Since the beginning of the 2005 Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham investigations the Justice Department has seen a beefed up Public Integrity Unit dig into a series of scandals involving congressmen, lobbyists, and other public officials. Roll Call reports today that the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission are pursuing a new rack of investigations into the improper use of campaign funds by a number of campaigns. Thanks to the ever growing amount of money pouring into campaigns this cycle the Justice Department and the FEC are finding embezzlement, theft, and improper payments to be at an all-time high:

In an interview with Roll Call on Monday, Mason elaborated on his statements last week, indicating that half of the agency’s 10 embezzlement cases involve candidate committees, while three involve political action committees and two are political party cases. Of the five candidate committees, he said three belong to first-time candidates. The FEC investigations more than likely involve staffers or volunteers who appear to have stolen money from the campaigns.

In the majority of cases, Mason said, campaign graft is typically reported first to local police departments. He attributed the explosion in embezzlement-related cases to the increased exposure campaigns face in billion-dollar election cycles. Fatigued volunteers with too much access, he said, often plague candidate committees, which frequently impose little oversight of their accounting records.

Two of the investigations of campaign committees stem from spending decisions made in last year’s election cycle:

Donsanto declined this week to discuss the statements he made at the legal seminar last Friday, but recent findings by the FEC — combined with increased cooperation between the elections agency and the Justice Department — suggests that federal law enforcement may be thumbing through recently completed audits of Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.). Since the summer of 2006, FEC auditors have determined that both lawmakers used campaign money for personal expenses.

In Pombo’s case, FEC auditors found that in 2003, Annette Pombo, the lawmaker’s wife, issued checks to herself for $58,623 for salary and expense reimbursements. The report said that roughly a third of the payments “appeared … to represent the personal use of campaign funds.”

Pombo, who said Tuesday that he has not been contacted by the Justice Department, said his campaign never was able to fully account for about $11,000 of the money and had to amend campaign and tax records to show the money as unclaimed income.

“There were either insufficient receipts or no receipts,” Pombo said. “I couldn’t provide a receipt for computer equipment for the campaign or stuff like that.”

The FEC’s audit of Meeks’ campaign found that his campaign misspent more than $15,000 on health club charges and transportation reimbursements during the 2004 election cycle.

According to the agency’s audit report issued August 2006, Meeks’ campaign acknowledged “expenses totaling $7,146 were mistakenly paid for by [Meeks for Congress] and would be reimbursed by the candidate.”

The audit report of Meeks’ campaign shows that he spent $6,230 on a personal trainer, who charged $45 per hour. Meeks’ campaign told the commission “that the personal trainer was necessary to alleviate stress brought on by the candidate’s duties.”

Federal law states that candidates may not pay for “dues, fees and other payments to a health club or recreational facility” out of their campaign accounts.

The emphasis added to the above passage is there to highlight a specific statement made by Meeks’ campaign, that Meeks needed to hire a personal trainer to "alleviate stress brought on by the candidate’s duties." You’d have to be in a pretty tough campaign if you needed a personal trainer to "alleviate stress," right? Wrong. Rep. Meeks didn’t have an opponent in 2006. Rep. Meeks didn’t have a real opponent in 2004 or 2002 either. So, I’m not buying campaign induced stress as a reason to hire a personal trainer. Though this doesn’t matter because even if he was involved in a campaign at all, which he wasn’t, this would still be against the law. Oops.

If the Justice Department is starting to discuss these investigations we’re bound to find out who the other candidates are soon enough.

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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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And you thought it was safe? Today, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and violate federal lobbying laws and to making false statements. Ney, formerly known as the Mayor of Capitol Hill, is the first lawmaker to plead guilty in the ongoing investigation into the activities of uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff. (Please read TPM Muck’s Tribute to Bob Ney.) This guilty plea comes one day after the House passed a miniscule earmark reform, a lame replacement for lobbying and ethics reform. Not long ago the Washington Post wrote this, "Some lawmakers and political analysts believe that voters could punish incumbents during the November elections if Congress passes a minimalist ethics bill. The chances of such a backlash could rise, these critics say, if there are more indictments or guilty pleas later this year." Polls are already showing that individual lawmakers involved in the Abramoff scandal are suffering in their chances for reelection.

Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., is one lawmaker who is deeply tied to the Abramoff scandal (not to mention his ties to Duke Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes). Doolittle, a recipient of Abramoff’s largesse, was called the "hero" of Abramoff client the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. protectorate that specializes in sweat shop labor and forced abortions, and also wrote supportive letters for Indian tribal casinos across the country despite being adamantly opposed to gambling. A recent poll shows Doolittle, a conservative Republican in a conservative Republican district, suffering to hold his seat against opponent Charlie Brown. Doolittle leads Brown 41%-39%. Augh, indeed.

Just south of Doolittle’s district in the East Bay region of California another Abramoff ally Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is fighting a similarly tough battle for reelection. The last poll released in this race showed Pombo’s opponent Jerry McNerney leading Pombo 46%-42%. Pombo’s ties to Abramoff, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the oil and gas industry are hurting the seven-term Congressman chances in what looks like an anti-incumbent election season.

In Montana the largest recipient of Abramoff cash, Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., is looking like a stone in the water. Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he got "every appropriation we wanted" from Burns. The Montana Democrats wasted no time in tarring Burns with Abramoff’s misdeeds last year and it looks like their early efforts have born fruit. Burns’ opponent, State Sen. leader Jon Tester is locked in a tight race with the three-term Senator, although most polls show Tester with the edge.

Congress watchers consistently predicted this summer that ethics have had little to no impact on the congressional races this year. These are just three races in which they have. DeLay’s former district, Texas-22, looks like it will flip to the Democrats as well. With Ney’s guilty plea all eyes should turn to the four competitive Ohio elections in OH-15, OH-02, OH-01, and Ney’s district, OH-18. Congress should also take a look at itself and decide if it has done enough after the convictions of two sitting members of Congress and at least five former Hill staffers in the past year.

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House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) has come under increasing fire for his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and political donations that he receives from companies that have business before his committee, according to the Los Angeles Times. Months before a proposal to open up federal land to mining came before the Resources Committee, “a former committee aide who once worked for Abramoff’s firm and is now a lobbyist for mining interests hosted a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Pombo.” Also, “Pombo supported the resumption of commercial whaling while accepting thousands of dollars in international travel from a private foundation funded by the seafood industry and a whaling association.” Pombo also aided a GOP fundraiser and helped a Massachusetts tribe and client of Abramoff’s gain recognition after receiving a $20,000 donation.

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House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) is coming under increased fire for his family RV vacation to national parks and his high spending of taxpayer money for his committee to travel. Pombo defended that RV trip by saying that he was visiting national parks and meeting with park directors as a part of his job. The Sacramento Bee now reports that some park directors have no recollection of these meetings. Pombo’s Resources committee staff also accepts trips from corporate interests that have business before the committee, such as the American Gas Association and British Petroleum.

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In 2003 Richard Pombo (R-CA) rented an RV and, with his family, went on a tour of tour of national parks that cost taxpayers $4,935, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Pombo claims that the trip was an official business trip because, as House Resources Chairman, he oversees all national parks. Pombo insists that there was no additional charge for him taking his family with him. House rules prohibit using government funds for personal travel, but allow family members to accompany congressmen on official trips. Undermining his defense, Pombo wrote about the trip on his committee’s website: “This August, my family and I rented an RV and set out to explore the West. We spent two weeks on vacation, stopping along the way to enjoy the splendor of many of our national parks.”

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The Los Angeles Times reports that former House Resources Committee legal aide and current mining industry lobbyist Duane Gibson held a $1,000 a head fundraiser for House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) that included many mining industry officials three months before Pombo presented legislation that would open up public lands to mining. Gibson, who has been named in subpoenas in the federal probe of Jack Abramoff, also worked as lead investigator at the Resources Committee on behalf of businessman Charles Hurwitz, under investigation by federal banking regulators. Charges against Hurwitz were later dropped after Pombo and John Doolittle (R-CA) – both recipients of campaign contributions from Hurwitz – undermined the federal case against him.

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