It’s August here in Washington — although if it weren’t for the classical architecture and the lobbyists wearing reflective sunglasses you’d think it was Pakistan from the temperature — and members of Congress are fleeing the city, running back to their districts to do anything that will help their reelection chances with an electorate that’s looking for head’s to roll (or as President Bush might call it, to have their “accountability moment”). Some candidates may have an easier time than others. For instance, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) is running uncontested allowing him to go on The Colbert Report and proclaim that he enjoys cocaine because it’s a fun thing to do. On the other hand we have another Floridian, Rep. Katherine Harris (R) who is running to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).

Harris has run into numerous problems throughout her campaign including losing three campaign managers, locking her campaign staff out of the office, and “flagrantly violating election law in Florida”. But what has struck the biggest blow to her chances has been the revelation that she took tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from crooked defense contractor Mitchell Wade while dining at the super-posh Citronelle in Georgetown. Harris has denied being under investigation and has claimed that never received a subpoena.

Now her third former campaign manager Glenn Hodas claims that she not only was issued a subpoena, but she lied to her staff about it. Hodas told the Tampa Tribune, “Finding out about the subpoena caused me to wonder about what was going on and what else I didn’t know. But I don’t want to comment any further on what appears to be a pending investigation.” Ouch. Does this mean she qualifies for the Congresspedia “Members Under Investigation” page?

Harris continues to trail Bill Nelson in the polls. The most recent Mason-Dixon poll has Nelson trouncing Harris 57 to 29. Plus she was recently told by her own party that she cannot win. Now that gives a whole new definition to being in a “K-hole.” Well, it’s off to Florida for Harris to try to get out of that hole and for Wexler to… well, do some fun things.

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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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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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• I’m confused. First, Duke Cunningham is said to not be cooperating with the federal investigation into bribery by defense contractors. Now he states, through his lawyer, that he will cooperate fully with a House Ethics Committee investigation and has been cooperating all along with the federal investigation. So, what’s the deal here?
• We do know that Mitchell Wade, the contractor convicted of bribing Duke Cunningham, is talking to prosecutors. The Boston Globe looks into who he might be talking about. Two lawmakers, who both received illegal campaign contributions from Wade and tried, one successfully and the other unsuccessfully, to secure federally earmarked funds for his MZM, Inc., look like ready targets for this expanding investigation. They are Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), who successfully earmarked funds for an MZM office in his district, and Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL), who, after dining with Wade to the tune of $2,800, attempted to insert an earmark that would established an MZM site in her district.
• That loophole is so big I could fit a few hundred million dollars through it. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Torch is back! Former Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) is back in the news, and as you would expect it’s bad news for the Torch. The Financial Times reports that Torricelli is now being connected to the UN oil for food scandal. Just recently I read a piece about how Torricelli was still a player and was doling out advice to Democratic Senators and consultants. That will probably stop if this report proves true. I think the guy might become even more radioactive than he used to be.
• TPM Muckraker reports on the Democrats’ choice to have Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) as the top Dem on the House Intelligence Committee. "That’s right: Pelosi wants to replace House Intel Committee Ranking Member Jane Harman (CA) with Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who "was forced to surrender his job as a federal judge after being indicted in 1981 on bribery charges," as the LA Times reports it. He beat the rap, but "was impeached in 1988 by the House for conspiracy and making false statement" in connection to the case."
• On the emergency supplemental front Mark Tapscott reports that there may be a victory at hand with the Senate agreeing to "cap spending in the emergency spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery to $94.5 billion."

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Last night Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) went on Hannity & Colmes and denied that there was a quid pro quo with her appropriation for the felonious defense contractor Mitchell Wade. From Crooks & Liars:

COLMES: Did Mitchell offer to hold a fundraiser for you? And did you ask for $10 million that would have gone to benefit his company?
HARRIS: I asked for an appropriation for an authorized naval program in Sarasota, Florida, which would bring a lot of new jobs. So, clearly — and, in the future, I had hoped that he would host one for me.
COLMES: So there was a quid pro quo?
HARRIS: There was no quid pro quo, ever.

$32,000 in illegal campaign contributions. $2,800 meal at Washington’s finest dining establishment. $10 million earmark for naval facility to be built by the guy who gave the illegal campaign contributions and paid for the French-American cuisine. Going on Hannity & Colmes so you can say incredibly stupid things. Priceless.

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The trouble for Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) continues to mount over her lavish dinner with bribery contractor Mitchell Wade and the $10 million appropriations request she filed for his company MZM. Today the Associated Press reports that Harris’ staff initially rejected the MZM appropriation before being overruled by Harris:

Former senior members of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris’ congressional staff say they initially rejected a defense contractor’s $10 million appropriation request last year but reversed course after being instructed by Harris to approve it.
…
“She said, ‘It’s important to me, so submit it,’ ” said an ex-staffer who was involved in the process. “She wanted it in.”
…
“Katherine was pretty adamant about it,” the former staffer said.

Wade has already pled guilty to giving Harris illegal campaign contributions. The story of Harris and Wade has progressively gotten worse for Harris. Last year, she dined with Wade to the tune of $2,800 (the House Ethics Manual states that members should not accept gifts over $100). At that dinner she received tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from Wade. Then she insisted, over her staffer’s objections, on inserting a $10 million appropriation - the largest earmark on her plate - weeks late into the defense appropriations bill.

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Common Cause believes that Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) broke the law (via Raw Story):

The description of the conversation between Wade and Rep. Harris, as it is described in the Statement of Offense, suggests that Harris took official action to obtain funding and approval for this military project in exchange for the offer of MZM’s holding a fundraiser for Rep. Harris. The official action taken by Rep. Harris to insert a funding request for a counterintelligence project that appears similar to a program which Wade and Rep. Harris discussed in the same conversation as the fundraiser, as it is described in the Statement of Offense, suggests that Rep. Harris violated U.S. Code 18§201, which states:

(b) Whoever - (2) being a public official or person selected to be a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for: (A) being influenced in the performance of any official act; shall be fined under this title or not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Based on publicly available documents, we believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Rep. Harris has violated U.S. Code 18§201. We request that the Public Integrity Division investigate whether Rep. Harris violated U.S. Code 18§201.

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Last year Katherine Harris shared a $2,800 dinner with bribery contractor and recently convicted felon Mitchell Wade in, what seems to be, violation of House rules. She has claimed that the tab was so high because Wade bought $1,000 bottles of wine and took them home uncorked - the restaurant owner has stated that they do not allow anyone to leave the restaurant with opened wine bottles as it is against the law. Harris has claimed that her portion of the meal cost $100 and she has donated $100 to a charity of her choosing. That charity happens to deliver people from “demonic possessions”. From The Ledger of Lakeland, Florida:

The group to which Harris donated $100 is Jacksonville-based Global Dominion Impact Ministries, Harris spokesman Chris Ingram said.

A Web site for a group named Global Dominion Impact Ministries based in Jacksonville states that one of the group’s founders, pastor Sandra Jones, “has an inspiring testimony of her deliverance from being sold to devils as an infant. She also shares her miraculous healing from her breast cancer as well as being raised from the dead.”

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Former defense contractor and current convicted criminal Mitchell Wade spent $2,800 on a dinner with Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) and offered to throw a campaign fundraiser for her as he was attempting to gain her support for $10 million in federal money, according to the Orlando Sentinel. House rules prohibit members from accepting any gift or meal worth more than $50 from corporate officials or lobbyists. Harris also received $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions from Wade. Harris’ explanation for the dinner has been less than satisfactory:

In her interview Wednesday, Harris acknowledged for the first time that Wade had paid for the dinner at Citronelle, reversing a statement from her congressional spokeswoman earlier this year.

But in the interview, Harris also said her campaign had, at some point, “reimbursed” the restaurant.

When asked how she could have reimbursed a business that was owed no money — Wade paid the bill that evening — she abruptly ended the interview and walked off.

Her spokesman called back an hour later and asked a reporter not to publish anything Harris had said Wednesday night about the dinner.

On Thursday, Harris’ campaign released a two-paragraph statement that differed from her explanation a day earlier. It stated that Harris thought her “campaign would be reimbursing” her share of the meal but later found out that hadn’t happened.

To resolve any questions, the statement said, “I have donated to a local Florida charity $100 which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer.”

The meal was so expensive because Mitchell Wade’s favorite wine happens to be a $1,000 bottle of French bordeaux. Harris clearly should not have let Wade open that wine as Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics put it: “Once the Bordeaux is out of the bottle … you can’t put it back.” And finally, the key sentence to take away from the story: “The Department of Justice would not discuss the details of that night.”

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Rep. Katherine Harris’ (R-FL) run for the US Senate is in danger of being torpedoed, according to the New York Times, after it was revealed in a plea agreement that defense contractor Mitchell Wade gave Harris’ campaign illegal donations totaling $32,000 and later asked for her help in securing a government contract. … The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) “could draw scrutiny from the IRS” which is “launching enhanced education and enforcement efforts, based on the findings and analysis of the 2004 election cycle,” according to The Hill. CREW claims, “There is clearly a pattern of attempting to intimidate organizations that criticize Republican members of Congress. … Frankly, it won’t work. We will not be bullied into silence.” … Meanwhile CREW is filing a complaint with the IRS stating that the activities of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform Foundation “may violate IRS regulations and require a revocation of their tax-exempt status.” … The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio GOP fundraiser and coin collector Tom Noe will stand trial on political money laundering charges on July 24^th. … Roll Call reports that in the post-Abramoff atmosphere lobbyists are “going back to class” to brush up on their ethics. American League of Lobbyists President Paul Miller provides this priceless story, “When he told his mother 10 years ago that he was going into ‘government relations,’ she said, ‘Oh, you’re the guy who takes the bags of money to Members of Congress!’”

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