, because lawmakers could use obscure descriptions–any company incorporated in Harrison, N.Y., in 1923–to avoid the rule’s requirement that they take credit for their earmarks. Still, with all it’s limitations, this measure would shine a little light on spending bills already drafted but not yet passed–even a modest disclosure measure is better than none.

The Hill reports the Rep. Jerry Lewis, the chairman of Appropriations, has decided to make the perfect the enemy of the good-so-far-as-it-goes:

Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) huddled with his panel yesterday afternoon but emerged with no firm panel-wide plan to oppose the earmark-reform resolution. Many GOP appropriators believe the resolution singles out their committee’s product while applying a narrow definition of tax and authorizing earmarks.

“We are attempting to communicate with leadership that this committee feels very strongly that earmark reform is a priority, but it should apply to everybody,” Lewis said after the meeting. “We feel very strongly that… the broad-based membership should be involved in it, not just the Appropriations Committee.”

For what it’s worth, his argument has merit. Earmarks aren’t the only means for showering a special interest with special attention; tax breaks and regulatory relief can–and are–secretly doled out to those with close ties to members of Congress. But if he were sincere, wouldn’t Lewis support the earmark rules change as a fisrt step toward greater transparency in Congress? Wouldn’t he have more moral authority on tying the names of lawmakers to tax breaks, for example, if he’d been behind the reform of earmark rules?

Prof. Glenn Reynolds has more on this, including a list of appropriators to contact. One thing this latest episode does illustrate is that, important as it is for getting a sense of how government is spending our money, S. 2590, the Coburn-Obama federal contracting and grantmaking disclosure bill, really wasn’t an earmark reform measure. While the spending practices of federal agencies will be available online–including information on the number of no-bid and closed-bid contracts they award–Congress’s ability to secretly make no-bid awards through the earmarking process will be unaffected. As is often the case, Congress reforms, not Sen. You and Rep. Me, but the federal bureaucrat behind the tree. (Apologies to Russell Long…)

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I’ve heard this defense somewhere before, and that time too it seemed to be both off-point and inaccurate: a spokeswoman for Rep. Jerry Lewis’ team of defense attorneys said that the chair of the Appropriations Committee “complied with all legal disclosure requirements.” Lewis was invited to get into the initial public offering of a new bank (an invitation that was not sent out to the general public); his initial investment of $22,000 is now worth almost $60,000, according to the Associated Press, which adds this interesting information:

Besides his friendship with bank Chairman James Robinson, Lewis has other connections to the bank. Several of its board members have contributed to his campaigns and are linked to businesses that shared in the bonanza of federal dollars Lewis steered back home. …

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The stock was recommended to Lewis by Robinson, whose wife, Barbara, is a former chair and member of the board of the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital Foundation, a branch of Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Lewis is credited with helping direct more than $200 million in taxpayer dollars to the medical center, where facilities are named in his honor. In June, Lewis, an honorary board member at the children’s hospital and a director emeritus of its nonprofit foundation, said the medical center had benefited from $40 million in congressional “earmarks,” funding inserted into legislation that often gets little or no review. …

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Other Security Bank board members include Bruce Varner, a lawyer and longtime Lewis friend who sits on the board of the National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, which has received more than $800,000 in federal funds.

The purpose of Personal Financial Disclosure Forms, according the House Ethics Manual, is to “inform the public about the financial interests of government officials in order to increase public confidence in the integrity of government and to deter potential conflicts of interest.” In his 2005 personal financial disclosure form, Lewis listed the deal and even provided a copy of the letter in which he was informed that only 2,200–rather than the 2,500 shares he wanted to buy–was available for purchase. But there’s no indication anywhere the bank’s board included individuals who’d benefited from Lewis’s direct actions as a lawmaker. Part of the problem, obviously, is the system of earmarks which allows a member of Congress to use taxpayer money to reward pet projects. But is your confidence in the integrity of government increased when it takes an AP reporter’s digging to find out what’s really behind a few lines on a financial disclosure form?

And what else is in those forms?

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If Jack Abramoff were a horror movie monster I would not want to be Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), AKA Bob Ney. Last night, the former wonderboy of the Right Ralph Reed lost convincingly in the Georgia Lt. Governor Republican primary to Casey Cagle, 54%-46%. Reed saw his stock plummet as the lobbying and grassroots work he did with his buddy Jack Abramoff poured out of Senate hearings and court documents into the newspapers. The former head of the Christian Coalition, his eyes set on the Presidency, felled himself by showing his true colors. Mike Crowley at TNR’s The Plank writes that “Jack Abramoff can so far be officially credited with destroying three careers (Reed, Tom DeLay, and David Safavian).” Despite what some have said the money-in-politics scandals are taking their toll on Washington.

Today, another member of Congress, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), denied being a target in the investigation into activities by Duke Cunningham briber Mitchell Wade. As Justin Rood notes, Harris has entered into the fourth stage of scandal-dom:

This puts Harris at Stage IV of the TPMmuckraker Political Scandal Process (TM). Stages I-III include:

- Allegations of wrongdoing appearing in media
- Hiring of expensive lawyer
- News of federal investigation appearing in media.

Stage IV is the denial that the lawmaker is, in fact, a target.

I think we get where this is going. Then we have Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) starring in his very own Duke Cunningham spin-off scandal along side lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery and the model for all corrupt Californians, Brent Wilkes. Now we find out that Lewis received valuable stock from a friend whose wife sat on the board of the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital Foundation, “a branch of Loma Linda University Medical Center,” which received a $200 million earmark courtesy of Lewis. Looks like members can still beat the market — if they dole out earmarks appropriately.

And of course all of these members falling under the eye of federal investigators means were going to get some reform sometime soon, right? (chirp chirp) Probably not. You see, the House Majority Leader is Rep. John Boehner (R-Lobbyists). The New York Times recently reported on Boehner’s shenanigans with lobbyists and uncovered that the guy who ran on a platform of reform “has raised campaign contributions at a rate of about $10,000 a day since February, surpassing the pace set by former Representative Tom DeLay after he became majority leader in 2002”. Wow, he’s out-DeLaying DeLay! Boehner’s campaign committees “recently hired two people from lobbying groups for the financial and insurance industries” while “[m]ore than 10 of Mr. Boehner’s former staff members have gone to work for lobbying firms”.

Out with the old and in with the…old?

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Jeffrey Birnbaum’s column in today’s Washington Post is a must-read for anyone who wants to see the level to which serious money has invaded the world of Washington lobbying. It’s also a reminder of the enduring importance of the revolving door that shuttles people back and forth between Capitol Hill and K Street, ground zero for Washington’s lobbyist community.

Normally the windfall for Hill staffers comes when they move from the Capitol to K Street. In this case, the windfall – amounting to nearly $2 million – was a severance package given to an ex-lobbyist moving in the opposite direction.

Jeffrey S. Shockey is the man in question and he’s now serving as the deputy staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. (That’s ground zero not only for spending bills, but for the insertion of members’ private earmarks into those bills.)

The size of Shockey’s goodbye bonus after five years as a partner at Lewis & Lowery has raised eyebrows even among the city’s top lobbyists, Birnbaum reports.

Lobby shops often give parting gifts to colleagues who go into public service as a way to maintain strong relations. But the amount tends to be nominal and strictly tied to past performance to avoid even the appearance of paying a federal official in exchange for favorable treatment – an exchange that would be illegal.

Why, then, would Shockey’s former firm pay him so much? The reason, several seasoned lobbyists speculated, must have been the firm’s desire to keep its communications with Shockey and the appropriations panel absolutely seamless.

Birnbaum points out that Shockey’s ties are particularly close to Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis. He was a staffer for Lewis before he left for K Street. He specialized in appropriations issues for his lobbying clients. Now he’s the number two staffer for the committee itself.

The connection between Lewis and the lobbying firm – whose partners also include former California Republican Congressman Bill Lowery – has drawn the attention of federal investigators who have subpoenaed the firm’s clients to learn more.

Whatever the outcome of that inquiry, this instance of a backwards-spinning revolving door, a $2 million golden parachute, and a wealthy ex-lobbyist on the staff of a powerful House committee, is enough to give pause to anyone who thinks the line is too close between lobbying and lawmaking in the nation’s capital. Kudos to Jeff Birnbaum for bringing this illustrative case to light.

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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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• Conservative activist Grover Norquist called [sw: John McCain] (R-Ariz.) "delusional" for exposing Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) as a shadow lobbying operation and a conduit for Jack Abramoff’s money laundering. Norquist believes that McCain, who issued the report which exposed ATR, "has exhibited personal animus toward [him]" and issued this report in retaliation to the Arizona Senator’s defeat in the 2000 South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary. McCain’s chief of staff rebutted Norquist’s accusations, "We didn’t invent this stuff. Grover’s got a hell of a lot more to rebut than what may or may not have been in the committee report."
  
• Congress put itself in a crunch this year when it decided to set a schedule that, in total, is shorter than a school year and may prove to be shorter than any meeting schedule in the past sixty years. The Christian Science Monitor reports on all of the major bills that the House must debate and pass before this peculiarly short year comes to a close.
• Democrats are upset with one of their main funding sources, labor unions, because they are contributing campaign funds to highly vulnerable Republicans. The Hill interviewed one labor lobbyist who believed that "Democrats can’t expect unions to place all their bets on Democratic candidates and risk being shut out of the legislative process if they lose." That is a perfect explanation of the problems in ourcampaign financing system.
• Clients continue to drop the lobbying firm Copeland Lowery because of its involvement in the growing investigation into Appropriations Chair [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.). Riverside County, Boeing Co., and now the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority have all severed their ties to the embattled lobbying firm.

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• Conservative activist Grover Norquist called [sw: John McCain] (R-Ariz.) "delusional" for exposing Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) as a shadow lobbying operation and a conduit for Jack Abramoff’s money laundering. (The Hill)
  
• Congress put itself in a crunch this year when it decided to set a schedule that, in total, is shorter than a school year and may prove to be shorter than any meeting schedule in the past sixty years. They must now push through numerous important bills with only July and possibly September left. (Christian Science Monitor)
• Democrats are upset with one of their main funding sources, labor unions, because they are contributing campaign funds to highly vulnerable Republicans. One labor lobbyist believes that "Democrats can’t expect unions to place all their bets on Democratic candidates and risk being shut out of the legislative process if they lose." (The Hill)
  
• Clients continue to drop the lobbying firm Copeland Lowery because of its involvement in the growing investigation into Appropriations Chair [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.). Riverside County, Boeing Co., and now the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority have all severed their ties to the embattled lobbying firm. (San Bernardino Sun)

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TPM Muckraker is all over the latest, and future, developments in the [sw: Jerry Lewis] (R-Calif.) investigation. Justin Rood reports that the clients of the lobbying firm in the middle of the scandal, Copeland Lowery, continued to donate to Lewis’ campaign committee  and PAC "just days after news surfaced of a federal investigation into" Lewis’ connection to the firm. All of the contributing clients happen to be defense contractors, likely seeking an earmark or two. Rood asks if any of these contractors may be the next recipient of a subpoena in this widening investigation. (Read More…)

Yesterday Rood noted the direction this case may go after it was reported that Lowery’s firm misstated 70 or so lobbying disclosure forms.

If the Feds think they can show [Lowery] signed those reports knowing they were wrong, they’ll likely press for indictments against him. Given how frequently he signed these incorrect reports — and did so repeatedly with the same clients, for such outlandish sums of money — it’s hard to think Justice could resist.

Lowery signed the three disclosures which failed to report nearly $300,000 from Brent Wilkes’ ADCS, affirming that ADCS paid less than a tenth that amount.

As Josh Marshall says, "Copeland Lowery’s problems are Jerry Lewis’ problems. And Copeland Lowery has a lot of problems."

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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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