In some ways it is unbelievable to think that a candidate for the United States Senate, fresh off of seven felony convictions, could win reelection. Never underestimate the power of resentment and incumbency. At the moment it appears that felonious Sen. Ted Stevens will be reelected to an eighth term. Sen. Stevens joins a few other scandal plagued lawmakers winning reelection.

Stevens’ congressional partner, Rep. Don Young, under investigation by the Justice Department for various earmark schemes, appears headed back to Congress. Also, Rep. William Jefferson, facing a 16 count indictment on corruption charges, won handily in his New Orleans district.

Two Florida lawmakers embroiled in scandals did fail to win reelection. Rep. Tom Feeney, one of the last of the Abramoffian congressmen, lost badly. Feeney had to cut a commercial during the campaign in which he apologized for going on a golfing trip to Scotland that was secretly paid for by Jack Abramoff. Freshman Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney, caught in a TMZ style adultery scandal, was crushed in his attempted reelection.

Despite his likely victory, Sen. Stevens will be expelled, or forced to retire, from the U.S. Senate. As Yoda might say, “Convictions on felony counts do not a Senator make.” Speeding up the process may be the desire for Republicans to finally purge their ranks of the members tainted by corruption. Republican Sen. John Ensign has already expressed the likely position of the Republican caucus, stating that expulsion would not wait until after Sen. Stevens’ appeal process is complete.

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There is only one lobbying game in town: grabbing for bailout bucks. Changes at the Stevens trial, while more stories unfold regarding the Alaska senator’s earmarking. Earmark disclosure in the Senate is still woefully inadequate. All of that in today’s news:

What’s bad for the goose, is good for the gander. Crisis in business tends to mean profits for lobbyists, especially when the private sector is seeking direct payments from the government. The AP reports that the quest for a piece of the $700 billion bailout pie is currently the only lobbying game in town. I can see the scene now, blue power suits swarming past Albert Gallatin as they enter the Treasury Department building on Pennsylvania Ave. to beg for their clients like so many street corner hobos. I can’t wait for those 4th quarter lobbying disclosures.

The judge hearing the charges against Sen. Ted Stevens replaced a juror after attempts to contact a juror on leave for the death of her father failed. The judge instructed the jury to begin deliberations anew today. Meanwhile, the AP reports on another questionable earmark Sen. Stevens sought and received for a campaign contributor Bob Persons. Persons, an Alaska restauranteur, is also the provider of the nearly $3,000 massage chair that is at the center of one of the seven charges filed against the senator. The new earmark revelations show that after seeking $10 million for road projects in Girdwood, Alaska, Sen. Stevens pushed hard for the state transportation agency to use $2.7 million in funds to pave a road connecting directly to the Double Musky Inn, a Cajun restaurant owned by Persons. Stevens insisted that the road paving project be priority number one, despite it ranking sixth in importance on a list of road projects.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Sen. Bob Bennett finally released a list of his defense earmark recipients, but only due to confusion between his office and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Unlike in the House, senators are not required to reveal the recipients of earmarks. Instead, they operate on a voluntary disclosure agreement, with 50% of senators revealing who they earmark funds to. Sen. Bennett has not been one of those 50% until now after the subcommittee told his staff that they were going to make the information public also. The subcommittee never did release the earmark information, but Bennett did. The Senate should scrap voluntary disclosure and institute mandatory earmark disclosure requirements as the House has done.

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Jury deliberations continue in the Stevens ethics case. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart faces questions about an earmark to a company doing business with Venezuela. Today’s news:

Yesterday, the Stevens jury deliberated for the first time and decided to call it a day after 4 hours of what they termed “stressful” negotiations. Today, the jury has already sent three notes to the presiding judge. One note asked for the specifics in the law requiring the reporting of liabilities on financial disclosures. The judge wanted to tell the jury that liabilities with a value of more than $10,000 must be disclosed, but the defense team said that was too specific and asked the jury simply be handed a copy of the requirements. Another note was more serious and could lead to a juror’s removal from the trial. A female juror is identified as “being rude, disrespectful and unreasonable” and engaging in “violent outbursts with other jurors”. If the juror is removed she will be replaced by an alternate, likely a man in his 20s. The Alaska Daily News covers another aspect of the trial: what happens if Sen. Stevens is found guilty and then wins reelection? I have another question, what does the Senate Ethics Committee do if Sen. Stevens is acquitted?

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart earmarked funds to a defense firm that previously shipped surveillance equipment to Venezuela, not exactly the best friend of the United States. Phoenix Worldwide Industries President Esquivel Shuler called the pursuit of the earmark, “a shot in the dark for us.” Diaz-Balart has faced a number of questions regarding earmarks he sought for large campaign contributors.

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Senators get their own cell phone towers installed, don’t pay for it. Rep. Tim Mahoney continues to sink in yet another installment in “When Sleeping Around Goes Wrong.” Rep. Rick Renzi tries to get the 35 criminal counts against him dismissed. This is today’s news:

The Washington Post released an excellent investigative piece showing that Verizon and AT&T were both working to install cell phone towers to provide service for Sen. John McCain’s Sedona, AZ ranch beginning last year, at a time when McCain’s presidential hopes seemed dim. Sen. McCain sits on the Senate Commerce Committee and the installation of free cell phone towers by corporations under the oversight of that same committee certainly counts as a conflict of interest. Also troubling is the ability of the McCain’s to hide this seeming in-kind contribution from their personal financial disclosures because it was ostensibly made at the request of Sen. McCain’s wife, Cindy. The Senator and his wife keep their finances separate and thus he does not have to fully disclose her financial activities on his annual personal financial disclosure. While the two telecommunications giants eventually abandonded the idea of permanently installing towers, they both provide portable towers at no-cost to the Senator’s ranch.

Rep. Rick Renzi, under indictment on 35 counts related to a land swap, accused the government of taping conversations with other members of Congress and bringing the corruption indictment against him for political reasons. Renzi also filed for a dismissal of the charges against him on the grounds that they violate the Speech and Debate Clause. Renzi is under indictment for allegedly using his position in Congress to push through a land swap that eventually netted him $700,000. Apparently, the congressman abides by the motto of the William Jefferson school of congressional corruption, “If you do it in an official capacity, they can’t investigate.” I don’t think that the Speech and Debate Clause was enacted as a way to make congressional offices into corruption safe rooms.

In worsening news for Rep. Tim Mahoney, an FBI investigation into his affairs is expanding to include the second affair with a high level county official, which Mahoney admitted to today, to determine whether he steered federal emergency funds to her county. An aide close to his campaign also announced that Rep. Mahoney may not seek reelection. If this is the case, all replacements should quickly be vetted to make sure that they don’t carry on the Foley-Mahoney curse.

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The House Ethics Committee officially launched a probe of the troubled finances of Rep. Charles Rangel, the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman. The investigative subcommittee will look into the following charges:

• The use of official congressional stationary to solicit funds for an educational center bearing his name.
• His occupancy in four rent-stabilized apartments in his Harlem district.
• The undisclosed income from his Dominican Republic vacation home and the no-interest loan he received when the home was purchased.
• The storage of his Mercedes-Benz in the House parking lot in contravention of House rules and tax laws.

The Ethics Committee also announced a stricter policy on filing private travel disclosures, so they can be properly reviewed. The Committee instituted a “hard” 14-day deadline for all filings for private travel. That means that all disclosures must be handed in 14 days prior to the beginning date of the trip.

The previous rules required disclosures to be submitted 30 days prior to the beginning of a trip, however, the Committee reports that, “many members and staff” failed to file in timely manor. Failure to file on time was for no other reason than because members could get away with it, “In the vast majority of cases, such belated requests are not due to any special circumstances, but instead stem merely from a failure to submit the request in a timely fashion.”

One trip in particular that set off the implementation of these new rules was one taken by none other than Rep. Charles Rangel. According to The Hill:

The ethics committee directive comes after the New York Post reported Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) took a trip costing thousands of dollars to the Sandals Grand Resort and Spa in Antigua and Barbuda last year after the new rules had passed.

On his forms, Rangel listed the NY Carib News Foundation as the sponsor, but the Post found that several corporations financed the trip, including AT&T, HSBC, Sandals and Pfizer.

The new deadline will go into effect for trips beginning on October 21st.

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Two years ago, I was named Time’s person of the year and now I own an insurance company, two mortgage brokers, and I’ll soon own nearly $1 trillion worth of stock. I am so proud of me.

Luckily for me, financial services lobbyists are summoning the economic advisers of both presidential campaigns to help them draft policy positions on how to deal with my newly acquired assets and any future purchases.

It is the “dirty little secret in town,” said one financial-services lobbyist — that after lambasting lobbyists on the stump, the candidates need their counsel on how to respond to a crisis with origins too complicated for most industry outsiders to understand.

…

This week, two of the biggest financial groups in Washington, the Financial Services Roundtable and the Mortgage Bankers Association, have drawn in members from across the country to grill economic advisers from both campaigns, develop policy positions and urge prudence as both parties struggle to craft a regulatory stance on the deepening crisis.

Does this mean that Phil Gramm will be sitting across from himself?

The Legal Times blog reports that the Justice Department will release a number of documents and audio recordings related to the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens. One of those audio recordings of Stevens reveals him to be incredibly cheap. “Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money,” says Alaska restaurateur Robert Persons to VECO chief Bill Allen. Stevens won one battle, to obtain Allen’s medical records. Allen is the government’s primary witness and has a history of mental health problems related to a motorcycle accident.

The Ethics Committee is pushing ahead with an inquiry into Rep. Charles Rangel’s financial disclosure snafus. Consensus has yet to take place as Ethics interim Chairman Gene Green and Ranking Member Doc Hastings released dueling letters on the form of the investigative subcommittee.

I think that someone already did this. He’s totally never on TV, so I can’t remember his name.

As I’ve already written about here, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac PACs are now shuttered, ending an era of boundless campaign contributions used to keep lawmakers out of their business. Thanks to those campaign contributions and the subsequent lack of oversight, I now own these two mortgage giants.

Which leads directly to a Quote of the Day, from Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law Blog:

We’ll have “public funding” before we know it, given all of these government bailouts of companies with PACs… AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae…

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Like a man sinking in quicksand, Rep. Charles Rangel continues, with every flailing day, to sink further as more discrepancies are revealed in his personal financial disclosures. New revelations show Rangel’s disclosures to be in complete disarray. Some assets and transactions are listed at high values one year and then listed at no value the next. The Associated Press compiled a list of the erratic disclosure listings.

The New York Times called on Rangel to temporarily step down from the chair of the Ways and Means Committee barring an ethics investigation. It looks like too many are having flashbacks to the Democratic scandals of the ’80s and ’90s that felled numerous congressional leaders.

The Washington Post takes a look at how business connections fuel bundled political contributions. One major Bush and McCain bundler, John Vogt, calls it the “favor arbitrage business,” where, “You’ve got to know who to ask, how to ask and more importantly, you have to be prepared to return the favor.”

Rep. John Doolittle has been under investigation for a long time - longer than this presidential election - and it looks like Kevin Ring’s indictment brings that investigation that much closer to his door step. Ring is accused of hiding Doolittle’s attempts to find a job for his wife from federal investigators. As McClatchy Newspapers reports, “[Ring's] apparent desire to protect the Doolittles is now figuring very prominently in his legal troubles.”

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Yesterday, the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior released multiple reports revealing widespread corruption in the Mineral Management Services agency, which handles mineral extraction, leases, and royalties for the Department of the Interior. The allegations show employees receiving illegal gifts, graft, filing false statements on ethics forms, using illegal drugs, and having sex with both subordinates in the agency and with agents of oil and gas companies with business before the agency.

Here are some of the allegations:

Lucy Denett, former associate director of minerals revenue management: accused of steering a contract to one of her aides after he retired.

Gregory Smith, former director of the royalty-in-kind program: accused of doing outside consulting work that included using his position to help the company paying him gain access to clients doing work with the royalty-in-kind program; billing Mineral Management Services for trips made in conjunction with his outside consulting work; accepting over $1,000 in gifts from oil and gas companies; using cocaine with a subordinate; having sex with two subordinates, where one episode is clearly a sexual assault.

Eight other employees: Socialized with and received gifts from companies with business before the royalty-in-kind program. Two of these employees are also alleged to have used drugs and had sexual relations with various agents of oil and gas companies with business before the program.

Here’s CNN reporting on the report:

The IG reports are available at ProPublica where Paul Kiel is providing running coverage.

Since 2001, when President Bush took office, the Department of the Interior was beset by problems arising from the appointment of officials who previously worked in or with the industries that the Department is intended to oversee.

Both the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Steven J. Griles, came from the extraction industries. Norton worked for a law firm that lobbied for a variety of companies, including oil, gas, and metal companies. Griles previously worked for a natural resources company and later provided public relations advice to a variety of extraction companies doing business with the government. Both Norton and Griles wound up caught in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Norton resigned her post as the scandal encroached into the Department of the Interior, while Griles wound up pleading guilty.

Ethical standards trickle from the top on down. Some of the officials involved in this current scandal expressed the opinion that they “didn’t think ethics rules applied to them because of their ‘unique’ role in the agency and that they needed to socialize with industry representatives for ‘market intelligence.’” The Mineral Management Services scandal has been brewing for a long time and highlights a lack of oversight that occurs when a Department is staffed with individuals who are used to making money from the business they are charged with regulating.

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If you’re a lawmaker, or former CIA official, caught in a corruption investigation there are many different ways to get out of trouble:

• “Graymail”: Under indictment and facing trial for corruption and fraud, K. Dusty Foggo, the former number three at CIA caught in the Duke Cunningham investigation, is threatening to reveal classified information related to terrorism in the trial. Prosecutors claim that Foggo wants to turn the trial into a referendum on the war on terror and portray himself as an anti-terrorism hero. K. Dusty Foggo: “Freedom isn’t free, it costs prostitutes for me. And then you get your classified government contracts.”
• “Deny”: Yesterday, TPM Muckraker reported that the indictment of Kevin Ring included information linking Ring’s actions to the office of Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico. Ring is alleged to have provided gifts, including tickets to basketball games, to a staffer in Wilson’s office. Wilson, who also received campaign contributions and a hosted fundraiser, issued a strong denial of any involvement in Ring’s activities.
• “Challenge”: Lawyers for Sen. Ted Stevens have issued a series of challenges and accusations against the government prosecution including a filing on Tuesday stating that the government refuses to turn over certain documents related to VECO CEO Bill Allen’s possible relationship with an underaged girl.
• “Wait it out”: Republicans are calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remove Rep. Charles Rangel from his post as chairman of the House Committee on Ways & Means. Pelosi won’t budge and instead insists that the House Ethics Committee must first finish their investigation. The call for committee removal seems a bit premature, as I can only remember lawmakers removing themselves, or being removed, after an indictment, guilty plea, or, in the case of Alan Mollohan, when they are the chair of the Ethics Committee. However, I have little faith that the Ethics Committee wil conduct a full investigation by the end of the year.
• Also, CREW released their annual list of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress.

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• Lawyers allege that Sen. Ted Stevens received additional gifts outside of the over $250,000 in labor and renovations to his chalet. These gifts included a $2,695 massage chair, a $1,000 sled dog, and a $3,200 “hand-designed” stained glass window.
• Rep. Charles Rangel will recommend that the House Ethics Committee look into his personal finances after reports from the New York Post and New York Times revealed that Rangel failed to properly report income from a Dominican vacation home on both his personal financial disclosures and his income taxes.
• However, an Ethics Committee investigation may take time as the committee does not have a chairman at this time following the tragic death of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Rep. Gene Green is the likely temporary replacement, although Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t appoint Green until after a Sept. 10 memorial service for Tubbs Jones.
• The Federal Election Commission will hold a hearing on Sept. 17 on proposed rules for the disclosure of contributions bundled by registered lobbyists.

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