Scandals
From Bwtm
The Bush Regime is beset by scandals.
Bush Whitehouse and Administration
Ex-FDA Chief Crawford to Plead Guilty to U.S. Charges (Update2)
Lester Crawford, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will plead guilty to federal charges of failing to disclose owning shares in companies regulated by the agency, his attorney said.
Prosecutors charged Crawford, 68, with filing a false document and violating federal conflict-of-interest laws. Crawford may face as much as six months of jail or house arrest and a fine of $50,000, said his lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, in a phone interview today.
Government investigators have been probing Crawford's financial dealings since he stepped down as FDA commissioner in September 2005, two months after his Senate confirmation. He stated in 2004 that shares of Sysco Corp. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. had been sold when he and his wife continued to hold them, and he failed to disclose income from Embrex Inc. stock options, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said in a court filing.
President George W. Bush nominated Crawford to become FDA Commissioner in February 2005. Crawford, from Demopolis, Alabama, holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Auburn University in Alabama.
He also has a doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Georgia. Crawford ran the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine from 1978 to 1980 and from 1982 to 1985, taking time out to serve as head of the department of physiology-pharmacology at the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine.
He then served as the administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food safety and inspection service from 1987 to 1991 before taking a job as the chief science officer at a trade group, the National Food Processors Association.
The case is U.S. v. Crawford, 06-438, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Washington).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aD.04W7W3tyE&refer=home
Bush 'Faith-Based' Initiative Was Used For GOP Campaigns
Former White House Official Charges In New Book
October 12, 2006 White House Faith-Based Office Is 'Deplorable Sham' And Should Be Shut Down, Says AU's Lynn
A new book by a former staffer in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives details how the much-ballyhooed Bush “faith-based” initiative was cynically manipulated by Republican operatives to help GOP candidates locked in close races.
David Kuo’s forthcoming book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, also asserts that applications for federal faith-based funds were sometimes rejected by reviewers because they came from non-Christian applicants, that civil rights rollbacks sought by the administration were unneeded and that Bush’s conservative Christian allies were derided behind their backs and bought off with White House cufflinks and other trinkets.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has led opposition to President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative, said the information is confirmation of critics’ long-standing complaints.
“This is proof that the faith-based initiative was a deplorable sham from day one,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This initiative was never about helping the poor; it was about shameless partisan politicking. It has undercut the constitutional separation of church and state, and it has been horrible public policy.
“The White House faith-based office ought to be shut down today, before more taxpayer money is misused,” Lynn said. “Kuo’s book confirms evidence that Americans United brought forward four years ago. The faith-based initiative is a travesty that has gone on far too long.”
Kuo alleges that White House strategist Karl Rove and other Republican leaders staged a series of supposedly non-partisan events around the faith-based initiative in states with tight House and Senate races.
According to Kuo, 20 events were held, and Republican candidates subsequently won 19 of those races. Discussing the book on MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann remarked, “The [faith-based] office was literally a taxpayer-funded part of the Republican campaign machinery.”
While the White House was happy to take evangelicals’ votes, it had nothing but contempt for their leaders, Kuo asserts. He alleges that staffers in Rove’s office referred to Religious Right leaders as “nuts” and writes, “National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ridiculous, out of control and just plain goofy.”
http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=8621
Why a Christian in the White House Felt Betrayed
By DAVID KUO
October 17, 2006 For Republicans who fear that the Foley scandal might keep Evangelicals away from the polls in November, here comes another challenge--in hardcover format. A new memoir by David Kuo, former second-in-command of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has the White House on the defensive with its account of an Administration that mocked Evangelicals in private while using them at election time to bolster its support. In this exclusive adaptation from the book, Kuo writes about how his White House experiences left him disillusioned about the role religion can play in politics.
I stepped into the Oval Office to find President George W. Bush prowling behind his desk looking for something. "Kuo!" he said without looking up. "Tell me about this meeting."
It was June 2003, and I was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The office had opened in the West Wing in 2001 to support the President's campaign promise of $8 billion a year in new funding for both religious and secular charities that helped the poor. That money never materialized, however, and I was increasingly stuck with the task of explaining to religious groups why the White House was so bad at helping them do good. This meeting, with a group of prominent African-American pastors who had supported Bush's plan, promised to be no different.
I began to brief the President on the pastors, recommending that he talk about the administrative reforms we had implemented, and the tax credits we were still fighting for ...
He interrupted. "Forget about all that. Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money. How much money have we given them?"
I never doubted the President's own faith or desire to help those who, like him, had once been lost in a world of alcohol or, unlike him, had struggled with poverty or drugs. Because I shared his faith and his vision of compassionate conservatism, I had been a very good soldier. When members of his senior staff mocked the plan as the "f___ing faith-based initiative," I didn't say a word. When his legislative-affairs team summarily dismissed our attempts to shoehorn our funding into the budget, I smiled and continued trying to work neatly within the system. When I heard staff privately deriding evangelical Christians because they were so easily seduced by White House power, I raised an eyebrow but not a ruckus. Like everyone else in the small faith-based office, I didn't speak too loudly or thunder too much. We were the nice guys.
Today, however, I decided to choose honesty over niceness. Two months earlier, I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that required intensive surgery and rehabilitation. This was my first meeting with the President and Karl Rove since my return. Something about undergoing brain surgery had made me reflect about whether I had really been doing a public service by pretending that our office had been living up to its commitments.
I glanced over at Karl and turned to look the President in the eye. "Sir, we've given them virtually nothing," I said, "because we have had virtually nothing new to give."
The President had been looking down at some papers about the event, but his head jerked up. "Nothing? What do you mean we've given them nothing?" He glared. "Don't we have new money in programs like the Compassion Fund thing?"
I looked again at Karl. He seemed stunned at what I was saying. "No, sir," I told the President. "In the past two years we've gotten less than $80 million in new grant dollars." The number fell shockingly short of the $8 billion he had vowed to deliver in the first year alone.
The President's staff didn't just bad-mouth the faith-based office behind closed doors. Their political indifference also kept us from getting the funding we needed so badly. No episode captured that more clearly than the 2001 negotiations over the President's $1.7 trillion tax cut. In those final negotiations with the Senate and House, the White House voluntarily dropped a centerpiece of the President's compassion promise: a provision to allow 80% of Americans to get credit for their charitable contributions.
Karl stayed behind to share some thoughts and answer questions. "Before I get started, I want to say something. This initiative isn't political," he told them. "If I walked into the Oval Office and said it was going to be political, the President would bash my head in."
Then the questions began. "Since the President brought up money, where, exactly is that money?" asked one pastor. "We've talked to the Cabinet Secretaries, and they say there isn't any new money." They peppered him with questions for several minutes. Finally he smiled at them and said, "Tell you what, I'm going to get those guys in a room and bash some heads together and get to the bottom of this. I'll be back in touch with you." He left confidently.
At the meeting's end, several of the pastors said they wanted to pray for my healing. They placed their hands on my shoulder and called on God to hear their prayers on my behalf. I listened and loved it and said a prayer of my own: that I would have the courage to tell them what was really going on at the White House.
That was more than three years ago. Their prayers have worked on my body. I am still here and very much alive. Now I am finding the courage to speak out about God and politics and their dangerous dance. George W. Bush, the man, is a person of profound faith and deep compassion for those who suffer. But President George W. Bush is a politician and is ultimately no different from any other politician, content to use religion for electoral gain more than for good works. Millions of Evangelicals may share Bush's faith, but they would protect themselves--and their interests--better if they looked at him through the same coldly political lens with which he views them.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1546580,00.html
Breach of faith
Former White House insider David Kuo talks about how the Bush administration used its most loyal voters, evangelical Christians, for political gain.
October, 17, 2006 The No. 2 man in the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, Christian conservative David Kuo grew disillusioned with the Bush administration's attempt to solve social problems with large helpings of federally funded religion. In his new book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," Kuo tells the story of an administration that used evangelicals for purely political purposes, and that often revealed disdain for the very bloc of voters most responsible for recent Republican success. Kuo, who has also been an aide to William Bennett, an advisor to John Ashcroft, and a speechwriter for Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Bob Dole (as well as a chronicler of the dot-com bust), claims members of the administration often disparaged fundamentalists in private; Karl Rove, he says, referred to the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives as "the fucking faith-based initiative." Kuo says this cynical attitude was reflected in the way the administration actually dealt with evangelical groups, promising sweeping change and billions of dollars and never quite delivering.
Since his book was discussed on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" last week, and since he was interviewed on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Kuo has become a target for the ire of Republicans and Christian conservatives. Focus on the Family's James Dobson has called "Tempting Faith" a "mix of sour grapes and political timing," and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told the Washington Post that he "felt sorry" for Kuo. "Once you do something like this," said Perkins, "you get your 15 minutes in the spotlight, but then after that nobody will touch you."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/10/17/kuo/
White House, NSA staff said to be buyers from online diploma mill
Trial that could out feds alleged to have bogus degrees delayed
October 18, 2006 Names of 135 federal employees who allegedly bought fake diplomas from an outfit in the western United States will not be revealed for at least one year, if ever, according to a U.S attorney's office.
Last week in Spokane, Wash., during a pretrial hearing for eight people accused of selling counterfeit degrees from nonexistent universities, a defense attorney told the judge that employees from the National Security Agency and the Health and Human Services, Justice and State departments were among 6,000 people who bought the diplomas, according to the Associated Press.
The AP also reported that Peter Schweda, attorney for alleged diploma mill operator Steven Randock, said the names of 135 government employees who supposedly purchased the degrees for promotions or pay raises would be released during the course of the trial.
The trial will not start for another year, though. Judge Lonny Suko of the District Court of the Eastern District of Washington delayed it until Oct. 1, 2007, to give attorneys more time to prepare. Suko said more than 150,000 pages of e-mails, 40 CDs of documents and up to 50 witnesses will be used.
Tom Rice, a spokesman for the U.S attorney's office in Spokane, Wash., which is prosecuting the case, said Schweda's assertions that government purchasers would be revealed "were not necessarily accurate."
Rice also said he cannot confirm or deny that there is a separate Justice Department investigation into federal purchasers of the fake degrees. The case was built around a sting operation by a handful of Secret Service agents.
"It has been said that [names] may become available in that trial, but sitting here discussing it with you, I don't see how it's relevant to the Randock trial who purchased them," Rice said. "That'd be like saying everybody who used cocaine would be introduced in the trial of Manuel Noriega."
The 40-page indictment for defendants Steven Randock, Dixie Randock, Richard Novak, Blake Carlson, Amy Hensley, Heidi Lorhan, Roberta Markishtum and Kenneth Pearson accuses them of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, among other offenses. Pearson pleaded guilty last week.
The defendants allegedly set up a number of bogus universities, including "Saint Regis University," "James Monroe University" and "Trinity Christian School." They then sold diplomas and fake transcripts without requiring any coursework or testing.
One of the fake universities, "Robertstown University," used a photograph of Blenheim Castle, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and home of the Duke of Marlborough, to depict its campus on a Web site, according to the indictment.
In 2004, the Office of Personnel Management held seminars to train federal managers on spotting fake degrees. OPM and congressional overseers stepped up efforts to thwart diploma mills after Laura Callahan, a senior director in the Homeland Security Department chief information officer's office, was found to have purchased her degrees from an alleged diploma mill in Wyoming.
OPM did not respond to requests for comment on any current investigation into federal employees involved in the Randock case.
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35281&dcn=e_gvet
White House, NSA staff said to be buyers from online diploma mill
October 12, 2006 SPOKANE, Wash. -- A White House staff member and National Security Agency employees were among 6,000 people who bought bogus online college degrees from a diploma mill, a federal judge has been told.
Others who paid thousands of dollars for phony diplomas in the operation, which used names such as St. Regis University, James Monroe University and Robertstown University, include a senior State Department employee in Kuwait and a Department of Justice employee in Spokane, defense lawyer Peter S. Schweda said Wednesday.
None of the federal officials was identified during the status conference for five defendants in U.S. District Court, nor would lawyers for either side provide any of their names outside the courtroom, The Spokesman-Review reported Thursday.
"We're not going to disclose who bought these degrees until after the trial is under way," U.S. Attorney James A. McDevitt told the newspaper.
Material provided to the defense by the Justice Department shows at least 135 government employees, also including some from the Department of Health and Human Services, bought college or university degrees to use in seeking promotions or pay raises, Schweda said.
The defense team also is seeking access to an Office of Personnel Management report which reportedly provides more detail on federal employees who are believed to have purchased the bogus degrees to enhance their portfolios.
The White House employee who reportedly bought a degree is the subject of a separate investigation, Schweda said.
The latest twist in the criminal case came Wednesday, a day after Kenneth Wade Pearson, 31, webmaster for the operation, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and receipt of child pornography.
Pearson said he would provide evidence and testify against Dixie E. and Stephen K. Randock Sr. of Colbert, described by government investigators as the ringleaders, making him the third of eight defendants to reach plea agreements in the case.
Pearson, who likely faces three to five years in prison, remained free on a $10,000 bond he posted after being indicted in January. Judge Lonnie R. Suko postponed his sentencing until December 2007, two months after the Randocks and three others are scheduled to go on trial.
The Randocks also remain free on bail.
More than 10,000 sexually explicit images of children were found in four computers used by the Spokane-based operation, government lawyers said, but only Pearson was named in pornography charges.
The defendants are charged with conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud and laundering almost $2 million in diploma mill receipts in 2002-05.
As webmaster, Pearson set up and maintained as many as 125 Web sites for sales of fraudulent college and high school degrees worldwide, investigators wrote in court filings.
Investigators also have asserted that more than $43,000 in bribes were paid to three Liberian diplomats who also have not been identified, including one handoff that was videotaped by Secret Service agents at a hotel in Washington, D.C. Government lawyers have said diplomatic immunity precludes charges against the diplomats.
The Liberian "Board of Education" offered accreditation for the online diploma mills in exchange for the bribes, according to court filings.
About 40 percent of the estimated 6,000 phony college degrees that were sold with that accreditation went to foreign residents seeking entry into the United States, investigators wrote in court filings.
A task force of state and federal agents served search warrants in August 2005 after investigators found many of the phony degrees were sold in Saudi Arabia, raising national security concerns.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Diploma_Mill.html
Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesmanreview.com
Laura Callahan resigns from DHS
April 05, 2004 Laura Callahan, former senior director in the Homeland Security Department’s CIO office, resigned from the department late last month.
Callahan had been on administrative leave with pay since last June, after a PostNewsweek Tech Media investigation revealed that she had three questionable degrees from a diploma mill in Wyoming.
DHS spokeswoman Valerie Smith said, “Laura Callahan has resigned effective March 26. It is the agency’s policy not to comment on individual personnel matters.”
Callahan, who before moving to DHS had been deputy CIO of the Labor Department, lost her security clearance following the department’s decision to place her on administrative leave, so she could not work in the CIO office.
Callahan has a legitimate two-year associate’s degree in liberal arts from Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, N.J. She has enrolled again in the accredited distance-learning institution to pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer science, according to the college registrar’s office.
Neither Callahan nor her attorney, Ralph Lotkin, could be immediately reached for comment. GCN and Washington Technology reported last year that dozens of federal employees and contractors have questionable degrees.
http://www.gcn.com/print/23_7/25482-1.html
Cut-Rate Diplomas, How doubts about the government's own "Dr. Laura" exposed a résumé fraud scandal
Posted May 30, 2003 - 5:43 p.m. Updated June 2, 2003 4:44 p.m
Alberto Gonzales
Thirty-one Senate Democrats on Thursday asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to remove himself from the investigation into the Jack Abramoff scandal, saying the lobbyist's dealings with President Bush and others in the administration should compel Gonzales to step aside.
“FBI officials have said the Abramoff investigation 'involves systemic corruption within the highest levels of government,' “ the Democrats wrote in a letter to Gonzales. “In light of your previous service as White House Counsel and your close connection to many Administration officials, the appearance of conflict looms large.”
New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. The White House would not release the photo or any others that Bush had taken with Abramoff.
Bush has said that he, like all presidents, is frequently photographed with people at various events and that Abramoff is not a personal friend.
Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.
Three former associates of Abramoff told The Associated Press this week that the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.
David H. Safavian, Bush's former top procurement officer, is under indictment on five counts of obstructing investigations into whether he aided Abramoff in efforts to acquire property around the nation's capital controlled by the General Services Administration.
Karl Rove
Mr. Rove has known Mr. Abramoff for about two decades, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Both are former top officials of the College Republicans, many of whose alumni have gone on to national prominence within the party.
Susan Ralston
White House reels as aide quits over links to disgraced lobbyist
October 08, 2006 Republicans have been dealt a fresh blow in their increasingly frantic struggle to cling to power in next month's mid-term elections by the resignation of a key White House aide over links to a disgraced lobbyist.
Already reeling from a Capitol Hill sex scandal, the White House was bracing itself yesterday for further fallout over a widening financial scandal that precipitated the departure of Susan Ralston, executive assistant to Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief political strategist.
She stepped down after congressional investigators documented her extensive dealings with Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to multimillion-dollar bribery charges involving Republican members of Congress and government officials. Her departure was announced late on Friday as the unrelated scandal surrounding the alleged cover-up of sexual approaches made by Congressman Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, intensified.
The resignation of Miss Ralston, officially a "special adviser" to President George W. Bush, will remind voters of the row that previously engulfed the Republicans over Abramoff, to whom she had been an aide before she joined the White House in 2001. She was reportedly found to have been involved in more than half of her former boss's 66 recorded contacts with her colleagues and superiors on President Bush's staff. Records showed that Abramoff's lobbying colleagues contacted her 69 times.
Congressional investigatorsindicated Miss Ralston had accepted tickets from Abramoff to nine events, including professional basketball, hockey and baseball games and an operatic recital. E-mails and memos uncovered by investigators suggest she served as a conduit for requests for favours by Abramoff, and at one point discussed the "significant amount of money" it would take to lure her away from the White House to work for him.
There was no suggestion that Miss Ralston acted illegally and it is not known whether she declared her dealings with Abramoff, or paid for the tickets he gave her. "She recognised that a protracted discussion of these matters would be a distraction to the White House and she's chosen to step down," said a White House spokesman.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/08/wrepubs08.xml
Irwin Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Plame suit makes political waves
t is an extraordinary development: the vice-president of the United States and a dozen other administration officials accused, in court, of deliberately leaking the identity of a classified CIA operative.
In their lawsuit Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, accuse Dick Cheney and others of endangering the lives of themselves and their children by revealing her status.
And, they allege, it was all done for revenge.
This on-going saga began in 2002, when former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson was despatched from Washington to Niger - the White House apparently hoping that he could gather detailed intelligence on reports that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium from the African country in an attempt to build a nuclear bomb.
Ambassador Wilson's investigation found that those allegations were untrue.
His findings were at odds with the administration's expectations and went largely ignored: President Bush and others continued to claim that Saddam Hussein was attempting to acquire uranium from Niger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5182232.stm
Irwin Lewis "Scooter" Libby indicted
The White House has tried to move beyond ethics controversies after the indictment late last year of former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby in connection with the Central Intelligence Agency leak case. Mr. Rove hasn't yet been cleared in the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
Cheney authorized leaks
Indicted former top White House aide Irwin Lewis "Scooter" Libby will argue that Vice President Dick Cheney authorized him to leak classified information in 2003 to bolster the case for the US-led war against Iraq, US news media reports.
Libby, who has been charged in a federal investigation into the outing of a CIA agent, will in part base his defense on the claim that Cheney had encouraged him to share classified information with reporters, NBC television news said, citing sources familiar with the case.
Libby's lawyer Theodore Wells discussed Cheney's authorization with federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the judge handling the case in a recent teleconference call, NBC News reported.
The online edition of the magazine National Journal reported that Libby had testified to a federal grand jury that Cheney and other White House "superiors" had "authorized" him in mid-2003 to leak classified information to defend the administration's prewar intelligence assertions in making the case to go to war with Iraq.
The magazine quoted attorneys familiar with the matter and court records as sources.
Libby also argued that Cheney authorized him to release details of the classified National Intelligence Estimate, the magazine reported, citing sources with firsthand knowledge.
Senator Edward Kennedy of the opposition Democrats called the new revelations, if true, "a new low" in the "sordid case".
Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info
When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed Libby's assertions to a grand jury that he had been authorized by his superiors to spread sensitive information, the prosecutor did not specify which superiors.
But in an interview on Fox News Channel, Cheney said there is an executive order that gives the vice president, along with the president, the authority to declassify information.
"I have certainly advocated declassification. I have participated in declassification decisions," Cheney said. Asked for details, he said, "I don't want to get into that. There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."
Cheney added a ringing endorsement of Libby.
"Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence," said Cheney. "He is a great guy. I worked with him for a long time. I have tremendous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case, and it is therefore inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case."
George C. Deutsch
George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.
Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.
Officials at NASA headquarters declined to discuss the reason for the resignation.
Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen's speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.
Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.
"He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. " The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."
"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."
Tom Noe coin dealer and prominent GOP fundraiser
Trial of coin dealer comes at a bad time for Ohio GOP
October 08, 2006 TOLEDO, Ohio – Just a month before Election Day, a former Republican fundraising star is set to go on trial on charges that he stole millions of dollars from a state investment in rare coins.
The timing couldn't be worse for the GOP. Democrats, who haven't won a statewide executive office in Ohio since 1990, are poised to take back the governor's office and are in position to win a majority of the five statewide races, according to recent polls.
National Democratic leaders also are watching closely because Ohio again is widely expected to play a key role in picking the next president. The party believes that if it can capture Ohio's governor's office, it will have a better shot at winning the state in 2008. The trial of Tom Noe will shine a spotlight on Republican Party problems even though its leaders have worked to distance themselves from the former coin dealer who managed the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation's $50 million rare coin investment.
“You couldn't think of much worse to happen to a state party during a critical election,” said William Binning, a political scientist at Youngstown State University who has worked on past GOP campaigns.
The scandal has become a dominant issue in Ohio over the past 18 months along with the state's sluggish economy. Investigations into Noe's coin investments led to separate ethics charges against Gov. Bob Taft, who pleaded no contest last year to failing to report golf outings and other gifts.
Noe has pleaded not guilty to state charges of theft, money laundering, forgery and a corrupt activity charge that includes accusations he stole more than $2 million. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the corrupt activity charge.
Ohio started its rare coin investments in 1998, giving Noe $25 million, followed by another $25 million in 2001.
Democrats charge that the deal demonstrates a culture of corruption that has set in while Republicans have been in charge.
Investigators began looking into the coin investment after The Toledo Blade wrote about the fund in April 2005.
State officials initially defended the investment, saying it earned more than $15 million. Then Noe's attorney told investigators the fund had a shortfall of at least $10 million.
A state lawsuit later accused Noe of improperly taking more than $4 million from the funds to pay himself and his coin-collection business.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061008/news_1n8ohio.html
Noe indicted in coin scandal
February 13, 2006 TOLEDO, Ohio -- A coin dealer and prominent GOP fundraiser was charged Monday with stealing at least $1 million from a controversial state investment in rare coins that has embroiled Republicans in scandal during an election year.
The 53 charges against Tom Noe conclude a 10-month investigation by state and federal prosecutors into the $50 million rare coin investment Noe managed for the state insurance fund for injured workers.
He's accused of stealing from the investment by writing checks, sometimes for hundreds of thousands of dollars each, knowing the money was not his to use.
Noe's attorney has acknowledged a shortfall of up to $13 million of the money Noe invested for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
Abramoff
former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Jack Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.
Mr. Abramoff was an early backer of the president, having been listed as a co-chairman pledged to raise $25,000 for Mr. Bush at a 1999 Washington reception. He gave money to the president's recount committee in 2000 and was in the elite tier of fund-raisers for the president's 2004 re-election committee. An Abramoff aide, Susan Ralston, later went to work as Mr. Rove's executive assistant at the White House.
Mr. Abramoff bragged of his "contact" with Mr. Rove when Tyco International Ltd. sought action on tax legislation in 2002, according to Senate testimony by Tim Flanigan, a former Tyco official. "At some point after he joined the engagement team, Mr. Abramoff told me that he intended to contact Mr. Rove directly or indirectly to communicate Tyco's position" on the tax issue, said Mr. Flanigan, who also once worked as Mr. Bush's deputy White House counsel.
Abramoff at a glance
- Charges: Conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion.
- Penalties: Up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines, but prosecutors and Abramoff’s attorneys agreed to recommend 9 1/2 to 11 years in prison and a fine of $15,000 to $150,000. If he cooperates fully in prosecution of others, the government might recommend another reduction.
- Restitution: Abramoff agreed to pay an estimated $25 million in restitution to his victims and $1.7 million to the Internal Revenue Service for evading taxes during 2001-03.
- Indian tribes: Abramoff admitted he conspired to defraud Indian tribes in Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. They paid Abramoff and companies he controlled roughly $55 million, from which he secretly took more than $21 million for himself. At one point, he took money from a Texas tribe to lobby for Indian gambling in that state while also taking money from a Louisiana tribe to oppose such gambling in Texas.
- Public corruption: Abramoff and his former partner Michael Scanlon, who has already pleaded guilty, gave campaign contributions, trips, meals and entertainment to public officials and their relatives in return for favorable treatment of his clients.
- Other allegations: Abramoff admitted misusing tax-exempt charities to collect illegal payments; arranging for Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio’s former chief of staff to lobby the congressman in 2002 before the staffer’s one-year ban on lobbying had expired; and paying $50,000 in 2000-01 to the wife of a congressional aide identified elsewhere as a top aide to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Sweeney trip in question
Visit to U.S. territory with Jack Abramoff associate possibly broke rules
October 18, 2006 ALBANY -- U.S. Rep. John Sweeney may have violated congressional ethics rules by failing to reveal who paid for a trip he took to a Pacific island with a lobbyist hired by convicted Washington influence peddler Jack Abramoff. In January 2001, Sweeney traveled 8,000 miles to deliver a speech to the Saipan Chamber of Commerce in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory infamous for its garment sweatshops and prostitution trade. He traveled with Tony Rudy, who had just left the staff of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to work for Abramoff.
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce says it paid for Sweeney's visit, but Sweeney never reported any privately funded travel as House rules require. Those rules prohibit lobbyist-paid travel.
Sweeney, a Clifton Park Republican, initially refused to answer questions for this story, speaking only through an aide. His deputy chief of staff, Melissa Carlson, said the congressman believed the Marianas government had paid for the trip.
Under House rules, U.S. government-paid travel, including travel financed by the island commonwealth, does not need to be disclosed. However, this week the Marianas government disputed Sweeney's assertion, saying it did not pay for the trip.
Tuesday, Sweeney said he will do whatever is necessary to comply with House ethics rules.
"It was our understanding that this was paid for by the Marianas government," the congressman said. "If it was based on misinformation that may have been given to us by a guy who's now an admitted felon, I will go to the Ethics Committee and ask what I should do."
Abramoff lobbied on and off for the Mariana Islands government from 1994 to early 2002, eventually earning more than $11 million.
Rudy, who met with Sweeney after the trip to lobby him on behalf of the territory, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy charges connected to the cash laundering and political influence enterprise run by Abramoff.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion charges. Both he and Rudy are cooperating with law enforcement officials in an ongoing investigation.
"If it indeed is true" that private money purchased his trip to the Pacific, Sweeney said, "I feel betrayed and misled."
Sweeney insisted Abramoff did not personally organize or pay for this trip, as he did for other members of Congress and congressional aides -- including DeLay -- in violation of House ethics rules. Sweeney said he never met Abramoff, adding that his only connection to the disgraced lobbyist was Rudy.
No suggestion has emerged that Sweeney directly assisted Abramoff or broke any laws.
Sweeney is among the Democrats' top targets as they fight for a net gain of 15 seats necessary to take over the House. He is fighting the toughest re-election battle of his congressional career against a Democratic political neophyte, Kirsten Gillibrand.
Last year, the Department of Justice began reviewing the personal financial records of members of Congress and former staffers in search of ties to Abramoff.
Among them were DeLay, U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif, whose efforts to help Abramoff with Marianas-related projects have been well-documented, and U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican who pleaded guilty last Friday to accepting numerous gifts, including trips, casino chips and meals, in exchange for legislative support for Abramoff's clients.
Sweeney has so far remained untainted by the DOJ investigation.
Sweeney is not the only Capital Region congressman with travel connections to Abramoff.
In 1997, Abramoff personally led a congressional delegation that included U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty, D-Green Island, on a trip to Pakistan. Abramoff did not tell either the group's sponsor, a now-defunct nonprofit group, or the lawmakers that he was a registered lobbyist for Pakistan.
McNulty said he had been misled. McNulty did file a report of his trip with the clerk of the House within 30 days, as is required when private sources pay expenses for trips made in connection with official duties.
Sweeney said he still has no direct confirmation that anyone other than the Marianas government paid for his trip. "We operated under the best information we had," he said. "We believed we were in full compliance."
However, in recent days the Times Union received contradictory accounts of who paid from the Marianas government and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.
Charles Reyes, a spokesman for Marianas Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, said in an e-mail that the islands' government did not pay Sweeney's bill.
"Our finance office confirms that, based on available financial records, the CNMI government did not make any payment to or for Congressman John Sweeney for any expenses in connection with the congressman's travel to the commonwealth on or about January 2001," Reyes wrote.
Christine Parke, executive director of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, said in an e-mail that the chamber "did pay for Mr. Sweeney's expenses out of the proceeds of the dinner." She said she had no supporting documents and could not provide a total cost.
At the time of his trip, Sweeney had just been named to the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which could potentially direct federal funds sought by the commonwealth. But he did not sit on any committees with direct jurisdiction over the islands.
Parke could not say how Sweeney came to the chamber's attention. Carlson said Sweeney was invited because of his experience as state labor commissioner under Gov. George Pataki, a post Sweeney held from January 1995 to June 1997. She insisted Abramoff did not set up Sweeney's trip or recommend him to the chamber.
On Jan. 4, 2001, Abramoff wrote to then-CNMI Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio seeking the renewal of his lucrative lobbying contract with the commonwealth. At the time, Abramoff had switched firms and Tenorio was reportedly concerned about the growing costs of Abramoff's services. The lobbyist was charging the commonwealth $100,000 a month, plus costs and fees.
Four days later, on Jan. 8, 2001, the Saipan Tribune reported Sweeney would make a trip to the islands that weekend. The newspaper is published by the Tan Holdings Group, whose president, garment industry mogul Willie Tan, was also an Abramoff associate.
According to the Tribune story, Sweeney would be given "an opportunity to brief with local business and CNMI leaders, as well as enjoy some of the island's visitor attractions." Saipan has a number of resorts and golf courses.
On Jan. 15, 2001, the Tribune reported Sweeney had indicated in his speech that the CNMI needed to continue efforts to combat its poor image back in the states.
"The reputation of the commonwealth is not really what ought to be," Sweeney said. "I come (sic) here and found that the truth projected to me in Washington was not the truth at all."
Carlson said CNMI officials had "concerns about sweatshops" and wanted Sweeney to advise them on potential reforms. She said the congressman made some recommendations and suggested he could help if his suggestions were put in place, but the CNMI government never followed up.
"The congressman always believes that firsthand experience is preferable to hearing something from a second source," she said.
The CNMI, a chain of 14 islands northeast of Guam, is exempt from federal immigration and wage laws -- a status critics say has fostered sweatshops, trafficking in women and prostitution.
Over the years, at Abramoff's urging and with the support of the islands' garment industry, GOP House leaders blocked legislation to federalize the CNMI's immigration and wage laws and stop the islands from producing clothes stamped "Made in U.S.A."
Abramoff also worked to secure federal money for the islands.
Sweeney was quoted in the Saipan Tribune on Jan. 15 as saying reports of poor working conditions in the CNMI were overblown, and that he had seen worse sweatshops back home in New York. Carlson said Sweeney was "absolutely not" aware of any severe mistreatment of workers or forced prostitution before he made these comments.
U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., a longtime champion of legislation to change CNMI wage and immigration laws, traveled to the islands in 1998 on a fact-finding mission to document abuses there.
Problems were obvious "unless you choose not to look at the facts on the ground," Miller said, adding: "A blind pig could run into the human rights violations and the exploitation of workers on the islands."
Miller said he met women "forced into the sex trade, " workers living in barracks behind barbed wire and others who "wanted us to find someone to buy their kidney so they could go home, because they were trapped."
Several months after his trip, on April 6, 2001, Sweeney accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution from Abramoff's law firm, Greenberg Traurig. The firm made no more contributions to Sweeney until August 2004 -- about five months after Abramoff departed.
Partners and lobbyists at the firm where Rudy worked after leaving Greenberg Traurig in 2002, the Alexander Strategy Group, and others associated with them gave Sweeney at least $8,850 in campaign aid in 2005. The Alexander Strategy Group closed in January.
Within months of returning from the CNMI, Sweeney met separately with Marianas Gov. Fitial and Rudy in Washington. Rudy also met with members of Sweeney's staff.
The Tribune reported Fitial had meetings with Sweeney and his fellow Appropriations Committee member, Doolittle, in Washington on April 8, 2001, to discuss the islands' infrastructure and development needs.
"I am very glad that the CNMI has friends in such powerful positions," Fitial told the paper. "Whether the issue is construction funding or Compact impact assistance, the Appropriations Committee will make the important decisions, and I am confident we will receive a fair hearing because of our friends that serve on that committee."
Sweeney said he could not recall any appropriations being discussed.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=526600 http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=526600&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=LOCAL&newsdate=10/18/2006
Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired
E-mails show Jack Abramoff's ability to influence White House staffing decisions through his highly placed friends.
October 15, 2006 WASHINGTON — For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.
Now he knows.
Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.
The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.
"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.
The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.
The e-mails, disclosed as part of a report by the House Government Reform Committee, show how Abramoff manipulated the system through officials such as Mehlman, now the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Doing so, Abramoff directed government appointments, influenced policy decisions and won White House endorsements for political candidates — all in the service of his clients.
The report found more than 400 lobbying contacts between Abramoff's team and the White House.
Mehlman, meanwhile, also helped Abramoff with another client, Guam, the e-mails show.
On Oct. 9, 2002, Abramoff asked Mehlman to secure a White House endorsement for the island's GOP gubernatorial ticket.
Three weeks later, Abramoff received a note from Ralston, then Rove's assistant, saying that Mehlman had gotten a quote from the White House for "your Guam candidates." She also asked Abramoff to send his requests in the future to "Ken only."
For Stayman, learning more about how Abramoff used White House connections helped him understand why, five years ago, he found himself looking at a career change.
His job was up for renewal, but his State Department supervisors wanted to keep him on to finish a project that was expected to take more time.
"With only about a year left on my appointment, I didn't think it would trigger any interest from the White House," Stayman said. "I assumed that Abramoff was behind it, but I didn't know the details, who called whom and how much effort it took."
Unbeknownst to Stayman, though, within weeks of Bush taking office, the "Stayman project" was in full swing.
State Department officials resisted the dismissal, and negotiations dragged on for months. In May 2001, one of Mehlman's deputies assured Abramoff's team that, "Obviously, this guy cannot stay."
That July 9, Ralston e-mailed Abramoff with news of a deal on Stayman: "He'll be out in four months."
And he was.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-mehlman15oct15,1,83076.story
Richard Pombo (R-Tracy), and John T. Doolittle (R-Roseville)
Pombo (R-Tracy), 45, and John T. Doolittle (R-Roseville), 55, have come under attack for their ethics as a corruption scandal threatens the GOP lock on Washington.
Ethics watchdogs have questioned their ties to Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who pleaded guilty to defrauding Indian tribes of more than $20 million. The watchdogs have also criticized the candidates for using public money for personal expenses and for making large payments to their wives and family from campaign funds.
Pombo also faces opposition from well-financed environmental groups.
Abramoff case dogs Pombo
Investigation offers glimpse into tactics of lobbyist
SACRAMENTO - Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has dogged Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy like an unwanted shadow even before the congressman began his bid for an eighth term.
Was Pombo a tool of "Black Jack," or did the two men exchange little more than passing pleasantries at Capitol Hill galas?
The truth lies buried within tens of thousands of e-mails, billing records, subpoenaed testimony - and in the minds of both Pombo and Abramoff, who is helping federal authorities with what is becoming the most far-reaching Washington scandal since Watergate.
But a Record investigation of hundreds of heavily redacted e-mails, billing records, lobbying and campaign finance reports, published reports including the Congressional Record and more than a dozen interviews with Beltway insiders found Pombo playing but a bit part in the larger Abramoff drama.
Unlike some of his colleagues, no evidence suggests that Pombo received Abramoff-funded trips, gifts, skybox visits, concert tickets or free meals at the lobbyist's Signatures restaurant. A former Abramoff employee told The Record that Pombo was never one of Abramoff's confidantes.
That said, Pombo did step on stage with Abramoff's crew at least four times in the past decade, but in only one case was there any evidence of impropriety - and that was by two of Pombo's former staffers, not the congressman himself.
Instead, what emerges from the investigation is a rare view of just how Team Abramoff worked. Here is the story:
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/NEWS01/610290317/-1/NEWS2010
Doolittle attorney, Justice talk
Rep. John Doolittle acknowledged Monday that his lawyer, whom he has paid more than $38,000 in the past two months, is talking with the Justice Department about the congressman's relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Washington Post and other papers, citing unnamed sources, have said the Roseville Republican and Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., are under investigation in the Abramoff matter.
Doolittle's office in a statement late Monday again insisted that the congressman is not under investigation.
Instead, it characterized the meetings as an effort initiated by Doolittle to clear the congressman's name.
"The congressman's attorney has had several conversations with the Justice Department which we believe have been helpful toward clearing the congressman's name," said Laura Blackann, Doolittle's spokeswoman.
"The congressman's attorney has committed to the Justice Department that in order to preserve the integrity of the ongoing investigation, details of their interactions will remain private," she said. "To date, the congressman has not been contacted or questioned by the Justice Department and has no reason to believe that he is the target of an investigation."
Blackann said Doolittle "instructed his attorney to establish contact with the Justice Department to further express the congressman's willingness to be helpful and satisfy the Justice Department that the congressman has done nothing wrong."
The new disclosures have added fuel to the campaign of Democratic challenger Charlie Brown, who has tried to tie Doolittle to the so-called "culture of corruption" in Washington, D.C., arising from the Abramoff scandal and the bribery conviction of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-San Diego.
One of those implicated in the Cunningham bribery, San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, also was a major contributor to Doolittle.
"It's time for John Doolittle to level with voters in his district, and stop lying about being under investigation for his involvement with Jack Abramoff," Brown said in a prepared statement Monday. "His shady campaign finance dealings, the fact that he won't return the tainted money he's taken from admitted felons, and his continued denials illustrate his lack of moral fitness for the office of congressman."
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/40493.html
Lobbyist donated cash to Doolittle
Congressman received $14,000, helped Abramoff win contract.
Rep. John Doolittle helped Jack Abramoff secure a lucrative lobbying contract with the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1999 and then assisted the now-disgraced lobbyist's efforts to route federal money to the islands and defend its garment industry, newly obtained documents show.
Doolittle accepted $14,000 in contributions from Abramoff -- $4,000 to his congressional re-election committee and $10,000 to his California political action committee.
The first contribution came just a few weeks before Doolittle endorsed the election of a key commonwealth politician crucial to Abramoff winning the contract. The last Abramoff contribution came just as the Mariana Islands' lobbying contract was expiring in December 2001.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14288629p-15112022c.html
Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio)
In Ney's homestate, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett called Ney "a cancer in the Congress."
Ney pleads guilty, says he'll resign
Ney pleads guilty, says he'll resign
October 13, 2006 WASHINGTON - Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in an election-year scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.
Beleaguered GOP leaders said Ney will be expelled from the House if he doesn't quit by the time they return to Washington after the Nov. 7 elections.
Appearing before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle on charges of conspiracy and making false statements, Ney acknowledged taking trips, tickets, meals and campaign donations from Abramoff in return for official actions on behalf of his clients.
Ney, an Ohio Republican, faces up to 10 years in prison. The Justice Department recommended 27 months behind bars. Ney's lawyers plan to recommend him for a Bureau of Prisons alcohol treatment program, which could cut dramatically the time he serves behind bars.
Huvelle set sentencing for Jan. 19.
Although Ney's lawyer and the congressman promised he would resign in the next few weeks, it was not soon enough for House Republican leaders who are on the defensive because of fresh scandals in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other Republican House leaders, along with their top aides, are under investigation by the House ethics committee in a possible cover-up of former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s sexually charged messages to teenage males who served as House pages.
Hastert has called on Ney to resign, as did White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said Ney's criminal activity "is not a reflection of the Republican Party." House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he will introduce a resolution to kick Ney out of the House as soon as Congress returns to Washington.
In Ney's homestate, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett called Ney "a cancer in the Congress."
Ney confessed his criminal acts during a half-hour session at a federal courthouse a few blocks from the Capitol, where until recently he wielded a gavel as chairman of the House Administration Committee.
Responding to each of 25 questions Huvelle asked, Ney agreed he had conspired to deprive the government of his "honest services," a fraud-related charge often used in public corruption cases.
Ney also acknowledged making false statements on his financial disclosure forms by concealing that Abramoff and a foreign businessman were the true source of gifts Ney received.
The gifts ranged from a trip to Scotland bankrolled by Abramoff's clients to thousands of dollars in gambling chips Ney got on two overseas junkets from foreign businessman Fouad al-Zayat, a Syrian-born aviation company owner in Cyprus.
"I allowed myself to get too comfortable with the way things have been done in Washington, D.C., for too long," Ney said in a written statement after his court appearance.
Ney said, "I never acted to enrich myself or to get things I shouldn't." Details of conspiracy suggested otherwise.
The congressman admitted he gave $5,000 from one gambling trip to a staff member to carry across the border so Ney could report a lower dollar amount to U.S. Customs officials.
Ney agreed to push legislation helpful to Abramoff clients including Indian tribes and a foreign beverage distiller. Ney agreed to help Al-Zayat get a visa to enter the United States and a legislative exemption to laws barring the sale of U.S.-made airplanes and parts to a foreign country.
Regarding Abramoff, Ney acknowledged accepting all-expense-paid and reduced-price trips to play golf in Scotland in August 2002, to gamble and vacation in New Orleans in May 2003 and to vacation in New York in August 2003. The total cost of all the trips — in which others, including some aides, participated — exceeded $170,000, prosecutors said. The congressman also admitted accepting meals and sports and concert tickets for himself and his staff.
Ney admits guilt in lobby scandal
16 September, 2006 Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio admitted Friday that he had effectively put his office up for sale to corrupt Washington lobbyists and a foreign businessman in exchange for illegal gifts that included lavish overseas trips, the use of skyboxes at sports arenas in the Washington area and thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from London casinos.
In a plea agreement announced by the Justice Department, Ney, a six-term Republican who once seemed poised to rise far in the House leadership, admitted to a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy and to making false statements about the gifts.
With the agreement, Ney became the first member of Congress to acknowledge criminal acts in the investigation of the former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an inquiry that threatens to ensnare other Republican lawmakers and dim the party's hopes in the November elections.
Although Ney could face up to 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors said they would recommend a 27-month sentence for the lawmaker, who announced last month that he was abandoning his campaign for another term. He could also face up to $500,000 in fines.
Abramoff, once a leading fundraiser for the Republican Party, pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to corrupt public officials, including Ney.
In a statement released by his lawyers, Ney, 52, suggested that his criminal acts had been related to alcoholism.
"I have come to recognize that a dependence on alcohol has been a problem for me," said Ney, who friends say entered an alcohol-treatment facility this week. "I am not making any excuses, and I take full responsibility for my actions."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/285351_lobby16.html
Rep. Ney faces more than 2 years in prison
16 September, 2006 Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who has been at the center of an ongoing Justice Department investigation of former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, could face up to 27 months in federal prison after agreeing to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statements.
In the plea deal announced Friday, Ney admitted to influencing legislation on behalf of Abramoff clients in exchange for meals, campaign contributions, tickets and trips, including the now infamous golf trip to Scotland in 2002.
The Ohio Republican will appear before a federal judge on Oct. 13 for sentencing. The combined charges usually result in a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and a $500,000 fine, but federal prosecutors have agreed to recommend the 27-month sentence.
http://hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/091406/ney2.html
Effect of Ney's guilt could weigh heavily
16 September, 2006 WASHINGTON – Rep. Bob Ney's admission of guilt comes at a terrible time for Republicans, both in Ohio and nationally.
For the first time in months, GOP strategists had been enjoying a spate of good news and were starting to believe that the upcoming congressional elections may not be the disaster they were all dreading. But now, Ney bursts back into the news with sordid tales of taking thousands of dollars in poker chips from a Syrian businessman while accepting untold free trips, fancy meals and golf junkets from corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Just when they need it most, Democrats – courtesy of Ney – have been given a great opportunity to change the subject from national security back to Republican corruption.
Rep. Bob Ney Will Not Seek Reelection
07 August, 2006 Rep. Robert W. Ney, the six-term Republican congressman from central Ohio implicated in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, announced this morning that that he will not seek re-election.
"After much consideration and thought I have decided today to no longer seek re-election in Ohio's 18th Congressional District," Ney said in a statement posted on his campaign Website. "I am extremely proud of my 25 years serving the people of Ohio. We've accomplished many things to make this state better and I will always be grateful for the trust my constituents put in me.
Ney has been identified as the accused but so far unindicted "Congressman A" in Abramoff's plea agreement. He has denied wrongdoing.
Ney has been under investigation by federal authorities in Florida and the District for actions that helped Abramoff and two partners buy a Fort Lauderdale-based casino cruise line. The deal that Ney promoted in the Congressional Record hinged on the Abramoff group's creation of a counterfeit $23 million wire transfer.
A Ney senior aide, who left Congress to join Jack Abramoff's lobbying team, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corruptly influence Ney's official actions by showering him with gifts and trips.
Neil G. Volz, 35, a Ney confidant who spent seven years on the congressman's staff, joined Abramoff and three of his other former associates in agreeing to cooperate with the government and testify against Ney in the unfolding public corruption scandal on Capitol Hill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR2006080700078.html
Guilty plea sharpens focus on Ney
09, May, 2006 A former top aide to Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy yesterday for his efforts to influence public officials to benefit clients of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The development brings the lawmaker a step closer to being engulfed in the widening scandal.
Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ney, admitted to defrauding the public of the “honest services” of public officials by corruptly accepting and offering things of value in return for official actions, according to court documents. He also admitted to violating the one-year lobbying ban for former congressional staffers.
Volz served as communications director and chief of staff to Ney for more than seven years and so far is the closest person to Ney to make a plea deal with prosecutors. Two other former Abramoff associates, Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy, along with Abramoff made plea agreements in the same government investigation last fall and earlier this year.
As in previous plea agreements, Ney is mentioned only as “Representative #1,” but the actions described have long been tied to the lawmaker. While Volz was working with Abramoff at law firm Greenberg Traurig, he, Abramoff and others offered Ney an all-expenses-paid trip to Scotland, frequent meals at Abramoff’s restaurants and tickets to events at Abramoff’s skyboxes in return for Ney’s taking actions that would benefit Abramoff’s clients.
“The purpose of the conspiracy was for [Volz] and his co-conspirators to unjustly enrich themselves by corruptly receiving, while public officials, and providing, while lobbyists, a stream of things of value with the intent to influence and reward official acts and attempting to influence Members of Congress in violation of the law,” the document said.
http://hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/050906/news3.html
Senate Questions Nonprofits' Tax Status
October 12,2006 WASHINGTON -- Five nonprofit groups, including one of President Bush's biggest supporters, may have broken tax laws and put their tax-exempt status at risk by helping convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Senate Finance Committee report concludes.
The 600-page report issued Thursday was prepared by the committee's Democratic staff. Majority Republicans, however, had agreed to its release and joined with Democrats in issuing subpoenas for documents and e-mails cited in the report.
Among the groups named as possibly taking money from Abramoff clients and funneling it into his lobbying efforts on their behalf were Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.
Tax-exempt groups are barred by law from being paid to lobby or do public relations.
Americans for Tax Reform is headed by Grover Norquist, a key ally of Bush and a longtime associate of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser.
The report said Norquist's group accepted $1.5 million from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, one of Abramoff's clients. More than two-thirds of that money was then passed to Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed as part of Abramoff's lobbying efforts to block a rival tribe's proposed casino in Alabama.
Nell Rogers, a planner for the Choctaws, told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that the arrangement was never intended as a contribution to support ATR's general anti-tax work. She quoted Abramoff as saying Norquist's had instead agreed to be a conduit for getting money to Reed, provided that ATR got a fee.
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the Senate Finance Committee's senior Democrat, said his staff turned up evidence showing the groups "may have improved a lobbyist's power and profits" by unlawfully exploiting their tax-exempt status, possibly even lobbying the White House.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to tax evasion and wire fraud. While awaiting sentencing, he is cooperating in a federal bribery investigation that has resulted in convictions against a congressman and the administration's top procurement officer.
Norquist's group and a second organization cited in the report denied any wrongdoing. They also questioned the timing of the report's release so close to Nov. 7 elections in which Republicans are trying to return their control of Congress.
"This is political nonsense put out by the Democrats in an inappropriate attempt to influence the election," said John Kartch, communications director for Americans for Tax Reform.
David Williams, a vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said it was "kind of suspicious that three weeks before an election, this comes out." The group named Baucus its monthly "porker" in October 2004 for adding drought relief to a domestic security bill.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061013/ap_on_go_co/abramoff_nonprofits_2
http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2005press/prb101206.pdf
Abramoff's use and misuse of nonprofits
There was the time he laundered money through a religious group's accounts to try to bribe a congressional aide. He diverted funds from a youth athletic foundation to bankroll a golf junket for a congressman and to bolster the bank account of his Washington restaurant. He used two other nonprofits to line his own pockets with millions of dollars defrauded from clients.
Charities are supposed to advance the public interest, which is why they aren't taxed. But Abramoff, by his own admission, used them to evade taxes, enrich himself and bribe public officials, according to a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in January.
"One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence," said Mark Everson, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
Sen. Conrad Burns
Jack Bolender, a retiree who voted for three-term Sen. Conrad Burns because the Republican delivered mounds of federal aid to Montana, said he was deserting the incumbent in the state's November election. Allegations that Burns was cozy with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist central to a wide-ranging corruption scandal in Washington, have Bolender steamed.
"I appreciate what [Burns] brought to the state, but at what cost?" Bolender said one cold afternoon outside Murdoch's. "We seem to be selling out to the special interests."
Voters such as Bolender are at the center of a political storm that threatens to roil this year's midterm elections. Democrats are trying to use the Abramoff scandal to tarnish Republicans. And there are few places where the effort is more intense than in Montana.
J. Steven Griles
Mr. Griles is waging a vigorous effort to avoid being charged in the Abramoff investigation. He has offered to meet with prosecutors, though so far they have declined. In emails that surfaced in a Senate inquiry, Mr. Abramoff referred to Mr. Griles as his "man" in the department that oversees Native American issues. Another Interior Department official last year told the Indian Affairs Committee that Mr. Griles showed unusual interest in such issues while serving as the department's chief of staff.
Barry M. Hartman is Mr. Griles's attorney.
David Safavian
Messrs. Abramoff and Rove shared a connection to Mr. Safavian. Mr. Safavian lobbied alongside Mr. Abramoff before applying for a job with the General Services Administration. On his GSA job application, Mr. Safavian listed Mr. Rove as a reference who could confirm he brought a group of Arab-Americans to a Bush 2000 outreach program in Austin, Texas.
Prosecutors have accused Mr. Safavian of giving Mr. Abramoff inside information from the GSA at a time when the lobbyist was seeking government leases for a client. They have also accused him of misleading ethics officers and investigators by saying Mr. Abramoff wasn't doing business with the GSA when the two men went to Scotland on a 2002 golfing trip.
Barbara Van Gelder is Mr. Safavian's attorney.
Ex-procurement chief gets 18 months in prison
October 27, 2006 Former federal procurement chief David Safavian was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison for lying and obstructing investigations into his dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Safavian was convicted in June on four of five charges of lying to General Services Administration and Senate officials about his interactions with Abramoff while serving as the chief of staff at GSA, and obstructing a GSA inspector general investigation.
The 18-month sentence fell halfway between the defense's recommendation that he serve between zero and 12 months, and a Justice Department recommendation for 30 to 37 months. D.C. District Judge Paul Friedman also declined to impose a fine along with prison time, based on a pre-sentencing report that found Safavian's finances ruined by legal fees.
"I think since Mr. Safavian is going to serve some time in prison, to impose a fine is punishing Mrs. Safavian and perhaps other relatives," Friedman said.
The sentencing was complicated by questions of what guidelines should apply to each of the counts and potential adjustments to the term. Peter Zeidenberg, the lead prosecuting attorney, argued that the sentence should be extended because Safavian perjured himself while testifying during his trial. Defense attorney Barbara Van Gelder argued that the sentence should be shortened because her client accepted responsibility for his actions.
Friedman rejected the government's argument for a longer sentence. He conceded that "it was hard to believe some of what Mr. Safavian said" during the trial, such as his statement that he had not stopped to question the inordinately low costs that Abramoff quoted to him for a lavish trip to play golf in Scotland. But Friedman said there was gray area in the subjectivity of testimony centering on what Safavian believed, which separated the case from ones in which defendants had clearly lied about basic, objective facts of the case.
Friedman also rejected Van Gelder's argument for a lighter sentence, saying Safavian showed no sign of accepting responsibility for his crimes.
"My words cannot express how sorry I am for the actions at trial here," Safavian told the judge in an appeal for leniency. "I now see that there were appearance [of conflict of interest] issues with some of those actions...I brought notoriety to a good agency, and that makes me sad."
But Friedman said Safavian's statement, his trial testimony and his defense lawyer's briefings all reflected that he continued to consider his conduct itself innocent, viewing the problem as one of others' interpretation of his actions.
Friedman showed the most sympathy at the many appeals made by Safavian's friends and family, and he condemned attacks on Safavian's wife, Jennifer, who works as an aide to Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
The judge said he read each of the 50 to 60 letters submitted as character references by Safavian's friends, former colleagues, former subordinates, a fellow police department volunteer, and his grandmother, among others, and he found the universally positive accounts compelling. Safavian's sister also stood before the judge to plead for leniency on her brother's behalf; he cried as she said the convictions did not reflect who her brother really was.
But Friedman ultimately concluded that despite the many accounts of Safavian's upstanding morals, the facts did not merit a lighter sentence. "Mr. Safavian wasn't duped, he isn't naïve, he's smart," Friedman said during a lengthy discussion of his reasoning. "Did he believe in public service? I guess he did. But he also talked about one day wanting to join Mr. Abramoff -- join that lucrative lobbying business."
Linking Safavian's case to the corruption cases that have recently swamped Washington, Friedman said the city has become increasingly corrupt over the years.
"There was a time when people came to Washington asking not what they could do for themselves and their friends, but what they could do for the public," he said.
Safavian plans to request assignment to a prison in Cumberland, Maryland. He also intends to appeal his conviction, and his lawyer said she will argue that he be allowed to remain free on bond until the appeal is decided.
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35367&dcn=todaysnews
E-Mail Said to Link Abramoff, Safavian
A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060415/ap_on_go_ot/lobbyist_probe
One message from Abramoff, sent July 23, 2002, asks Safavian, "golf Friday? golf Sunday? golf Monday? golf, golf, golf!!"
At the same time, Abramoff is peppering Safavian with questions and requests for his help on a variety of projects, including obtaining parcels of federal land that were managed by GSA for Abramoff's charitable groups.
"The e-mails demonstrate that Mr. Safavian's relationship with Mr. Abramoff was highly inappropriate," prosecutors wrote in a court filing accompanying the e-mails.
3 more lawmakers tied to Abramoff
Three members of Congress have been linked to efforts by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a former General Services Administration official to secure leases of government property for Abramoff's clients, according to court filings by federal prosecutors on Friday.
The filings in U.S. District Court do not allege any wrongdoing by the elected officials but list them in documents portraying David Safavian, a former GSA chief of staff, as an active adviser to Abramoff, giving the lobbyist tips on how to use members of Congress to navigate the agency's bureaucracy.
Safavian is charged with lying to a GSA ethics officer when he said Abramoff was not seeking business with the agency at the time the lobbyist paid for Safavian and several others to go on a golf outing to Scotland in August 2002.
At the time of the trip, prosecutors said, Abramoff was trying to get GSA approval for leases of the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington for an Indian tribe to develop and for federal property in Silver Spring, Md., for use by a Jewish school.
Two of the elected officials referred to in Friday's filings have been identified in published reports as Reps. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, and Don Young, R-Alaska. According to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, the two representatives wrote to the GSA in September 2002, urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals for the Old Post Office.
Friday's filings by prosecutors refer to a third member of Congress, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Her name appears in e-mails that suggest she was trying to help Abramoff secure a GSA lease for land in Silver Spring for a religious school.
3 more lawmakers tied to Abramoff
House of Representatives
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
Investigators Say Speaker’s Aide Hindered Inquiry of Hill Security Contracts
October 27, 2006 Two former House committee investigators who were examining Capitol Hill security upgrades said a senior aide to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert hindered their efforts before they were abruptly ordered to stop their probe last year.
The former Appropriations Committee investigators said Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert’s chief counsel, resisted from the start the inquiry, which began with concerns about mismanagement of a secret security office and later probed allegations of bid-rigging and kickbacks from contractors to a Defense Department employee.
Ronald Garant and a second Appropriations Committee investigator who asked not to be identified said Van Der Meid engaged in “screaming matches” with investigators and told at least one aide not to talk to them. Van Der Meid also prohibited investigators from visiting certain sites to check up on the effectiveness of the work, the investigators said.
Van Der Meid oversaw Capitol security upgrades for Hastert, R-Ill., and worked closely with the office that was charged with implementing them, the investigators said.
K. Lee Blalack, a lawyer for Van Der Meid, said Friday that neither he nor Van Der Meid would comment on the matter.
John Scofield, a spokesman for the Appropriations Committee, said the former investigators were taken off of the investigation, but denied that it was terminated.
“Nothing has been closed down on this study,” Scofield said. “It is a pending study.”
Scofield said it was a case of “sour grapes” because the investigators’ contracts were not renewed. He also said the case was assigned to more senior staff, whom he declined to identify.
The inquiry began in late 2003 or early 2004 and was authorized by former Appropriations Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., and the panel’s top Democrat, David R. Obey of Wisconsin. The probe focused on the office entrusted with ensuring continuity of Congress in the event of a terrorist or other attack. That office had grown from a sleepy Cold War relic to one that was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on numerous security upgrades on and off Capitol Hill in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes and anthrax attacks the following month.
The investigation was carried out by members of the Appropriations panel’s Surveys and Investigations team, which looks into charges of waste and abuse.
Robert Pearre, the team’s director, ordered the investigators to stop their work on the security contracts in the fall of 2005. Before that, the investigators said they were looking into allegations that security contractors had showered a Defense Department employee with kickbacks in the form of Redskins tickets, golf outings, a set of golf clubs and meals. The allegations of kickbacks did not implicate congressional aides.
The investigators also said they were looking into concerns expressed by contractors that some of the security upgrades would fail to work in the event of a terrorist attack.
The office in charge of the upgrades was funded through the Defense Department and overseen by the Capitol Police Board, but the Speaker’s office took a lead role because of Hastert’s status as third in line to the presidency, the investigators said.
According to the investigators, Van Der Meid sought to stop their investigation shortly after it began.
“We got called into his office,” said Garant, who served previously in the Defense Department’s Comptroller’s Office before becoming an investigator for the Appropriations Committee. Van Der Meid shouted at them, Garant said: “What the [expletive] are you looking at this for? . . . He wanted to shut the operation down right then and there.”
According to the investigators, Van Der Meid was reluctantly persuaded to allow the inquiry into the security upgrades to go forward but continually hindered the investigators’ work.
“They had resisted all along,” the other investigator said about the Speaker’s office. Nonetheless the investigator said he was “stunned” when the inquiry was shelved about a year ago. Pearre, a former FBI agent, had strongly backed the inquiry until shortly before he ordered them to stop their work on it.
The order was “get out of there by sundown,” Garant said, referring to the secure offices they had used for the probe because of its sensitive nature.
Garant said the investigators believed that the Speaker’s office had successfully pressured appropriators to stop their inquiry. “From our perspective it was obvious. . . . The only people who would give a [expletive] was the Speaker’s office because this was an organization very close to them.”
Scofield said that neither Van Der Meid nor the Speaker’s office had ordered that the investigation be shut down.
Rob Nabors, the committee Democratic staff director, declined through a spokeswoman to comment for this story.
Lisa C. Miller, a spokeswoman for Hastert’s office, would not comment directly on Van Der Meid’s role in the investigation. “What I can tell you is what John Scofield has told you is what I know to be true,” she said. “Beyond that, everything else is highly classified.”
The investigation was launched under Young, who had a rocky relationship with House leaders, after the secret continuity office failed to spend more than $100 million before the appropriations expired, prompting an urgent and tardy request to have the money re-appropriated just as another Defense spending bill was being finalized.
The committee and its staff had to scramble to find room in the budget, and launched its investigation of the office.
Young said he does not recall the details surrounding the start of the inquiry.
The former Appropriations chairman said that after the Sept. 11 attacks his panel initially oversaw improvements to the Capitol Hill campus, including protective coatings that were added to windows to reduce the potential damage from a truck bomb. At some point, oversight of upgrades was taken over by House leadership, Young said.
“We were in effect put out of the process by the leadership office,” Young said. “The last two years of my chairmanship they basically cut me out of the loop.”
By the time the investigators said they were ordered to drop their work, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., had taken over as Appropriations chairman amid expectations by House GOP leaders that he would be more of a team player than Young.
Unsuccessful bidders were the source of some, but not all, of the allegations of problems with the security contracts.
One would-be vendor complained that bid requests drawn up by the Army Corps of Engineers were drafted in such a way that only one contractor would be eligible for the work, Garant said.
“You don’t know how much of it was sour grapes and how much of it was real, but there was enough of it that you started to think there was something here,” Garant said.
Investigators said that in addition to allegations of bid-rigging and kickbacks, they were looking into allegations that some security upgrades would fail to work.
“The word was that what they were trying to do was physically or technically impossible to do but that they were spending a heck of a lot of money trying to do it,” said Garant.
The other investigator said he was told that “people are going to die” because the upgrades would fail to do the job.
“That whole organization was very, very secret and very few people even knew that it existed, but it was a great dispenser of money,” said Garant, who was dismissed in March from his position as a contract investigator.
The Appropriations Committee’s investigation team, formed in 1943, has been in turmoil for several years. The upheaval culminated last week in Chairman Lewis’ decision to dismiss all 60 remaining contractors on the investigative staff, which included many retired investigators from the FBI, CIA and other government agencies. A permanent staff of 16 remains.
Scofield said last week that the contractors’ dismissals were part of a “bipartisan review” of the staff, and said the staff’s work recently “has not been that good.”
Committee Democrats have not commented on the dismissals.
http://www.cq.com/public/20061027-spending.html
Dem says GOP's port bill tactics hurt bipartisan relations
The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee says bipartisan relations on his panel have been damaged from the experience of pushing through a port security bill during last month's rush to recess for the fall elections.
House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told CongressDaily "there's no question" that the process of finishing the bill strained bipartisan relationships on the committee, mainly because Democrats were not allowed to offer amendments during final conference negotiations.
Thompson's comments come about two weeks before the elections, in which Democrats across the country are fighting high-stakes battles with Republicans to win control of the House, with both sides using the issue of homeland security in their campaigns.
Thompson faulted Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., for not allowing Democrats to offer amendments. King told Democrats when conference negotiations began that it was his intention to allow them to offer amendments. But no follow-up meeting was ever held.
Thompson said he feels that King lied to him. "When a person tells you to your face that you will have an opportunity to offer an amendment and then just absolutely ignores his word, that damages all the good will that has gone before in the committee," Thompson said. "Most of us come to conference with only our word, and when you violate your word to another member that damages relationships."
When asked for a response, a spokesman for King said only, "These comments don't warrant a response."
Democrats intended to offer amendments to the bill that would have boosted funding for rail and transit security and lifted the cap on the number of passenger and baggage screeners that the Transportation Security Administration can employ.
"All Chairman King had to do was give us an opportunity to present our amendments, and if we lost, then so be it," Thompson said.
Republican leaders convened one formal House-Senate conference meeting that allowed full Democratic participation, but the text of the pending port security conference agreement was not available. So, lawmakers gave their opening statements but were not allowed to offer amendments.
But the next day Republican conferees, at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., attached a bill to stop banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to the $12 billion online gambling industry. The online gambling measure was a legislative priority of the Family Research Council and other conservative Christian groups who play a critical role in the GOP presidential nominating process.
Though angered by this last-minute maneuver, Democrats ultimately voted overwhelmingly to approve the port security bill, saying it was too important to oppose. The bill was signed into law earlier this month.
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35325&dcn=todaysnews
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter
Specter: FBI investigating senate aide
October 12, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter has acknowledged the FBI is looking into allegations that one of his aides illegally helped her lobbyist husband get federal dollars for his clients.
The Republican lawmaker on Wednesday provided The Associated Press a copy of a letter sent by the FBI in August to his office that said staff member Vicki Siegel Herson is under investigation in connection with allegations reported earlier this year.
USA Today first reported in February that Specter helped direct $48.7 million in Pentagon spending over the past five years to clients of the staff member's lobbyist husband, Michael Herson. Specter has said the institutions that ultimately got the money were represented by people not associated with Herson. He added that he was never lobbied by Herson or his firm.
Siegel Herson was Specter's legislative assistant for appropriations at the time.
Specter said the FBI asked for and received the findings of an internal investigation of the matter conducted by his former chief of staff.
Specter, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has denied violating any Senate ethics rules.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_BRF_Specter_Lobbyist.html
Specter Says Staffer Didn't Steer Funds To Husband
February 17, 2006 Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) yesterday denied a published report that suggested that one of his staffers may have helped her lobbyist husband get federal appropriations for his company's clients.
Responding to a story in USA Today, Specter conducted a telephone news conference to defend the actions of his office and of his former appropriations aide, Vicki Siegel Herson. He added, however, that his chief of staff would ask further questions about the situation and that he would refer the issue to the Senate ethics committee.
The newspaper reported that Specter claimed credit for securing 13 narrowly focused allocations, called earmarks, worth $48.7 million over the past four years for six clients represented by Michael Herson and the firm he co-founded, American Defense International.
Herson's wife, Vicki Siegel Herson, had been an appropriations aide to Specter, but six months ago took a one-day-a-week job in Specter's office dealing with issues related to Israel.
The senator said the appropriations went to Pennsylvania institutions, including $11 million for bioterrorism research at Philadelphia's Drexel University. He added that neither Herson nor his firm had lobbied his office, but rather that other firms had done the lobbying. In addition, he said that as far as he knew, Vicki Siegel Herson had not been involved in recommending that the senator push for the earmarks.
In addition, Specter said he was not lobbied personally by Herson. "I don't know that I would recognize him if he was in a crowded room," Specter said.
But given the controversy now swirling on Capitol Hill over earmarked appropriations, Specter said he intended to ask more questions. He said he is making an inquiry to see what information his staff had on the appropriations, what the competitive factors were and why the recommendations were made.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021602043.html
Sex
Congresswoman on page board buried file on husband's child abuse allegation
A file allegedly suppressed by Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) has been obtained by RAW STORY.
In 1995, just three days into her tenure as Secretary of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, Wilson removed a routine working file alleging that her husband had engaged in inappropriate contact with a minor. The file was then transferred to the department's attorney in her own Albuquerque office, where it soon went missing.
At the time, a local investigative news team learned about the swap, but could not confirm certain details of the file. They were not able to recover the document itself.
More than ten years later, RAW STORY has uncovered and confirmed the authenticity of the police incident report believed to be contained in the missing dossier. Filed as a case of child abuse in 1993, it contends that Wilson's husband Jay Hone, an Albuquerque attorney, touched a then-16 year old boy "in a manner that was not welcome."
Charges were never filed against her husband, but Wilson's handling of the affair drew the ire of Bob Schwartz who at the time served as district attorney in Bernalillo County. He described Wilson's actions to the news team as "absolutely inappropriate," citing her "obvious conflict of interest." He also admonished Wilson for not following official procedure for the removal of official documents. "If this file is behind Secretary Wilson's desk," Schwartz said, "then she shouldn't be behind this desk anymore. She should resign."
Wilson originally denied to the news team that she had removed the file. Footage from that investigation was available on the internet site YouTube as recently as several days ago, but has since been removed by the site over concerns regarding copyright infringment.
In that video, also uncovered by RAW STORY, Wilson flatly denies ordering the removal of the document. The Congresswoman ultimately admitted to doing so in a press conference just days later.
Six years after the incident, in 2001, Wilson began a three year term on the House Page Board, where she sat while rumors of Mark Foley's inappropriate behavior with underage men were reportedly widespread. Her campaign staff told the Albuquerque Tribune that she only became aware of the Congressman's behavior after an ABC news report on the matter prompted him to resign.
Wilson also currently serves on the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's caucus.
RAW STORY spoke with members of Wilson's legislative and campaign staffs, but neither office was able to provide comment before press time.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Congresswoman_on_page_board_buried_file_1019.html
Bush campaigns for Pennsylvania congressman enmeshed in sex scandal
Don Sherwood, (R-Pa) in 2001 courtesy of the Congressman's office
October 19, 2006 LA PLUME, Pa. - He said she was "a casual acquaintance." She said they were extra-marital lovers, but told police that he tried to choke her. His wife says she forgives him. So does President Bush.
In fact, Bush traveled to northeastern Pennsylvania Thursday to help the wayward husband, Republican Rep. Don Sherwood, keep his seat in Congress. Perhaps it's a measure of the Republicans' plight that the president would throw his prestige behind a candidate whose marital misbehavior conjures memories of Bill Clinton.
Sherwood's five-year fling with a woman half his age has all the elements of a bad soap opera, but voter reaction to his performance could help decide whether Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives. Polls show Sherwood trailing Democratic challenger Chris Carney in a district that had been considered a lock for the GOP.
"It looks like he's in pretty serious trouble," said Jonathan Williamson, chairman of the political science department at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa. "If they didn't need the seat so much, the national Republicans would cut Sherwood loose. This may be one of the firewalls - they have to have this one, even though they're not all that thrilled with their guy."
Bush gave Sherwood his wholehearted endorsement as he helped the candidate raise more than $300,000 at a fundraiser at Keystone College. The president addressed Sherwood's adultery head-on by praising the candidate's wife, Carol, for standing by him.
In a letter to voters last weekend, Carol Sherwood accused Carney of exploiting her family's trauma by casting the congressional election as a referendum on moral values.
"Chris Carney might be trying to make himself look squeaky clean, but we have all made mistakes we regret over the years," she wrote. "I am certainly not condoning the mistake Don made, but I'm not going to dwell on it, either."
Bush said he was "deeply moved" by her comments.
"Carol's letter shows what a caring and courageous woman she is," he said as the Sherwoods and one of the couple's three daughters looked on.
The congressman's marital misdeeds have become a frequent topic of discussion in his conservative, rural district, where the mountains are now covered with trees in shades of yellow, orange and red. Sherwood's problems started in September 2004, when Cynthia Ore called police to the congressman's Capitol Hill apartment claiming that he'd choked her for no apparent reason.
She was 29 at the time; he was 63.
Sherwood was never charged, and the matter attracted little attention until the following spring, when Ore threatened legal action and provided details of a relationship that Sherwood had initially denied. The two met in 1999 at a gathering for young Republicans.
"We had such good chemistry," Ore told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. "I saw Don as a small-town all-American. He has that pink, rosy skin. When I first met him, he had those big glasses."
Sherwood, a wealthy car dealer, settled Ore's $5.5 million civil suit for an undisclosed sum, but his indiscretion continues to haunt him. Carney's efforts to exploit the scandal and the furor over former Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit Internet messages to congressional pages have added fuel to the issue.
Sherwood has all but pleaded for voters to forgive him.
"I made a mistake that nearly cost me the love of my wife, Carol, and our daughters. As a family, we've worked through this," he said in one of his television ads. "Should you forgive me, you can count on me to continue to fight for you and your family."
But some Republicans aren't ready to forget or forgive. Former Sherwood supporter Joseph Lech of Tunkhannock, Pa., Sherwood's hometown, vented his anger in an ad for Carney.
"This incident with Don Sherwood just cuts right at the core values of our district. I've spoken to my daughter about that incident, and she's disgusted by it," Lech says in the ad. "I love my daughter tremendously. How can I tell her that I support Don Sherwood and feel good about myself?"
Carney's efforts to benefit from his opponent's failings mirror Bush's references to Clinton's infidelity during the 2000 presidential campaign. Bush presented himself as a morally upright alternative to the outgoing president by repeatedly assuring voters that he would "uphold the dignity of the office."
Sherwood admittedly fell short of Bush's pledge, but White House spokesman Tony Snow noted the congressman's contrition in explaining the president's decision to campaign for him.
"Mr. Sherwood has certainly admitted to what has gone on, and the president believes that we're all sinners, we all seek forgiveness," Snow said last week.
Pressed on the issue again Thursday, Snow seemed eager to change the topic. He defended the president's visit, then said: "I'm not going to go any further."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15800056.htm
The Redder They Are, The Harder They Fall
Republicans More Damaged by Scandals
October 03, 2006 Sex scandals involving politicians are as old as Thomas Jefferson, but the outcome seems to depend on which party you represent. In recent years, for the most part, Democrats have been able to survive their sordid escapades while Republicans have paid with their political lives.
The latest example: Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, who abruptly became an ex-congressman from Florida last week amid revelations that he had sent sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys who were serving as House pages.
Foley's creepy behavior might have done him in even if he'd been the most liberal of Democrats. But that's not assured. With a Republican at the center of the seamy scandal, however, it was almost a slam-dunk that Foley would have to quit.
That's how it usually turns out for members of the conservative, traditional-family-values party. Just ask Bob Livingston, Jack Ryan, Bob Packwood, Dan Crane or others in the GOP who've watched their careers go pffft! with salacious disclosures. Or ask Bill Clinton, Gerry Studds, Barney Frank and other Democrats who've withstood embarrassing revelations to govern another day.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100201302.html
List of political sex scandals
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=display&tsn=15&tid=21102&webtag=ab-usconservatv
Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.)
Lawmaker Saw Foley Messages In 2000=
Page Notified GOP Rep. Kolbe
October 09, 2006 A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) confirmed yesterday that a former page showed the congressman Internet messages that had made the youth feel uncomfortable with the direction Foley (R-Fla.) was taking their e-mail relationship. Last week, when the Foley matter erupted, a Kolbe staff member suggested to the former page that he take the matter to the clerk of the House, Karen Haas, said Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline.
The revelation pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress has acknowledged learning of Foley's behavior with former pages. A timeline issued by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) suggested that the first lawmakers to know, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chairman of the House Page Board, and Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), became aware of "over-friendly" e-mails only last fall. It also expands the universe of players in the drama beyond members, either in leadership or on the page board.
A source with direct knowledge of Kolbe's involvement said the messages shared with Kolbe were sexually explicit, and he read the contents to The Washington Post under the condition that they not be reprinted. But Cline denied the source's characterization, saying only that the messages had made the former page feel uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she said, "corrective action" was taken. Cline said she has not yet determined whether that action went beyond Kolbe's confrontation with Foley.
In interviews with The Post last week, multiple pages identified Kolbe as a close friend and personal confidante who was one of the only members of Congress to take any interest in them. A former page himself, Kolbe offered to mentor pages and kept in touch with some of them after they left the program, according to the interviews.
Kolbe once invited four former pages to make use of his Washington home while he was out of town, according to an instant message between Foley and another former page, Jordan Edmund, in January 2002. The pages planned to attend a first-year reunion of their page class. But because of a snowstorm, they did not take Kolbe up on his offer, according to one of the four pages.
Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, is retiring at the end of the year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800855.html
Mark Foley claims being molested as teen
Roth, who spoke for Foley while the congressman is in rehab for alcohol abuse and mental illness, said Foley denied having inappropriate sexual contact with minors and said he was under the influence of alcohol when he wrote the notes.
The lurid communications were first reported last week by ABC News, which released more instant messages Tuesday that indicate Foley allegedly interrupted a vote on the House floor to chat online with a teen.
"I miss you," Foley said in one message, according to ABC.
"ya me too," the teen replied.
"we are still voting," Foley responded.
Roth said Foley was never under the influence of alcohol while conducting business on Capitol Hill. He could not explain his previous comments that Foley was intoxicated at the time he sent all the messages.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1153AP_Congressman_E_Mails.html
Foley Saga No Shock to Some
The Florida Republican was known to have an interest in younger men, Capitol Hill workers say.
October 03, 2006 WASHINGTON — Years before sexually explicit electronic messages sent by Rep. Mark Foley to teenage House pages became public last week, some on Capitol Hill say, the Florida Republican was known to have a special interest in younger men.
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, several current and former congressional employees and others said they recalled Foley approaching young male pages, aides and interns at parties and other venues.
"Almost the first day I got there I was warned," said Mark Beck-Heyman, a San Diego native who served as a page in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1995. "It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages," said Beck-Heyman, adding that Foley, who is now 52, on several occasions asked him out for ice cream.
Another former congressional staff member said he too had been the object of Foley's advances. "It was so well known around the House. Pages passed it along from class to class," said the former aide, adding that when he was 18 a few years ago and working as an intern, Foley approached him at a bar near the Capitol and asked for his e-mail address.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-foley3oct03,0,7011268.story?track=mostviewed-homepage
Foley's Exchange With Underage Page
e-mail http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Congressman_accused_of_sending_sick_emails_0928.html
im http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/story?id=2509586&page=1
Hastert's staff first knew of Foley emails in 2005
October 01, 2006 House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) staff was first informed of Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) unusual email exchange with a 16-year old page in the fall of 2005, according to a timeline released by the Speaker’s office Saturday afternoon.
Hastert’s chief of staff Scott Palmer and outside counsel Randy Evans initiated an internal investigation Friday shortly after Foley announced his resignation. The timeline is based on their preliminary report, according to the release.
The release of the timeline comes on the heels of a statement by National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) on Saturday that the campaign chief first told the Speaker about the email exchange earlier this year, shortly after the race to succeed former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
The Speaker’s office does not dispute that conversation in its own release.
"While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds’ recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution," states the release.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) learned of some "contact" this spring between Foley and the page. The paper quoted Boehner as saying he told Hastert and that the Speaker assured him "we’re taking care of it."
http://hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/092806/foley2.html
Amid growing scandal, Rep. Foley resigns
September 29, 2006 Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) announced Friday that he has resigned from Congress amid allegations that he exchanged sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages with a former 16-year-old page.
"Today I have delivered a letter to the Speaker of the House informing him of my decision to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives, effective today," Foley said in a statement issued by his congressional office. "I thank the people of Florida's 16th Congressional District for giving me the opportunity to serve them for the last twelve years; it has been an honor. I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."
Foley, who served on the Ways and Means Committee, also chaired the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. Earlier this year, he sponsored legislation overhauling sex offender and notification laws that passed Congress and was signed into law.
http://hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/092806/foley.html
ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former teenage male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"
In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? … Well, strip down and get naked."
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2510058&page=2
The first e-mail messages to one male page, sexually suggestive but not explicit, were reported by ABC News on Thursday. Mr. Foley, a member of the House Republican leadership, dismissed them as “overly friendly” but not inappropriate.
But by Friday, other pages had come forward with more blatant instant messages. “What ya wearing?” Mr. Foley wrote to one, according to the network. “Tshirt and shorts,” the teenager responded. “Love to slip them off of you,” Mr. Foley replied.
The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its second annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress.
California's `Big 6': Masters of the New Lobbying Game
Welcome to the new world of congressional committee chairs, their aides, friends and lobbyists.
It is a cozy world where personal relationships count for millions of dollars and a latter-day "Triangle Trade" has developed among powerful committee chieftains (who are expected to raise vast sums in campaign contributions), business and other interests (which seek favorable treatment), and lobbyists (who can make a fortune bringing the two parties together).
It is also a world dominated by a few California Republicans.
Despite the state's predilection for voting Democratic, six of its 20 Republican Congress members are chairmen of major committees. Their rise has brought millions of federal dollars and other benefits to parts of the state. Thomas snagged about $755 million for his district in last year's highway bill. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, tucked $4.25 million for his district into one recent spending bill — more than the individual allocations for 11 states.
Some congressional leaders, however, have grown so close to well-connected lobbyists and have been so aggressive in channeling tax dollars to favored interests that their activities have sparked scrutiny and calls for reform. One California chairman, Lewis, is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation.
The November elections will decide whether five of California's "Big Six" chairmen — Thomas is retiring at the end of the year — continue to hold their powerful positions. The others are: Lewis; Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) of Armed Services; Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) of Education and the Workforce; Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) of Rules; and Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) of Resources.
Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands
House ethics panel okays Shockey buyout
September 23, 2006 The House ethics committee has ruled that Jeffrey Shockey, the deputy chief of staff of the House Appropriations Committee, did not violate the law or House rules by accepting a $1.96 million severance package from his former employer, the lobbying firm Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton & White. But it also warned him to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
The firm has since broken up into two groups under the pressure of allegations that it had improper ties to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.). The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles is reportedly examining the relationship between Lewis and the firm, which specializes in winning federal spending earmarks for clients.
Shockey made headlines earlier this year when he revealed in a financial disclosure report the size of his compensation package he agreed to in January of 2005 as he was preparing to work on the Hill.
http://hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/092106/ethics.html
A close-knit circle of money, power. Contractor adds layer to Rep. Lewis' sphere
When defense contractor Nicholas Karangelen launched a political action committee directed by the stepdaughter of the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, he added another dimension to a tight circle of Capitol Hill relationships that is under federal investigation.
The relationships revolve around Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who leads the Appropriations Committee and has extraordinarily close ties to lobbyists Letitia White and Bill Lowery.
White worked for Lewis for 21 years before joining Lowery's lobbying firm in 2003. Lowery, a former San Diego congressman who sat on the Appropriations Committee, is one of Lewis' closest friends and his principal fundraiser. Companies that hire the two lobbyists, including Karangelen's Virginia-based Trident Systems Inc., follow a pattern that has become common Capitol Hill practice in recent years.
They make substantial investments in lobbying fees and campaign contributions to key legislators, then wait for their projects to be tucked into bills in line-items known as earmarks. Trident's projects involve software programs that Karangelen's engineers develop for military use.
In Karangelen's case, the contractor-lobbyist-legislator connection has taken on several more layers of financial ties and political connections.
White became Trident's lobbyist in February 2003, a month after she left Lewis' office, where she had helped Lewis shape the earmarking of the Pentagon's budget.
In April, $8.4 million in earmarks for a Trident project were inserted into an emergency spending bill to fund the war in Iraq. The project used digital maps and laptop computers to improve troops' ability to monitor changing battlefield conditions.
Just eight months later, Karangelen and White bought a $1 million Capitol Hill townhouse together. The house eventually became the address for a political action committee they launched to encourage congressional support for small businesses like Trident that seek Pentagon contracts.
They chose Lewis' stepdaughter, former Las Vegas wedding planner Julia Willis-Leon, to be director of the Small Biz Tech Pac. The PAC has paid Willis-Leon $42,000 of the $115,000 it has raised. Meanwhile, it has directed just $15,600 to political campaigns.
The PAC's biggest contributors have been Letitia White and her husband, who also lobbies on behalf of defense contractors. They contributed $15,000, while Karangelen kicked in $10,000, and other White clients added $11,500.
According to Trident's former chief financial officer, Karangelen has yet another financial tie with White: He has arranged to pay her a bonus based on the company's profitability. The former executive spoke on the condition that her name not be used, saying publicity would complicate her job search given the controversy swirling around the company.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060624/news_1n24cozy.html
FBI widens Lewis probe
Former defense contractor Tom Casey, who accused Rep. Jerry Lewis this week of trying to trade his influence for favors and stock options, is either a subject of the same federal investigation or should be, a former employee said Thursday. Meanwhile, the FBI has widened its probe of Lewis' ties to lobbyists Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White to include Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3916048
In San Diego, an engineer who used to work for Casey at Audre Recognition Systems Inc., said Casey violated campaign contribution law in his efforts 13 years ago to gain favor with Lewis and the House appropriations panel.
"If I was the federal government, I'd be investigating him," Dirk Holland said of Casey. "I worked with him six years. He used to encourage employees to make campaign contributions, and the company refunded them. That's illegal ...
"It was always suspicious why a small company like ours, 60 people at most, got so much attention from congressmen. (Randy "Duke") Cunningham, Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), Jerry Lewis, even Pete Wilson, the governor at the time. They all came to visit."
Casey also landed a $3 million contract through Hunter and General Dynamics that was unusually profitable, Holland said.
"He got the money, but he never delivered any software," Holland said. "There was never an investigation."
Holland worked with Casey in the 1990s when another defense contractor, Brent Wilkes, came to Audre Inc. Wilkes has ties to former Rep. Cunningham, R-San Diego, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in March after he pleaded guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes.
While federal investigators attempt to go quietly about their business in a criminal probe of D.C.-based California lawmakers and deep-pocket lobbyists, elected leaders and influence peddlers are still openly proclaiming mutual admiration for each other.
The 2006 executive committee for California State Society, a social organization that gives parties in the nation's capital, includes representatives for several lawmakers and lobbyists who have gained unwanted attention in recent months.
Among those maintaining a presence on the executive committee are:
- Lewis, whose ties to a lobbying firm are a focus of an investigation that grew out of the probe that eventually sent Cunningham to prison.
- Copeland Lowery, the influential K Street (Washington) lobbying firm, whose founder, Lowery, is close friends with Lewis.
- Calvert, whose finances are under investigation in the same federal probe examining ties between Lewis and Copeland Lowery.
- Platinum Advisors, a Sacramento lobbying firm contracted by San Bernardino County. Last year, an independent investigator found Platinum Advisors lobbyist Brett Granlund involved himself in negotiations for the county's $28 million purchase of a privately-owned jail facility. Granlund represented both the buyer of the jail -- the county -- and the seller of the jail -- Terry Moreland of Bakersfield.
Also on the society's executive committee are representatives for:
- Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, a leader of California's 53-member Republican delegation in Congress.
- Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, one of the Democratic Party's most outspoken critics of the Bush administration.
House Majority Leader John Boehner
A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff’s firm show.
Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.
Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said Tuesday that Boehner now does recall meeting Abramoff once, in “a brief, incidental conversation at a widely attended event that he estimates was about five years ago.”
In an e-mail to the AP, Seymour also said Boehner did not intentionally downplay Jackson’s role on his staff.
Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients, saying his own work on tribal issues justifies the contributions. He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff represented them.
Rep. William Jefferson
In January, former Jefferson aide Brett Pfeffer pleaded guilty to bribery-related charges, saying Jefferson demanded money in exchange for help in brokering two African telecommunications deals.
Vernon Jackson, chief executive of iGate Inc., a Louisville, Ky., telecommunications firm, subsequently pleaded guilty to bribery, admitting he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Jefferson and his family members in exchange for the congressman's help obtaining business deals in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.
The House Ethics Committee has opened an inquiry into the case.
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20060522v
Kenneth Starr
Alleged misconduct
Though his judicial reputation earned him popularity for three and a half years after his appointment[citation needed], particularly after his aggressive emphasis on confronting political corruption in Arkansas - culminating in the successful fraud prosecution of then-sitting Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and Clinton real estate investment partners James and Susan McDougal.
Starr was accused of doing the bidding of Richard Mellon Scaife, who had funded a position at Pepperdine University that Starr first accepted but later relinquished. (He now holds a different position at Pepperdine.) Rumors began spreading that members of Starr's staff were gay, and Doug Ireland alleged in The Nation that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal was spreading them.[7] Susan McDougal, in the book and film documentary The Hunting of the President, alleges that Starr's office pressured her to lie under oath in order to back up its allegations against Clinton.
Most importantly, the now-defunct monthly magazine Brill's Content accused Starr's office of leaking grand jury testimony in violation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, based in part on editor Stephen Brill's interview with Starr himself. Acting on motions of Clinton defense attorneys, US District Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson ordered an investigation into whether Starr's office had improperly leaked grand jury information (July 1998). She further authorized President Clinton's lawyers to conduct the investigation, by subpoenaing and questioning Starr and members of his staff under oath. The federal appeals court in Washington reversed Judge Johnson's decision and said that any investigation would have to be conducted by a court-appointed Special Master, not by President Clinton's lawyers. Throughout, Starr's office maintained that the information alleged to have been leaked was not uniquely available to it, but was also possessed by Clinton's lawyers, who monitored the grand jury through witnesses' lawyers participation in a joint defense arrangement, and who may have strategically leaked it in order to neutralize the damage and at the same time to blame Starr. After an investigation, a Special Master concluded that no evidence indicated that Starr's office had unlawfully leaked grand jury information. During the leak investigation, however, Charles Bakaly, spokesman for Starr's office, resigned (March 11, 1999). He was later charged with having signed a false affidavit, but acquitted at trial (Oct. 6, 2000). Critics such as Joe Conason and Gene Lyons maintain that the Starr office systematically leaked grand jury information to the press.
Starr's investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton, with whom Starr shared Time Magazine's Man of the Year designation for 1998. President Clinton was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate and continued to serve the rest of his term.
Starr's lengthy investigations forced Clinton and his staffers to devote many days and hours responding to requests from the Office of Independent Counsel. Critics of Starr's investigations charged that that years of depositions, subpoenas and court hearings demanded by Starr's office distracted the Clinton White House from devoting full attention to the problem of terrorism and the growing threat of the Al Qaeda organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Starr
From Whitewater to Blackwater: Ken Starr, the Mercenaries' New Lawyer
Blackwater USA, the private military contractor in the Bush Administration's "war on terror," has a new lawyer working to defend it against a ground-breaking wrongful death lawsuit brought by the families of four of its contractors killed in Iraq. The new "counsel of record" for the North Carolina-based company is none other than former Whitewater investigator Kenneth Starr--the independent counsel in the 1999 impeachment of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Starr was brought in last week by Blackwater to file motions in front of the US Supreme Court in a case stemming from the killing of four Blackwater contractors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah on March 31, 2004.
"I think that Blackwater has brought in Kenneth Starr to somehow leverage a political connection to help them succeed in a case where they can't win on the merits," says Marc Miles, an attorney for the families of the Blackwater contractors. Starr takes over from Blackwater's previous counsel, Greenberg Traurig, the influential Washington law firm that once employed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "They bring in all these big-time lawyers from nationwide firms with hundreds of attorneys. Blackwater is really painting this David and Goliath picture themselves."
In the lawsuit, originally filed in January 2005 in state court in North Carolina, the families of the men argue that Blackwater cut corners in the interest of profits, and sent the men into Fallujah without proper personnel, armored vehicles and adequate weapons. The men were ambushed, their vehicles burned and their charred bodies hung from a bridge. The incident sparked the first US siege of Fallujah, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis and the destruction of the city.
Since the suit was first filed, Blackwater has fought rigorously in various courts to have the case dismissed or moved to federal court. On August 24 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Blackwater's appeal, paving the way for a trial in state court in North Carolina. Lawyers for the four families believe they will have a more favorable playing field in state court, where there is no cap on damages and the families would not need a unanimous decision to win.
Starr's name first appeared in connection with the case in Blackwater's October 18, 2006, petition to US Chief Justice John Roberts asking for a "stay" in the state case while Blackwater prepared to file its petition for writ of certiorari, which if granted would allow Blackwater to argue its case for dismissal before the US Supreme Court, now dominated by Republican appointees. Starr and his colleagues argued that Blackwater is "constitutionally immune" from such lawsuits and said that if the Fallujah case is allowed to proceed, "Blackwater will suffer irreparable harm." In the eighteen-page petition to the Supreme Court, Blackwater argued that there are no other such lawsuits against private military/security companies in state courts "because the comprehensive regulatory scheme enacted by Congress and the President grant military contractors like Blackwater immunity from state-court litigation."
Blackwater asserts that its mercenaries, and other private contractors, are part of the US "Total Force" constituting "its warfighting capability and capacity...in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions." Therefore, the company says, the only remedy available to the families of security or military contractors killed or injured in Iraq is the federal government's taxpayer-funded insurance program, known as the Defense Base Act. The actual number of private contractors killed in Iraq is impossible to verify because there is no official tally. According to the Labor Department, at least 647 private contractors died in Iraq between March 1, 2003, and September 30, 2006. Under the government insurance program, the maximum death benefits available to the families of the contractors is limited to $4,123.12 a month. The lawsuit against Blackwater could result in much greater payments to the families of the four men killed in Fallujah--but from Blackwater, not US taxpayers. Attorney Miles says that Blackwater has attempted to use the federal Defense Base Act as "essentially insurance to kill."
Citing the numerous court battles Blackwater has lost in this case--from attempting to get it dismissed to fighting for a change of jurisdiction--Starr and his colleagues appealed to Justice Roberts, writing, "This Court is therefore Blackwater's last resort." On October 24 Justice Roberts simply wrote "denied" on Blackwater's application, providing no reasoning for his decision.
This outcome was not unpredictable, and it is not the last appeal Blackwater will make before the Supreme Court. The company is expected to file its full motion for a review of its case at the Court, possibly within days. In their petition, Starr and his colleagues also alluded to a fear that this lawsuit, similar to early tobacco litigation, could send shock waves through the war-profiteering community: "[I]f companies such as Blackwater must factor the defense costs of state tort lawsuits into the overall costs of doing business in support of US 'public works' contracts overseas...American taxpayers will pay more for less operational results." Blackwater has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal contracts, and was accused in a 2005 government audit of trying to include profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would have resulted "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit."
There are undeniable benefits to having Starr, the US Solicitor General under President George H.W. Bush, represent Blackwater--a highly partisan GOP company--in front of a Supreme Court stacked with Bush appointees. Starr also has a personal connection to Blackwater. Starr and Joseph Schmitz, the general counsel and chief operating officer of Blackwater's parent company, the Prince Group, have both worked closely with the arch-conservative Washington Legal Foundation. Since 1993 Starr has served on the legal policy advisory board of the organization for which Schmitz has frequently acted as a spokesperson and attorney.
In April 2006, in the midst of the battle over whether Blackwater could remove the Fallujah case to federal court, the foundation issued a "legal backgrounder" arguing that "regulating conduct on a foreign battlefield is a matter of foreign affairs where state law should not interfere.... Both the Courts and Congress can play a role...by affording battlefield contractors the procedural protection of removal to a federal venue when faced with a tort action alleging negligence while supporting our Armed Forces overseas." Schmitz, whom Blackwater also listed for the first time as an attorney on the Fallujah case in its Supreme Court filing, is the former Pentagon Inspector General once responsible for overseeing companies operating in Iraq, including Blackwater. He left the Pentagon in 2005 amid mounting accusations that he stonewalled investigations.
Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University, says that the fact that Starr is a "Republican lifelong supporter of the party and perhaps even a friend of some of the justices is not going to help" in the case. (In the 1980s, Starr served with Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.) "Ken's Republican credentials and his friendships are not going to help him in this court," Gillers says. "What's going to help them is their respect for his intelligence and his creativity in trying to persuade them to do what his client wants." Despite Blackwater's new high-profile lawyer and the conservative dominance of the Supreme Court, attorney Marc Miles predicts that Blackwater's appeals will be rejected and that ultimately the company will face trial. "The real irreparable damage to Blackwater is that the truth will come out," Miles says. Starr did not immediately return calls requesting comment.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061113/whitewater_to_blackwater
Bogus letters sent to governor asking to spare client's life
Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California's governor to spare the man's life, prosecutors said Friday.
The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
Kenneth Starr is best known as the special prosecutor in the Monica Lewinsky affair during President Bill Clinton's administration.
"We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn't say that," Barankin said.
San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week were "untrue" and "pure fiction."
White Water Tax Scam
Monica Lewinsky affair
Religious related
also see Mt. Soledad Cross
Pat Robertson
The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.
Robertson started out as a Southern Baptist, but today he is a charismatic evangelical and believes that God is involved in guiding world events, said Barry Hankins, professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University. He tries to interpret contemporary events as "being part of the drama of God's activity in the world."
"He puts the most fantastic spin on things to have a gripping quality about them to keep the ground troops alert," Hankins said.
On the other hand, Brian Britt, director of the Religious Studies Program at Virginia Tech, said Robertson's remarks aren't just "off-the-wall, crazy uncle stuff" but part of a strategy that earns him headlines.
When people attack Robertson, he wins sympathy for appearing to be an underdog, Britt said.
"It reinforces an image of Christianity as a persecuted religion, a religion that is being hounded by the secularists out of the public square, rather than a dominant and hegemonic force," Britt said.
Brent Wilkes
Lawmaker steered wasteful contracts to friends
Congressman in prison for bribery
October 18, 2006 THE NEW YORK TIMES -- WASHINGTON -- Former Congressman Randy Cunningham pressured and intimidated staff members of the House Intelligence Committee to help steer more than $70 million in classified federal business to favored military contractors, according to a congressional investigation made public Tuesday.
The investigation found that Cunningham, a Republican from California who is serving an eight-year prison sentence for bribery, repeatedly abused his position on the Intelligence Committee to authorize money for military projects, often over the objections of committee staff members who criticized spending as wasteful.
The report also found that despite numerous "red flags" about the propriety of a particular contract for work on a controversial Pentagon counterintelligence program, committee staff members for three years "continued to accept and support Cunningham's growing requests for this project."
Cunningham resigned from Congress in November after pleading guilty to accepting more than $2 million in bribes from military contractors. His plea was mainly related to his activities as a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
The report released Tuesday lays out for the first time how Cunningham won secret contracts for two friends, Brent R. Wilkes and Mitchell J. Wade, both contractors.
Lawyers for Cunningham and Wade declined to comment on the report. A lawyer for Wilkes could not be reached.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/289039_duke18.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061018/news_1n18duke.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/images/061017commiteereport.pdf
Contractor tells how he learned to lobby
Wilkes had set up meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation. But his hometown congressman, Rep. Bill Lowery, R-San Diego, told him that presenting the checks during the sessions was not how things were done, Wilkes recalled.
Instead, Wilkes said, Lowery taught him the right way to do it: Hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the suite, at least a few feet away.
That was the beginning of a career built on what Wilkes calls “transactional lobbying,” which made him rich but also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060806/news_1n6wilkes.html
Duncan Hunter
“John Karpovich, who helped run the document conversion program at the Defense Department before his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated Pentagon staff by claiming that the document conversion money belonged to him,” reported the Washington Post.
"Brent came in and said, 'That's our money,"' Karpovich recalled. "He said, 'The congressmen put the money in there for us."'
Karpovich was reluctant to talk with us, but conceded he’d watched the deal being put together by Bent Wilkes, House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, and the just-deposed No. 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo.
“Brent called me said he heard the product was great, and asked me to meet him in Washington. He had a suite at the Watergate. We met there and went to dinner with Dusty Foggo. He seemed like a sharp guy, at least he knew the inside of the government pretty well. We went to dinner with Dusty, and he and Brent talked about old times.”
Karpovich had been castigated by Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he told us, for trying to sell the software to the Pentagon too cheaply.
“In the meeting Duncan Hunter pointed to me and said to Wilkes, 'Your boy doesn’t know how to play the game,'" said Karpovich.
“They took a $6000 product, gave it another name, and sold it to the defense department for $32000 a pop. Later on we began to get calls from military bases around the country," Karpovich stated. "They were saying, hey, we just got this expensive software. What are we supposed to do with it?"
The deal now worked for everyone… except maybe U.S. taxpayers, and dead U.S. servicemen in Iraq whose Humvee’s didn’t get armor plating until it was too late because there wasn’t enough money for it in the Pentagon budget.
http://www.madcowprod.com/05112006.html
Cozying Up to Power
Brent Wilkes' businesses grew along with his political ties. He is 'co-conspirator No. 1' in the Cunningham case, his lawyer says. He has not been charged.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wilkes8may08,0,6220306,full.story?coll=la-home-business
Committee chairman comments on new allegations in Cunningham case
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday he's not surprised by allegations of prostitution in the corruption case involving former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a former committee member.
Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said he has discussed the matter with authorities and expected to raise the issue with an independent investigator he has hired to review Cunningham's committee work.
"If I'm trying to connect dots, this is not a surprising outcome," Hoekstra said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"It's unsavory, it is pathetic, it is sickening, but not surprising."
FBI agents are investigating whether defense contractor Brent Wilkes provided prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites to Cunningham, federal officials told The Associated Press last week. Cunningham, a California Republican, is serving a prison term of eight years and four months after pleading guilty in November to taking $2.4 million in homes, yachts and other bribes mostly from defense contractors in exchange for steering government contracts.
Wilkes' attorney, Michael Lipman, didn't immediately return a call for comment Thursday. In an interview earlier this week, he said Wilkes denied the allegations of prostitution, which were raised by a second defense contractor who has pleaded guilty in the case.
Hoekstra declined to elaborate on his suspicions or discuss reports that CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a longtime friend of Wilkes, attended poker parties at the hotel rooms.
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California2/CA_Congressman_Bribery_235914CA.shtml
Mr. Cunningham periodically phoned him to request a prostitute
Mr. Wilkes, of Poway, Calif., founded a series of companies that obtained federal contracts, including ADCS Inc., which won contracts to convert paper military records to computer images.
Mr. Wade in February pleaded guilty to giving bribes of more than $1 million to Mr. Cunningham, including cash, antiques and payment for yachts. Mr. Wade, who hasn't been sentenced yet, is cooperating with prosecutors. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Mr. Wade told investigators that Mr. Cunningham periodically phoned him to request a prostitute, and that Mr. Wade then helped to arrange for one. A limousine driver then picked up the prostitute as well as Mr. Cunningham, and drove them to one of the hotel suites, originally at the Watergate Hotel, and subsequently at the Westin Grand.
Mr. Wade told investigators that all the arrangements for these services had been made by Mr. Wilkes and two employees of Mr. Wilkes's company, according to people with knowledge of his debriefing. He said Mr. Wilkes had rented the hotel suites and found the limousine driver, who had "relationships" with several escort services. Mr. Wade told prosecutors that sometimes Mr. Cunningham would contact him to request these services, and he would pass on the request to Mr. Wilkes or his employees, who then made the actual arrangement. Mr. Wade said that other times Mr. Cunningham called Mr. Wilkes directly to make the requests.
If investigators find that any other members of Congress or their staffs received services at so-called hospitality suites, that could help make a case that they had illegally taken action to benefit Mr. Wilkes in return for favors from him. Mr. Wilkes, his family members and his employees were heavy campaign contributors to several members of Congress. But prosecutors so far apparently haven't found any evidence that other members of Congress had been bribed.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114610728002837324.html
House Panel Probes Limo Firm's Deal
The Department of Homeland Security came under renewed scrutiny Thursday as a House panel sought to determine how it awarded $25 million in contracts to a transportation company whose selection was recommended by Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former San Diego-area congressman convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from defense contractors.
After receiving bids from three companies, agency officials said, they chose Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc. of Washington, based on both price and the company's ability to perform the needed services.
But Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, noted that the company's president, Christopher Baker, had done business with Brent R. Wilkes, a San Diego defense contractor identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cunningham case.
"Then we find out that the congressman at the center of all of this sends a letter on behalf of this limousine company," he said. "If that doesn't raise issues, if that isn't more than a series of coincidences, I don't know what is."
Cunningham was the only member of Congress to support Shirlington's selection, King said.
The government is investigating allegations that Wilkes provided Cunningham, and perhaps other officials, with prostitutes and limousines. Citing an ongoing grand jury investigation, Baker did not testify Thursday.
Affidavit says Cunningham intervened on limo firm's behalf
Limo letter is found at Homeland Security
A day after Homeland Security officials denied knowing about former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham's attempts to gain a contract for a limousine service, Cunningham's letter praising the company surfaced in the department's files.
In the letter, Cunningham wrote of his “full support of (Shirlington Limousine's) wish to provide transportation services for the Department of Homeland Security,” or DHS.
FBI agents have been investigating whether the company – while working for Brent Wilkes, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cunningham corruption case – helped Wilkes arrange for prostitutes for Cunningham while Wilkes was vying for federal contracts.
Wilkes and Shirlington founder Christopher Baker have denied any involvement with prostitutes. But Baker has said through his lawyer that he provided transportation for “entertainment” at Wilkes' hospitality suites in Washington from 1990 to the early part of the decade.
Although Baker is a convicted felon, Cunningham gave him a character reference Jan. 16, 2004.
“I have personally known Mr. Baker since the mid-1990s,” Cunningham wrote to Homeland Security. “He is dedicated to his work and has been of service to me and other Members of Congress over the years.”
At the time, the department had no plans to hire a limousine service. But within three months, the department gave Baker a $3.8 million contract. A year later, he got a contract worth up to $21.2 million.
Until recently, Homeland Security officials have denied that any legislators were involved in the contract. In May, department officials twice told Congress that they had no record of Cunningham's letter.
On Thursday, however, Baker gave Congress a sworn affidavit that he had sent the letter to the department. Homeland Security officials said they found an e-mail mentioning the letter but had no other evidence of its existence.
Yesterday the department produced the letter, saying it had been misfiled.
“This is yet another example of DHS incompetence – and I think it may have been more than just bad record-keeping,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who leads the House Homeland Security Committee. “This letter certainly . . . raises further questions about political manipulation in the contracting process.”
The power of persuasion
Poway businessman Brent Wilkes funneled campaign donations to key lawmakers as he tried to build a defense empire
Long before he was identified as a co-conspirator in former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham's corruption case, Poway businessman Brent Wilkes boasted of his prowess in persuading powerful lawmakers to help him push contracts through Congress.
To get a $25 million contract for a start-up defense company, Wilkes said he needed about $1.5 million for lobbying and related expenses, according to a lawsuit filed against him by a former business partner. He allegedly told his partner that about half the $25 million would be pure profit.
When Wilkes made that boast, he already had been awarded about $80 million in contracts through the congressional process known as earmarking, which allows lawmakers to slip projects into the federal budget to benefit particular causes or companies.
Cunningham admitted directing federal contracts to Wilkes in exchange for more than $630,000 in bribes. Cunningham and his political action committee also received at least $76,500 in legal campaign contributions from Wilkes and his associates.
But Cunningham wasn't the only lawmaker who benefited from Wilkes' war chest.
From 1995 to 2005, as Wilkes got federal funding for his family of small defense companies, he steered more than $600,000 in contributions to lawmakers and their political action committees.
The biggest beneficiary was House Appropriations Committee member John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay, who received at least $82,000 from Wilkes, his close relatives, employees and business partners. Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis of Redlands received $60,000. Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, got $39,200.
In recent years, Wilkes focused on former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who got $57,000 from 2002 to 2004. In September, DeLay was indicted in Texas, accused of funneling corporate donations into elections in violation of state law. Wilkes has been subpoenaed in the case.
There is no indication that any legislator other than Cunningham made illegal deals with Wilkes. But the timing of Wilkes' many political donations closely parallels the approval of earmarks for ADCS, PerfectWave Technologies and other businesses in his corporate family.
“It almost looks like a legalized laundering of money: 'You give us $1 million for a contract and we'll make sure you'll get your share,' ” said Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy and communications at Citizens for Taxpayer Common Sense, a nonpartisan group in Washington that monitors federal spending.
ADCS probed in 2000 by Defense Department
More than five years before former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty to taking millions in bribes, the Department of Defense sent the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego an investigative report on a Poway defense company that was later linked to Cunningham.
The 2000 report discussed alleged overbillings by ADCS Inc., a defense firm that in 2005 became a focal point of the Cunningham bribery scandal, Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, said Wednesday.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/04/21/news/top_stories/20_39_534_20_06.txt
Kyle (Dusty) Foggo
Foggo has decided to retire
CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo already was under investigation by the agency's inspector general in connection with his relationship to San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes.
The FBI recently opened its own probe of Foggo, a longtime and close friend of Wilkes, the official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way.
Foggo has decided to retire from the CIA following the resignation last Friday of CIA Director Porter Goss, an intelligence official said Monday, also speaking on condition of anonymity. The official noted that new CIA directors have traditionally chosen their own executive directors, who run the agency's day-to-day operations.
Last week, the CIA released a statement on Foggo's behalf in which he denied any improprieties. "Mr. Foggo maintains that government contracts for which he was responsible were properly awarded and administered," the agency said.
Wilkes has been described in court papers as an unindicted coconspirator in a plot to bribe then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now serving a federal prison term for taking $2.4 million from government contractors.
FBI agents also have been looking into whether Wilkes supplied Cunningham with prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites. Foggo sometimes attended poker parties at the hotel rooms, but he said there was nothing untoward about his presence.
"If he attended occasional card games with friends over the years, Mr. Foggo insists they were that and nothing more," the CIA statement said.
CIA Director Porter Goss resigns
A little-known White House advisory board convinced a reluctant President Bush to launch yet another high-profile shakeup of the nation's intelligence community and can CIA Director Porter Goss, sources said yesterday.
Bush had already gotten an earful from Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte on the shortcomings of Goss, but the final push came from the "very alarmed" President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, intelligence and Congressional sources said.
Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself.
The 16-member bipartisan board, now headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman, has the mandate to conduct periodic assessments on "the quality, quantity and adequacy of intelligence collection."
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers.
Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies.
Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/415620p-351086c.html
logistics chief at the CIA's main base near Frankfurt, Germany
As logistics chief at the CIA's main base near Frankfurt, Germany, Kyle (Dusty) Foggo sat at the crossroads of agency operations. Operatives and VIPs passed through, and former top spies say Foggo was customarily on hand to greet them. After Porter Goss took over as CIA director, many agency veterans were astonished when the former House intel chair chose Foggo, a midranking bureaucrat, to become CIA executive director, the agency's third-ranking official, responsible for day-to-day operations. Insiders attributed his rise to his mastery of office politics. But Foggo's glad-handing has raised awkward questions. Federal prosecutors have accused (as an unindicted co-conspirator) one of Foggo's closest friends, San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, of participating in a scheme to bribe Randall (Duke) Cunningham, the GOP congressman from San Diego who resigned his seat after pleading guilty to federal corruption and tax charges.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11570067/site/newsweek/
Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham
Cunningham taken into custody, ordered to repay $1.8 million
Mitchell Wade
Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham
Cunningham taken into custody, ordered to repay $1.8 million
Congress aides ignored bribery signs: report
October 17, 2006 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional aides ignored numerous warning signs about disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's cozy relationship with contractors who paid him millions in bribes, a report released on Tuesday said.
The report by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee found no evidence that staffers benefited from any of the bribes taken by Cunningham, the California Republican now serving an eight-year prison term after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes.
But staffers ignored several warning signs as they helped Cunningham obtain funding for a project earmarked for MZM, a company run by Mitchell Wade, who has pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham.
"Over time, (committee) staff learned of numerous 'red flags' associated with the counterintelligence project, including frequently expressed questions about the ethics and integrity of Wade, doubts about the value of the project and MZM's performance, and grave concerns about the propriety of the Cunningham-Wade relationship," the report said.
Committee staff helped Cunningham avoid competitive bidding rules to steer at least $70 million to Wade and another contractor, the report said.
The outside investigator who wrote the report for the committee said the Defense Department and the House Appropriations Committee have so far declined to cooperate.
The report was completed in May but has been kept under wraps while committee members argued whether Cunningham should be subpoenaed.
It was finally made public by California Rep. Jane Harman, the committee's top Democrat, who has pushed for Cunningham to appear before the committee, even if he refuses to testify.
"Our committee must examine why 'red flags' did not trigger greater scrutiny of Cunningham's activities and what can be done to prevent this type of abuse in the future," Harman said in a statement.
The Republican chairman of the committee, Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, said Cunningham has offered to testify and blasted Harman for releasing the report without his permission.
"The unilateral decision by Harman to break our bipartisan, written agreement ... by releasing an incomplete, internal committee document that has not been reviewed by the other committee members is disturbing and beyond the pale," Hoekstra said in a statement.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061018/news_1n18duke.html
Once-honored name now tops list of infamy
The former Republican lawmaker's sentence of eight years and four months edges out Democrats James Traficant of Ohio, with whom Cunningham served in Congress, and Mario Biaggi of New York.
In 2002, Traficant was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to commit bribery, obstruction of justice and other charges.
In 1988, Biaggi was sentenced to eight years for racketeering, bribery, conspiracy and other charges for directing federal contracts to a military contractor. Biaggi extorted stock worth about $1.8 million in the case.
Other top sentences include the case of Mel Reynolds, D-Ill., who was sentenced to five years in prison in 1995 for criminal sexual assault, soliciting child pornography and obstruction of justice.
In the celebrated Abscam scandal in 1980, seven members of Congress were convicted of accepting bribes in an FBI sting investigation, but the average amount for each was $45,000. Traficant was convicted of accepting a few thousand dollars.
Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., was charged in 1995 in the congressional check-kiting scandal. He was convicted and sentenced to 17 months. His take for that and other crimes totaled less than $1 million in cash and services.
Thomas Kontogiannis
April 15, 2006 ROSEDALE, N.Y. – In 1996, multimillionaire businessman Thomas Kontogiannis threw a party for a Queens school superintendent, who was planning a run for Congress.
The star of the party was Randy “Duke” Cunningham, then a Republican congressman from San Diego.
Today, Cunningham is serving eight years and four months in prison for taking more than $2.4 million in bribes, most of it from two defense contractors.
His old friend Kontogiannis, meanwhile, has emerged as the mystery man – co-conspirator No. 3 – in the continuing investigation.
According to Cunningham's plea agreement, Kontogiannis gave the former congressman $328,000, most of it through an overpayment for Cunningham's boat, the Kelly C.
Kontogiannis and one of his relatives, identified as co-conspirator No. 4, also allowed Cunningham, 63, to use one of the family's mortgage companies to make favorable property deals.
What Kontogiannis, 59, got from the relationship with Cunningham remains unclear.
“It's not the standard bribe scenario,” said a Justice Department official who declined to be identified because the investigation is ongoing. “He had a lot of money. What went to Duke was chump change.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060415-9999-1n15tommyk.html
Katherine Harris
Group files criminal complaint against Rep. Katherine Harris
We believe the Public Integrity Division of the Department of Justice should conduct an investigation to determine if Representative Katherine Harris (R-FL) has violated U.S. Code 18§201: Bribery of public officials and witnesses.
The Chief Executive of MZM, Inc., Mitchell Wade, recently plead guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion, corrupting defense officials, and election fraud as a result of the investigation into former Representative Randolph "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA). MZM, Inc. is described as a homeland security and counterintelligence company. The statement includes references to other members of Congress in addition to Rep. Cunningham. According to the Statement of Offense, U.S.A. vs. Mitchell J. Wade, filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia on February 23, 2006:
In early 2005, Wade dined with Representative B in Washington DC restaurant. At this dinner, Wade and Representative B discussed, among other topics, the possibility of MZM's hosting a fundraiser for Representative B later in the year, and the possibility of obtaining funding and approval for a Navy counterintelligence program in Representative B's district and locating an MZM office in that district.
Rep. Harris has been identified publicly as "Representative B." According to The Washington Post:
Washington defense contractor Mitchell J. Wade admitted yesterday in federal court that he attempted to illegally influence Defense Department contracting officials and tried to curry favor with two House members…
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Group_files_criminal_complaint_against_Rep._0501.html
Ties to Mitchell Wade
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris may have given her dirty campaign money to a charity, but she can't pretend to have cleansed herself. "Representative B," as she is called in a federal prosecutor's account of bribery and election fraud by Washington defense contractor Mitchell Wade, is too close to this scandal to brush it off. Voters deserve more answers than the vague statement she released Thursday night.
Leave aside the fact that, in March 2004, Wade personally placed 16 $2,000 campaign checks with the same date in Harris' hands. Now comes the disclosure that one of her aides, Mona Yost, left last May to work for MZM Inc., the company Wade owned. Further, Harris dined with Wade in early 2005 and then asked her Defense Appropriations subcommittee to set aside $10-million for an MZM facility in Sarasota. The subcommittee refused.
This is past the point where Harris can credibly claim ignorance. She claimed in her statement Thursday night that she requested the money to bring jobs to Sarasota, not in exchange for contributions she says she did not know would be illegally reimbursed. Let's get this straight: Harris is handed $32,000 in checks by an executive who wants a $10-million defense contract, she dines with him to discuss the request and then she writes a letter specifically for his project after her other appropriations requests were submitted? And she is unclear about the intent?
The strange case of supernatural water
Florida's citrus crop contributes billions of dollars to the state's economy, so when that industry is threatened, anything that might help is considered. Back in 2001, when citrus canker was blighting the crop and threatening to reduce that vital source of revenue, an interesting — if not quite scientific — alternative was considered.
Katherine Harris, then Florida's secretary of state — and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, "researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test ‘Celestial Drops,' promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its ‘improved fractal design,' ‘infinite levels of order,' and ‘high energy and low entropy.'"
The study determined that the product tested was, basically, water that had apparently been blessed according to the principles of Kabbalic mysticism, "chang[ing] its molecular structure and imbu[ing] it with supernatural healing powers."
Rep. John T. Doolittle
A week before former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to prison, he stressed to the court that a number of other lawmakers also helped arrange federal funding for the defense contractors who bribed him.
None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name – Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay – has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions.
And at least one of the lawmakers, Doolittle, received a direct monetary benefit from those contributions through commissions paid to his wife, Julie.
Acting as her husband's campaign consultant, Julie Doolittle charged his campaign and his Superior California Political Action Committee a 15 percent commission on any contribution she helped bring in.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060319-9999-1n19dolittle.html
Military, Iraq War, Graft and Fraud
Rebuilding Iraq
Idle Contractors Add Millions to Iraq Rebuilding
A prison built in Nasiriya, Iraq, by the Parsons group. Overhead costs eat up large shares of such contracts.
October 25, 2006 Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis.
Those overhead costs have ranged from under 20 percent to as much as 55 percent of the budgets, according to the report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. On similar projects in the United States, those costs generally run to a few percent.
The highest proportion of overhead was incurred in oil-facility contracts won by KBR Inc., the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, which has frequently been challenged by critics in Congress and elsewhere.
The actual costs for many projects could be even higher than the estimates, the report said, because the United States has not properly tracked how much such expenses have taken from the $18.4 billion of taxpayer-financed reconstruction approved by Congress two years ago.
The report said the prime reason was not the need to provide security, though those costs have clearly risen in the perilous environment, and are a burden that both contractors and American officials routinely blame for such increases.
Instead, the inspector general pointed to a simple bureaucratic flaw: the United States ordered the contractors and their equipment to Iraq and then let them sit idle for months at a time.
The delay between “mobilization,” or assembling the teams in Iraq, and the start of actual construction was as long as nine months.
“The government blew the whistle for these guys to go to Iraq and the meter ran,” said Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office. “The government was billed for sometimes nine months before work began.”
The findings are similar to those of a growing list of inspections, audits and investigations that have concluded that the program to rebuild Iraq has often fallen short for the most mundane of reasons: poorly written contracts, ineffective or nonexistent oversight, needless project delays and egregiously poor construction practices.
“This report is the latest chapter in a long, sad and expensive tale about how contracting in Iraq was more about shoveling money out the door than actually getting real results on the ground,” said Stephen Ellis, a vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington.
“These contracts were to design and build important items for oil infrastructure, hospitals and education, but in some cases more than half of the money padded corporate coffers instead,” he said.
Although the federal report places much of the burden for the charges squarely on the shoulders of United States officials in Baghdad, the findings varied widely over a sampling of contracts examined by auditors, from a low of under 20 percent for some companies to a high of over 55 percent.
One oil contract awarded to a joint venture between Parsons, an American company, and Worley, from Australia, had overhead costs of at least 43 percent, the report found. One contract held by Parsons alone to build hospitals and prisons had overhead of at least 35 percent; in another, it was 17 percent.
The lowest figure was found for certain contracts won by Lucent, at 11 percent, but the report indicates that substantial portions of the overhead in those cases could not be determined.
The report did not explain why KBR’s overhead costs on those contracts — the contracts totaled about $296 million — were more than 10 percent higher than those at the other companies audited. Despite past criticism of KBR, the Army, which administers those contracts, has generally agreed to pay most of the costs claimed by the company.
Melissa Norcross, a spokeswoman for KBR, said in a written reply to questions, “It is important to note that the special inspector general is not challenging any of KBR’s costs referenced in this report.”
“All of these costs were incurred at the client’s direction and for the client’s benefit,” she said, referring to the Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the oil contract.
But a frequent Halliburton critic, Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform, disputed those assurances. “It’s incomprehensible that over $160 million — more than half the value of the contract — was squandered on overhead,” Mr. Waxman said in a written statement.
A spokeswoman for Parsons, Erin Kuhlman, said the United States categorized overhead and construction costs differently from contract to contract in Iraq, making it difficult to make direct comparisons. “Parsons incurred, billed and reported actual costs as directed by the government,” she said.
In Iraq, where construction materials are scarce and contractors must provide security for work sites and housing for Western employees, officials have said they expect the overhead to be at least 10 percent, but the contractors and American officials have grudgingly conceded that the true costs have turned out to be higher.
But even the high of 55 percent could be an underestimate, Mr. Mitchell said, because the government often did not begin tracking overhead costs for months after the companies mobilized. He added that because of the haphazard way in which the government tracked the costs, it was not possible to say how well the figures reflected overhead charges in the entire program.
The report’s conclusions were drawn from $1.3 billion in contracts for which United States government overseers actually made an effort to track overhead costs, of the total of $18.4 billion set aside for reconstruction in specific supplemental funding bills for the 2006 fiscal year.
When all American and Iraqi contributions are added up, various estimates for the cost of the rebuilding program range from $30 billion to $45 billion. Language included in the Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush last week, states that the inspector general’s office will halt its examination of those expenditures by October of next year.
Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy, who until recently commanded the Persian Gulf region division of the Corps of Engineers, disputed some of the inspector general’s findings in a letter appended to the report. Things like “waiting for concrete to cure” could still be taking place during what seem to be periods of inactivity, General McCoy wrote, so a quiet period “does not mean that the project is not moving forward.”
But many of the delays came during 2004 and took place in response to political developments in Iraq, the inspector general’s report says. The American occupation government, the Coalition Provisional Authority, mobilized many of the companies early that year.
After the authority went out of existence in June 2004, handing sovereignty to the Iraqi government, top American officials then kept the companies idle for months as the officials rewrote the rebuilding plan, and ran up costs as little work was done.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/25reconstruct.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
Iraq reconstruction failures tied to contracting breakdowns
October 13, 2006 Contracting problems have hamstrung reconstruction efforts in Iraq, raising questions about how the government can adapt its procurement system to effectively address unforeseen circumstances, according to a panel that examined the role procurement has played in the Iraq reconstruction effort.
T. Christian Miller, author of Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen and Katherine Schinasi, Government Accountability Office managing director for acquisition and sourcing management, spoke at a Friday event on the reconstruction effort. The panel was organized by the George Washington University Government Procurement Law Program.
Miller said he started his work in Iraq with an expectation for the story he would encounter there: the government procurement system meets the Wild West in Iraq, and the government procurement system wins. But he said he quickly realized that the reconstruction was not working.
The first U.S. government project Miller saw was a water treatment plant that, on the day of his visit, was out of chlorine and short on generator power because the machines had seized up for lack of antifreeze in the cold climate. Worse, when the plant eventually began to pump out clean water, what flowed from the taps of Iraqi homes was tainted with sewage and other contaminants because the old, leaky pipes between the facility and the homes had not been replaced.
Neither the engineers nor the project managers, Miller said, had considered the delivery aspect of the infrastructure project they had signed on to complete.
Miller described contracting staff shortages as central to the problems he encountered. He said David Nash, the first director of the Coalition Provisional Authority's Project Management Office, framed the issue as one of bodies and budgets: the Army Corps of Engineers had about 30,000 employees in the United States with a $13 billion budget for construction projects and contracts like the ones in Iraq, Nash told Miller. In Iraq, the Corps had 50 employees for the $18 billion budget it was allocated in late 2003.
"People were blowing cash around Iraq like they had leaf-blowers," Miller said.
Helping to manage that money and the projects it funded were layers and layers of contractors, Miller said. There sometimes were as many as nine tiers of contractors between the person ordering work done and a worker laying the bricks.
The CPA started out with only three contracting officers, Miller said. While the staff eventually grew, the office remained short-handed, sometimes having just one or two days to analyze and award large, complex contracts.
With government contracting officers working three-month tours of duty, contractors became the experts who had the knowledge needed to manage projects, Miller said, creating a situation vulnerable to manipulation.
"I really can't blame [the contractors] -- it's a business, that's how it's set up. They're supposed to make money. The person that's supposed to be the ... regulation on that is the U.S. government, and it was just never, never there."
GAO's Schinasi and IG Bowen echoed several of Miller's concerns with staffing and oversight levels, though in less certain tones, drawing on a recent GAO forum on procurement and an IG report on Iraq contracting.
Procurement policy tries to strike a balance between the flexibility to allow agencies to respond quickly to circumstances, and the application of complex rules intended to minimize fraud, waste and abuse. But, Schinasi said, "The lesson so far is, what we have isn't good enough."
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35268&dcn=todaysnews
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .
Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.
The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600193.html
SOCOM
Bribe Inquiry Looks at Sale of Field Gear to Military
In a widening scandal at the United States Special Operations Command, federal investigators are looking into a bribery scheme as well as accusations of improper influence involving millions of dollars in battlefield equipment used by Navy Seals and Army Green Berets and Rangers.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12712
http://www.beachblogger.net/bwtm/index.php?title=Hunter%2C_Duncan_Lee#Trouble_brewing
Whistle-blower slams Iraq contractor
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root charged millions to the government for recreational services never provided to U.S. troops in Iraq, including giant tubs of chicken wings and tacos, a widescreen TV, and cheese sticks meant for a military Super Bowl party, according to a federal whistle-blower suit unsealed Friday.
Instead, the suit alleges, KBR used the military's supplies for its own football party.
Filed last year in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by former KBR employee Julie McBride, the lawsuit claims the giant defense contractor billed the government for thousands of meals it never served, inflated the number of soldiers using its fitness and Internet centers, and regularly siphoned off great quantities of supplies destined for American soldiers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060908/ap_on_go_ot/contractor_fraud_claim
This ties in to the SOCom Rec-Center scandal and Hunter's Santa Rosa Island hunting perserve. Hunter contends it would not be difficult for the government to run free hunts at no cost to taxpayers, something his opponents dispute. The 'free' part would be kickbacks from other contracts.
SOCom sentence: 15 months
As Tom Spellissy walked into U.S. District Court Monday, he had no idea what his punishment might be.
The federal judge about to impose his sentence had already overturned a jury's verdict and dismissed the bulk of the case against him. His lawyer was arguing for probation, citing the dubious evidence against his client and his exemplary 29-year military career.
But prosecutors said Spellissy caused irreparable harm at Special Operations Command in Tampa by seeking special treatment for his clients in the defense industry. They recommended he spend up to two years in prison on the single conspiracy charge he still faced.
U.S. District Judge James Whittemore weighed the case for more than two hours. He noted Spellissy's sterling reputation and his unfortunate family circumstances: a wife with ovarian cancer and two young children.
In the end, Whittemore said he had no choice but to sentence Spellissy to 15 months in prison.
"Probation is not an appropriate sentence for this offense," Whittemore said.
Spellissy was also ordered to pay a $4,000 fine. His company, Strategic Defense International Inc. of Clearwater, was fined $125,000.
Spellissy, a retired Army colonel who worked as a private defense contractor, looked shocked as he left the courtroom.
"To tell you the truth, I don't know what to think," Spellissy said before his lawyer, Pat Doherty, ushered him away from reporters.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/15/Hillsborough/SOCom_sentence__15_mo.shtml
Military recruiting
The Pentagon's 12-Step Program to Create a Misfit Military
Military recruiting in 2006 has been marked by upbeat pronouncements from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claims of success by the White House, propaganda releases by the Pentagon, and a spate of recent press reports touting the way the military has made its wo/manpower goals.
But the armed forces have only met with success through a fundamental "transformation," and not the transformation of the military -- that "co-evolution of concepts, processes, organizations and technology" -- Rumsfeld is always talking about either.
While the Secretary of Defense's longstanding goal of transforming the planet's most powerful military into its highest tech, most agile, most futuristic fighting force has, in the words of the Washington Post's David Von Drehle, "melted away," the very makeup of the Armed Forces has been mutating before our collective eyes under the pressure of the war in Iraq. This actual transformation has been reported, but only in scattered articles on the new recruitment landscape in America.
Last year, despite NASCAR, professional bull-riding, and Arena Football sponsorships; popular video games that doubled as recruiting tools; TV commercials dripping with seductive scenes of military glory; a "joint marketing communications and market research and studies" program actively engaged in measures to target for military service Hispanics, drop outs, and those with criminal records; and at least $16,000 in promotional costs for each soldier it managed to sign up, the U.S. military failed to meet its recruiting goals. This year those methods have been pumped up and taken over the top in twelve critical areas of recruitment that make the old Army ad-line, "Be All That You Can Be," into material for late night TV punch lines of the future.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41685/
Concern over US army recruitment
23 August, 2006 As the "war on terror" drags on, the US military is finding it difficult to fill its ranks and there are growing concerns some recruiters are breaking the rules.
Nearly five years into the war, with conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the death toll is approaching 3,000 servicemen and women.
The pressure to sign up new recruits against this background has challenged the US military.
The problem is especially acute for the army.
It had a goal of bringing in 80,000 new soldiers in the financial year that ended on 30 September 2005.
It finished that year with just 73,000 recruits.
This year the army appears to be on target to reach the 80,000 goal but to do so it has had to double the top enlistment bonuses for recruits from $20,000 to $40,000.
It has also had to loosen medical standards, forgive more minor criminal offences, raise the age limit for new recruits from 35 to 42 and accept more people who did not finish high school.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/5278654.stm
Military recruiters cited for misconduct
20 August, 2006 More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.
A six-month Associated Press investigation found that more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees. The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country.
"This should never be allowed to happen," said one 18-year-old victim. "The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. I trusted him."
At least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005, according to records obtained by the AP under dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests. That's significantly more than the handful of cases disclosed in the past decade.
The AP also found:
-The Army, which accounts for almost half of the military, has had 722 recruiters accused of rape and sexual misconduct since 1996.
-Across all services, one out of 200 frontline recruiters - the ones who deal directly with young people - was disciplined for sexual misconduct last year.
-Some cases of improper behavior involved romantic relationships, and sometimes those relationships were initiated by the women.
-Most recruiters found guilty of sexual misconduct are disciplined administratively, facing a reduction in rank or forfeiture of pay; military and civilian prosecutions are rare. -The increase in sexual misconduct incidents is consistent with overall recruiter wrongdoing, which has increased from just over 400 cases in 2004 to 630 cases in 2005, according to a General Accounting Office report released this week.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Recruiters_Sex.html
Gen. Hal M. Hornburg: Air Force's Thunderbirds
The FBI is investigating the award of a $50 million publicity contract for the Air Force's Thunderbirds aerial stunt team to a company with ties to a recently retired general, military and law enforcement officials said Friday.
The Air Force canceled the contract with Strategic Message Solutions in February, after two losing bidders complained that the company had an unfair advantage, including its decision to make retired Gen. Hal M. Hornburg a partner, according to a federal lawsuit over the contract.
Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne directed the Pentagon's inspector general to review the contract award. The inspector general referred the matter to the FBI to look into possible violations of federal contracting laws, a law enforcement official said.
A senior defense official said the Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service opened a criminal investigation into the matter around the end of February. A short time later DCIS brought in the FBI.
Strategic Message Solutions, based in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., and its president, Edward Shipley, sued the government in February, demanding that the contract be reinstated. The suit says Hornburg had no involvement in obtaining the contract.
James E. Beasley, the company's lawyer, did not immediately return messages left Friday by The Associated Press. While lauding the company's services and Shipley's role in developing the publicity package, the lawsuit describes an unusual chain of events that includes a purported decision by Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, to provide Shipley an immediate $8.5 million in federal funds in April 2005, without any request for bids for the work.
At the time, Moseley was the Air Force's No. 2 officer.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152ap_air_force_contract.html
Ex-Navy officials accused of fraud
Two former Pentagon officials, including an acting secretary of the Navy, have been accused of scheming with a banned American contractor to get lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq, The Associated Press has learned.
The contracting firm, Custer Battles LLC, was suspended two years ago by the military for submitting millions of dollars in fake invoices.
The charges come in a sealed federal lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by the AP. It was filed by two whistle-blowers -- one of whom won a $10 million judgment in another suit when a federal jury agreed that Custer Battles had swindled the government.
The current suit names former acting Navy Secretary Hansford Johnson, former acting Navy Undersecretary Douglas Combs and Custer Battles LLC officials including founders Scott Custer and Mike Battles, who were barred in 2004 after billing the government for work that was never done and for padding invoices by much as 100 percent.
Also named were six companies connected to the contracting firm, including Windmill International Ltd., a worldwide contractor run by Combs and Johnson, and a Romanian company, Danubia Global, which bought Custer Battles in 2005.
The new lawsuit contends Custer and Battles, both Army veterans with Washington political connections, tried to get around the suspension order by plotting with Johnson and Combs "to set up sham companies (thereby) concealing their ownership and control of those entities."
According to the suit filed in Virginia, the shell companies committed other illegal acts, including selling weapons on the Iraqi black market, creating a dangerous possibility that "insurgents could buy them and use them to attack U.S. soldiers."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/278509_fraud22.html
Army Corps of Engineers employee indicted on fraud charges
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee signed off on inflated apartment rental leases for military personnel in Kuwait in exchange for $47,000 in bribes from a real estate agent, according to a federal indictment made public Friday.
Gheevarghese Pappen, 62, was charged with three counts of honest services wire fraud in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Savannah, Ga. He faces up to 60 years in prison and $750,000 in fines, the Justice Department said.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/06/10/military/16_24_226_9_06.txt
Lincoln Groups
I Was A PR Intern in Iraq
In this astonishing confessional by an Oxford graduate who worked in the green zone of Baghdad, we see the perversity of the American version of a 'free press' in Iraq.
I arrived at the Baghdad airport on July 7, after waiting for my luggage in Amman for nearly a week. People at the baggage claim shouted like tour guides for KBR employees to gather in one spot, while others, holding aloft signs with the names of various security firms, urged bulky, tattooed men to congregate in groups. But I saw no one there to greet me. As the hall emptied, I noticed a man and woman loitering indifferently near the exit. I eventually made my way over and asked if they were here to meet Willem Marx. They were. Each shook my hand, and then they led me in silence out of the airport and to the back seat of a battered sedan.
To get to the villa where I would be living for the summer, I was awakened before dawn and loaded onto what was essentially a Greyhound bus with armored plating and shatterproof windows. The road to Baghdad's Green Zone, where the Lincoln Group villa was located, is known as the Highway of Death, for the number of convoys that have been attacked along its route. And so we trundled along the dangerous road in complete darkness, flanked by a quartet of Humvees and watched over by helicopters with nightscopes.
There were four bedrooms on the villa's ground floor, and I was to share one of these with an Iraqi named Ahmed. Ahmed, who had attended American University in Washington, always wore immaculately pressed shirts and remained clean-shaven. Because he often shared his bed with one of several Baghdadi girlfriends, I moved down the hall after only a few nights. My new roommate, Steve, a recent Brown graduate, had signed on with Lincoln Group for a full year and seemed to be pacing himself accordingly. Most nights he would drink beers bought from a nearby market, and the next day he would sleep well into the afternoon.
I was soon contacted by a Lincoln Group employee named Jon, who formerly had run political campaigns in Chicago and now worked on the company's I.O., or Information Operations. Over lunch at the recently bombed and rebuilt Green Zone Café -- an air-conditioned tent with plastic chairs and a TV airing Lebanese music videos -- Jon explained that he was returning home for several weeks of
R & R and that Jim Sutton had chosen me to be his replacement. Jon quickly sketched out my new I.O. responsibilities. An Army team inside the Al Faw palace, another of Saddam's former residences, would send me news articles they had cobbled together from wire stories and their own reports from the field. It was my job to select the ones that seemed most like Iraqis had written them. I was then to pass these articles along to our Iraqi employees, who would translate the pieces into Arabic and place them in local newspapers. Jon told me that the U.S. Army could hardly carry out this work in their military uniforms, so they hired Lincoln Group, which could operate with far fewer restrictions. It was a bread-and-butter contract, he said, that paid the company about $5 million annually. I asked if the newspapers knew that Lincoln Group or the U.S. military were behind these articles. They did and they didn't, Jon said. The Iraqis working for us posed as freelance journalists, but they also paid editors at the papers to publish the stories -- part of the cost Lincoln Group billed back to the military. "Look," Jon assured me, "it's very straightforward. You just have to keep the military happy."
The day had been extremely long, and I was exhausted and more than a little shaken. The blocks of cash that we had locked up in my room had been picked up and moved to a bank in central Baghdad. In my email inbox, there were messages from both my parents, asking me when I would leave Iraq and saying they hoped that it would be very soon. Lincoln Group had also sent me a newly drawn contract; they were offering me up to $70,000 to postpone journalism school and to work another ten months in Baghdad. But I couldn't fathom doing the work any longer. I had become what I had to admit was the antithesis of a journalist. And if I continued to suborn Iraqi reporters with U.S. military money, this would surely mean I would never be able to work as one.
That night I rang Christian Bailey and Paige Craig at the company's D.C. headquarters and told them I wanted to go home. On August 20, I boarded a plane out of Baghdad, and my summer internship was over.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41479/
Business Booms for U.S. Firm That Planted Stories
Just two years ago, the Lincoln Group was a small start-up communications firm with an idealistic vision and a handful of employees, many of them former service members.
Today, the company boasts 300 employees worldwide, is drawing $100 million contracts from the military, and is at the center of a recent Washington miniscandal as the firm that planted pro-American news articles in Iraqi newspapers on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Even though the placed stories apparently were factually correct, critics worried the contract amounted to a U.S. propaganda campaign that ran roughshod over the fledgling independence of the Iraqi media.
Those officials declined to talk in much detail about the nature of their work or with whom they are contracted. But [Paige Craig], a former enlisted Marine who co-founded the company, said it is active in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates and is hoping to make inroads in Africa and Asia.
He said the firm’s goal is to promote commerce in hostile environments by “bridging the cultural divide” between those nations and Western governments and businesses.
Lincoln employs a mix of former military personnel — a former Special Forces medical sergeant works alongside a former New York University professor — as well as public relations specialists, television producers, business development consultants and research analysts.
The private sector definitely has a role to play in efforts to gather and dispense information, said Eric Larson, a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Calif. And private marketing and advertising firms tend to attract the kind of “creative types” who can think of ways to get an effective message through to native populations.
“The government and the military are limited,” both in manpower and other resources, to do this kind of thing, he said. “These are complementary skills that are out there in the private sector [and] could be helpful.”
The Lincoln Group was one of three firms hired last summer by the Defense Department to work in Iraq to improve public opinion of the United States and its military.
The arrangement became controversial in December when the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets reported that Lincoln received a contract worth up to $100 million to do work on behalf of Multi-National Forces-Iraq, to include planting favorable stories produced by the U.S. military in Iraqi newspapers and on Iraqi radio.
Report questions over $1.4B of Halliburton bills
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2005-06-27-halliburton-usat_x.htm
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6/3479
Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse
Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal
September 24, 2006 BRITISH soldiers have been caught smuggling stolen guns out of Iraq and allegedly exchanging them for cocaine and cash on the black market.
Security officials confirmed this weekend that soldiers from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment are at the centre of a criminal inquiry by the Royal Military Police (RMP) into a “guns for cocaine” network.
Their alleged involvement with organised crime is a fresh blow to the British Army after a week in which a corporal from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment admitted he had committed a war crime against an Iraqi civilian.
Although drug use is increasing in the armed forces, this is the first time military police have evidence that stolen weapons are being sold to pay for them.
One of the first soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment to have been arrested is alleged to have bought drugs by trading handguns, including Glock pistols, smuggled from Iraq to Germany on at least six occasions.
A security source said some of the weapons had been exchanged for about 50 grams of cocaine with a street value of £2,500. The drugs were sold to other British soldiers serving in Iraq.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2372277,00.html
Youtube
Cowboy soldiers on notice over videos
September 18, 2006 DEFENCE chief Angus Houston has ordered a full investigation into video images posted on the internet showing skylarking Australian soldiers in Baghdad brandishing weapons. One of the clips posted on the popular website www.youtube.com shows an Australian Defence Force soldier pointing a pistol at a fellow Digger dressed in an Arab headdress, with other clips showing soldiers aiming their weapons at one another.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said yesterday that there was "no place in the ADF for members who behave in this way".
And army chief Peter Leahy flagged the possibility of soldiers being sacked.
"We will complete an investigation and then, put simply, I will be asking a question why these soldiers should remain in the army," he said yesterday.
"They will have an opportunity to put their case and it will be done under the correct administrative procedures. Everybody would expect me to ask that question: if you are that silly, what are you doing in the army?"
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20429796-601,00.html
Hamdania
Encinitas Marine pleads guilty in Hamdania killing
CAMP PENDLETON ---- An Encinitas native said Thursday that he and some of his Marine Corps squad mates gunned down a Iraqi civilian after the man scrambled out of the dirt hole they had tossed him in.
The admission from Pfc. John Jodka III came as he pleaded guilty in a Camp Pendleton courtroom to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice, charges arising from the shooting in the middle of the night of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26 in Hamdania, Iraq.
Jodka is the second of eight Camp Pendleton men accused in the slaying to plead guilty. He painted his platoon sergeant as the architect of the murder plot, a mission the sergeant revealed to the six lower-ranking Marines and a Navy corpsman he was leading on a combat patrol that evening.
"I agreed to the plan and agreed to go forward with it without objection," Jodka told Lt. Col. David Jones, the judge who presided over Jodka's three-hour court-martial.
The scheme laid out by Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, Jodka said, was to kidnap, kill and frame a man they believed to be an insurgent ---- a different man, it would turn out, than the one they killed that night.
Jodka testified that he knew what the men were doing was illegal.
"Civilians and noncombatants are not lawful targets," Jodka said when asked by the judge if he understood the U.S. military's rules of engagement on the night Awad was killed.
The 20-year-old sat rigidly with his fingers interlaced as he gave a rapid-fire, matter-of-fact description of what he saw during the shooting that landed him and seven squad mates in the Camp Pendleton brig this summer.
In exchange for the guilty plea, government prosecutors agreed to drop the original charges levied against Jodka, allegations that included kidnapping and murder.
"He is a good kid caught up in a bad situation," one of Jodka's civilian attorneys, Joseph Casas, said after the court session.
Sentencing for the young Marine is set for 8 a.m. Nov. 15.
"He will have a chance to talk about the pressures he faced in Iraq," Casas said.
The attorney declined to discuss the sentence laid out in Jodka's plea agreement.
One of Jodka's co-defendants, Petty Officer Melson Bacos, received a year in jail in his plea deal, which unfolded three weeks ago as Bacos admitted to charges of kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and make false statements.
Much of Jodka's testimony fell in line with the story Bacos told when he pleaded guilty on Oct. 6.
Jodka ---- who graduated from San Dieguito Academy high school in 2004 and headed to the University of California, Riverside for a semester before joining the Marines ---- was the youngest and least-experienced man accused in Awad's slaying. He had been a Marine for less than a year and in Iraq for four months when the shooting took place.
His father, John Jodka Jr, has been a vocal defender of his son. The elder Jodka joined his former wife and her parents in the first row of the courtroom as his son described the plot and the aftermath.
"I'm as proud of my son as the day he enlisted in the Marines," Jodka's father said after the hearing, choking back tears. "He stood up like a Marine."
'We got him'
Of the remaining six defendants, the cases for all but one have been ordered to trial. Hutchins, who has maintained his innocence through his family and attorneys, is awaiting word on whether he will be ordered to court-martial.
Jodka testified that he and the others were on patrol looking for insurgents planting roadside bombs ---- which the military calls IEDs, or improvised explosive devices ---- on April 25 when Hutchins called them together at about sunset.
Hutchins laid out the scheme, Jodka said, which was to kidnap and kill a man named Saleh Gowad, then to place his body in a roadside hole next to a stolen AK-47 and shovel. The men all agreed to take part in the murder plot, Jodka said.
Jodka told the judge his superiors had identified Gowad as an insurgent; Jodka said his squad had arrested Gowad at least three times previously, only to have him be released each time.
The plan was set into motion at about 1:30 a.m.
Four of the men ---- Cpls. Marshall Magincalda and Trent Thomas, Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and Corpsman Bacos ---- all headed out to snatch Gowad from his home.
When Bacos testified three weeks ago, he said they could not find Gowad, so instead they grabbed a neighbor ---- Awad.
The four troops returned with their captive under a moonless sky, Jodka said.
"I overheard Cpl. Thomas tell Sgt. Hutchins that we got him and he's in the hole," Jodka testified, adding that the hole was about 75 yards away.
"At this point, you thought the individual was Saleh Gowad?" the judge asked Jodka.
"Yes sir," he replied.
'You know what to say'
According to the charges filed in June, the men bound the hands and feet of Awad ---- who was a retired Iraqi policeman ---- before shoving him into the hole.
Jodka said Hutchins ordered the men to open fire. But Awad stood up and scrambled out of the hole, which was about 2 1/2 feet deep.
"I don't know if he stood up after he was shot, or was shot after he stood up," Jodka said, soon adding, "I couldn't see the man in the hole at the time we were firing, sir. I only saw him stand up and run down the road to the north."
Jodka said he and the others kept shooting.
Afterward, Jodka said he was crossing the road to secure the area when he heard gunfire behind him.
"As I turned around, I saw Sgt. Hutchins, Cpl. Thomas and Lance Cpl. Pennington standing in the vicinity (of the gunfire)," Jodka said. "Cpl. Thomas and Sgt. Hutchins told me they were performing a 'dead check.' "
During his testimony on Oct. 6, Bacos said he saw Hutchins fire three shots into the man's head, and Thomas fire as many as 10 bullets into the man's chest.
Later, Jodka said, the men gathered on a roof.
"Sgt. Hutchins ... said to us if anyone were to ask what happened, the words he used were, 'You know what to say,' " Jodka said. "I took that to mean that if anyone asked, we were to say that we had seen this man approach with a shovel and begin digging and that he had engaged us and we lawfully engaged him."
Jodka told the judge that his actions discredited the Marine Corps "because of the notoriety of the case and the Iraq war."
"Anything that happens that gets reported becomes ammunition," Jodka said. "Anything like this would present an argument against the war."
Bacos and Jodka are being held in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. The other defendants remain in the Camp Pendleton brig, where all the men were placed in late May after being returned to the U.S. from Iraq.
Following the hearing, David Brahms, a former Marine Corps general and now an attorney in private practice who representing Pennington in the Hamdania incident, said his confidence in securing his client's innocence is undiminished.
"I have never been more confident about my case after listening to this," said Brahms, who watched the Jodka court-martial from a base media center. "I have the toughest kid who has said, 'I don't want a deal, I don't even want to hear anything about a government offer.'"
As a result, Brahms said, "We are going to go ahead and plead not guilty and go to trial."
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/27/news/top_stories/1_01_510_25_06.txt
Encinitas Marine reported ready to plead guilty in Hamdania case
CAMP PENDLETON ---- An Encinitas Marine who until now has steadfastly maintained his innocence is expected to plead guilty next week for his role in the April 26 killing of an Iraqi man, the Marine's attorneys said Friday.
The deal would make Pfc. John Jodka III the second of eight Camp Pendleton men to admit to taking part in the kidnapping and slaying of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.
Jodka, 20, is expected to plead guilty to assault and obstruction of justice, said Joseph Casas, one of the young Marine's two civilian attorneys.
Like his co-defendants, Jodka is charged with murder, kidnapping and a host of related offenses in Awad's death in the Iraqi village of Hamdania.
Casas declined to provide specific details on the sentence he expects his client to receive.
"I can't talk about any negotiations with the government, assuming there are any," he said.
Jodka is the youngest of the defendants and the lowest-ranking among the seven Marines and Navy corpsman charged in the case. He also was the least experienced, having been only four months into his first deployment in Iraq when the killing took place.
Through his attorneys and family members, Jodka has said from the beginning that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
His father, John Jodka Jr., a vocal critic of the prosecution, said he will forever be proud of his son.
"It's too soon for me to respond other than to say that I'm as proud of my son as the day he went in the Marines," he said. "He was the best damn PFC in Iraq."
Jane Siegel, Jodka's other hired attorney, said she believes the deal is a proper resolution for her client.
"I think that he wants to do the right thing, and I think he is," she said.
Jodka is scheduled to face a military judge in a Camp Pendleton courtroom at 9 a.m. Thursday. He will not be sentenced until some time before Thanksgiving, his attorney said.
The plea deal was first reported on the North County Times Web site early Friday afternoon.
On June 21, the Marine Corps charged the men with dragging the 52-year-old Awad out of his home, marching him about 1,000 yards, placing him in a makeshift dirt hole and shooting him to death.
They also were accused of placing a stolen AK-47 and a shovel next to the body of the retired Iraqi policeman and father of 14 children to make it appear he was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb, and then lying about it.
According to charges, Jodka was among five men said to have fired on Awad.
When Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos pleaded guilty on Oct. 6 to his role in the killing, he implicated two squad mates as triggermen: Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, the squad leader, and Cpl. Trent Thomas, a fire team leader in the platoon.
Bacos said during his Oct. 6 court-martial that Hutchins fired three rounds into Awad's head and that Thomas fired as many as 10 bullets into the man's chest.
The corpsman's testimony came as he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and make false official statements. In exchange for his plea, he was sentenced to 12 months in the brig with credit for 142 days served and an agreement he testify for the prosecution.
The squad was out looking for another man, one believed to be an insurgent, Bacos said, but settled for Awad when they could not find their original target.
Bacos' testimony represented the first public airing of what may have happened. At all the other hearings for the accused men, the investigative officers overseeing the proceedings agreed to review the bulk of the evidence in private.
A Marine Corps spokesman declined to confirm the Jodka agreement.
"It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any potential negotiations between the government and defense counsel," Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said Friday afternoon.
The accused men are all members of Camp Pendleton's 2nd platoon of Kilo Company attached to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
Jodka attended elementary and middle school at St. James Academy, a Catholic school in Solana Beach. He graduated from San Dieguito Academy high school in 2004 and spent an academic quarter at UC Riverside before deciding to enlist as a Marine.
In May 2005, Jodka shipped off to boot camp, and in January was sent to Iraq. He was there when he turned 20 in April ---- less than four weeks before Awad's death.
The military opened an investigation into the incident about a week after it occurred. By mid-May, the eight accused squad mates were under house arrest in Iraq.
The men were flown back to Camp Pendleton two weeks later and placed in the brig there on May 24. Two weeks ago, Jodka and Bacos were moved to the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
A second guilty plea could have a dramatic effect on the other cases, according to Georgetown University law professor and attorney Gary Solis.
"I hesitate to say it will spur more guilty pleas," Solis said, "but if I were one of the defense counsel I would be foolish if I didn't say to my client 'Why don't we look into the possibility of a plea deal? If we can get something like this, would you be interested?'"
A retired Marine who spent more than two decades as a military lawyer and judge, Solis said potential jurors in any trials for the remaining defendants were more than likely to be aware of the deals that prosecutors reached with Bacos and Jodka.
"Theoretically, it's supposed to have no effect because each case is tried individually. But practically speaking, it would be hard to ignore and difficult for a juror not to realize these other cases are going at a lower price."
He added that a second plea deal is not all that surprising given the apparent strength of the government's case based on statements each manmade to Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents in Iraq when confronted shortly after Awad's death.
"The government seemingly has such strong evidence, so for someone to flip and make a deal to testify for the prosecution is not exactly shocking," Solis said.
Diann Shumate, mother of co-defendant Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., seemed discouraged when told of the news when reached at her home in western Washington state.
"They are really putting the pressure on these guys," she said, declining further comment.
Her son lost a bid for release from the brig last week and has reserved his right to enter a plea against the charges he faces.
Despite the guilty plea by Bacos and now the apparent Jodka deal, supporters of the men who have conducted rallies in front of the Camp Pendleton gate each Saturday since the summer are expected there again today, albeit in far smaller numbers.
A rally organizer, Christine Bruce, said this week that the demonstrators numbered about a dozen last Saturday compared with more than 100 when they first began months ago.
"People are sort of feeling now like there's just a lot that we don't know and we will just watch and see what happens," Bruce said.
Participants were disappointed when word of the Bacos deal came, she added.
"But we don't know his full story and his reasons for doing what he did," she said in reference to the corpsman.
Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.
Fast Facts
The following is the status of seven Marines and Navy corpsman charged
with killing a 52-year-old Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania on April 26. Each remain in custody in the brig at either Camp Pendleton or Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
Petty Officer Melson Bacos, 21, Franklin, Wis.:
Pleaded guilty Oct. 6 to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and making false official statements. In exchange, Bacos was given a 12-month jail sentence ---- with 142 days credit for time served ---- and an agreement that he testify for the government.
Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, 22, Plymouth, Mass.:
Article 32 investigative hearing conducted Monday. Awaiting hearing officer's recommendation to Lt. Gen. James Mattis as to whether he should be ordered to trial.
Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson, 23, Tracy:
Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.
Pfc. John Jodka III, 20, Encinitas:
Set to appear at a court-martial Thursday to plead guilty to assault and obstruction of justice, his attorneys said Friday.
Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, 23, Manteca:
Ordered to trial by Lt. Gen. Mattis. Pleaded not guilty during arraignment proceeding last month. Trial is set for Feb. 1.
Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, 22, Mukilteo, Wash.:
Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.
Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., 21, Matlock, Wash.:
Ordered to trial by Lt. Gen. Mattis. Reserved the right to enter plea to charges at a later date during arraignment Friday. Trial is set for Feb. 12.
Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, 24, St. Louis, Mo.:
Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/21/news/top_stories/2_00_0610_20_06.txt
Medic pleads guilty, details killing of Iraqi
October 07, 2006 CAMP PENDLETON ---- The medic said they hatched the murder plan in an Iraqi palm grove as the sun set on a spring evening.
They were a squad on patrol in the village of Hamdania, Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos testified Friday, when they agreed to the plot: Seize a man widely believed to be an insurgent. Kill him. Stage the scene to cover it up. Lie about it when other Marines come around to investigate.
And if their target eluded them, the young Navy corpsman said, they would just grab someone else, anyone else. But the plan would remain the same: kidnap and kill an Iraqi.
Bacos' story detailing the events of the evening of April 25 and early morning hours of April 26 in Hamdania played out in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Friday. It was the first public account of an incident that led to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against a platoon of seven Marines and the Navy corpsman assigned to take care of their emergency medical needs.
When the men couldn't find their intended target, Bacos told the court, they grabbed another man from another home in the middle of the night.
There came a moment after the kidnapping and before the slaying, the medic said, when "I knew what we were doing was wrong."
It was then, he said, that he asked a squad mate to free the bound man ---- but the Marine would not do it.
"I tried to say something, sir," Bacos told a military judge, "and I decided to look away."
For pleading guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping during his daylong court-martial Friday, and for agreeing to testify against his Camp Pendleton squad mates, Bacos will serve one year in jail, with credit for 142 days already served. He will not be discharged from the service.
Military Judge Col. Steven Folsom actually sentenced Bacos to 10 years and a dishonorable discharge, but the pretrial plea deal Bacos had in hand ---- which has already been approved by Camp Pendleton's commander, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis ---- precluded Folsom from handing down anything longer than 12 months.
In light of that, Folsom suspended the remainder of the 10-year sentence, provided that Bacos holds up his end of the deal.
'The only honorable thing'
The Navy corpsman is one of eight local service members accused in the slaying of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, who was not the targeted insurgent the squad was looking for that night. Instead, they grabbed Awad, a 52-year-old retired Iraqi police officer with a lame foot.
Nearly two months after Awad's death, the military charged the eight servicemen with murder, kidnapping and related offenses.
Before he learned his fate from the judge, Bacos read from a prepared statement, explaining why he decided to plead guilty and tell what he knew.
"I sincerely believe this is the only honorable thing to do, that to tell the truth is the only honorable thing to do," Bacos said. "I accept responsibility for my actions."
Bacos also apologized to the family of the slain Awad.
"I wanted to be part of the team, but there is no excuse for immorality," Bacos said. "I feel as if my honor is gone and I have let down others who have looked up to me. I apologize to my country, to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps."
One of Bacos' prosecutors, Capt. Nicholas Gannon, argued for a sentence of up to 15 years and a dishonorable discharge, calling the crime "the worst kind of kidnapping there is, because the victim is never coming back."
Gannon told the judge that Bacos' remorse was "too little, too late."
"There was ample opportunity for Petty Officer Bacos to have this crisis of conscience," Gannon said, listing a number of chances Bacos had to stop his squad mates that night, including the time in which the men allegedly dragged the limping Awad from his home to the killing scene, some 1,000 yards away.
Bacos struck the deal with prosecutors earlier this week when he agreed to testify against the seven co-defendants.
The medic is the only one of the accused men ---- all of whom are members of 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment ---- to plead guilty to the charges.
News of his plea deal was first reported by the North County Times on its Web site Tuesday night.
The ambush mission
Bacos' story was dramatic, if his presentation was not. The soft-spoken Navy medic, in a solemn monotone, was barely audible as he gave his account.
He laid much of the blame on the squad leader, Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III.
Bacos said the squad was out on an ambush mission that evening when they staked out a position in a grove of palm trees.
Senior members of the squad huddled in the grove, he said, plotting the murder. The man who outlined the plan, Bacos said, was Hutchins.
He said Hutchins told the entire group that four of them would then go to a home, any home, seize a shovel and assault rifle, and stash it all in a safe spot so they could came back for it later.
They would then head to the home of Saleh Gowad ---- a man Bacos said was a known insurgent who had been detained and released three times prior ---- and seize him.
They would kill Gowad and stage the scene to make it look like the squad happened upon him while he was digging a bomb, with an AK-47 assault rifle at the ready.
And if they couldn't find Gowad, they would go to another house and grab someone else. The rest of the plan would stay the same.
There in the palm grove, Bacos said, the eight men all agreed. "We all said, 'I'm in,' " Bacos testified, adding he "didn't believe they would carry out a plan like that, so I brushed it off.
"When we moved in a second position under the tree, that's when it was set in stone."
And after the killing, the corpsman and the Marines agreed, should anybody ask what had happened, they would tell the same tale, Bacos said.
At 1:30 a.m. April 26, they put the plan in motion.
Bacos said he and three Marines, radio operator Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and Cpls. Trent Thomas and Marshall Magincalda Jr., headed out.
They stopped at a house. Bacos said he snatched a shovel from outside the home; Magincalda and Thomas disappeared into the house, and returned with an AK-47 they had seized from the residents.
They made their way, he said, to Gowad's home.
"As we were getting ready to go inside, one of the family members woke up and saw us," Bacos said, adding that they told the person to "go back to sleep."
Then, he said, Cpl. Thomas "pointed at a house next door."
It was Awad's house.
Bacos said that he and Pennington stayed outside while Magincalda and Thomas went in. When they came out, they brought with them "an old male."
They bound his hands with plastic cuffs, the medic said, and walked toward a roadside dirt hole that would become the killing scene ---- but not before they retrieved the stashed gun and shovel. Bacos said he was the one who carried the stolen gun.
They finally reached the spot. One of them dug a hole. One of them bound Awad's feet. One of them gagged his mouth. They left him in the hole they had dug, a spot designed to look as if it were being carved out to hold a roadside bomb.
Bacos said he finally asked his buddies to stop.
"While they were finishing up ... I went up to the road and asked them if we should do this," Bacos said, adding that he backed off any protest after Magincalda called him a name.
"I felt they were gonna do what they were gonna do. l felt I could do nothing else," Bacos said, "so I continued on with the plan."
Bacos said he took the AK-47 and went back to a tree to join the other four men, including the squad leader.
"Sgt. Hutchins ordered them to get on line and point their weapons at the IED hole," Bacos said in reference to the military's shorthand for a roadside bomb. "The first shot was fired by Sgt. Hutchins."
Bacos said Hutchins then called the command operations center to request permission to shoot and "made it sound like we were in a firefight with this man."
The squad, he said, was "seven or nine meters" from the hole that was dug to make it appear Awad was planting a bomb.
Afterward, Bacos said, Magincalda told him to throw the AK-47 casings around Awad's body to make it appear the Iraqi had fired first with that weapon.
"That's where I witnessed Sgt. Hutchins fire three rounds into the man's head and Thomas fired seven to 10 rounds in the man's chest," he said.
When the shooting stopped, Bacos said, he was "shocked, sick to my stomach, my adrenaline was pumping."
After they reported having killed an insurgent, the Marines dispatched a "quick reaction" squad to investigate.
With that squad was another Navy medic, who Bacos said asked him what had happened. That was his chance to distance himself from the Marines.
"I said, 'I want you to remember something,' " Bacos said he told his fellow medic. "'We're different, we're not like these men.' "
Less than a week later, suspicions would be raised when Awad's family came forward.
Authorities responded quickly, assigning several agents to investigate the case and restricting the men to their base, Camp Fallujah. A short time later, they were ordered to return to the U.S. and were placed in the Camp Pendleton brig on May 24.
During their first month of confinement, the men were shackled when they left their single-man cells. That raised the ire of their attorneys, family members and supporters, and that restriction was subsequently lifted.
'Ready to move on'
Before Bacos was sentenced, prosecutors showed photographs of Awad's bloodied body and a 19-minute videotaped interview with the slain man's brother, an Arabic speaker whose words were translated into English by an interpreter.
"Just imagine if you lost one very close to your heart," said the 54-year-old man, whose name was not immediately available. "I swear if he did a bad thing, I wouldn't be sad today."
He said his brother, who had 11 children, had nothing against U.S. forces and had never participated in any action against coalition troops.
Bacos sat with his chin resting in his hands most of the time that the video was being played, occasionally looking down or away from the small screen set up at the defense table.
During the defense presentation, Bacos described his upbringing as the son of Filipino immigrants and said he signed up for a five-year Navy enlistment in August 2003, shortly after graduating from high school.
Following his training, Bacos was assigned to Camp Pendleton in early 2004, and in November of that year, he was in Fallujah for one of the major battles of the war.
When the court session ended, Bacos marched with his attorneys to a spot outside a media center established at Camp Pendleton to accommodate coverage of the Hamdania case.
The slight-framed Bacos, dressed in a crisp summer white Navy dress uniform, said that he wanted to thank supporters, wants to get this behind him and maybe go to medical school one day.
"I'm just ready to move on from this chapter in my life," he said.
His hired attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan, said the plea deal was a just resolution for his client that will allow him to "have a bright future."
More to come
Before that kind of future begins, however, he must serve his time and testify in the up to seven cases still pending should each go to trial.
On Tuesday, Bacos was moved from the brig at Camp Pendleton to Miramar to separate him from the other accused servicemen. Pfc. John Jodka III also has been moved to Miramar, where his father, John Jodka Jr., said he is being held in facilities that are "better suited for him."
The elder Jodka also said his son continues to maintain he is innocent of any wrongdoing despite being implicated by Bacos. He would not say if a plea deal is in the works.
"He is profoundly affected by what Corpsman Bacos has done, but he is an innocent Marine and he is not guilty of the charges brought against him," the father said.
Leanne Magincalda, the mother of Cpl. Magincalda, said she talked to her son Friday afternoon.
"He hurt really bad when he heard about Bacos," she said. "The hurt is what came through when I talked to him because he knows that what he (her son) did was not wrong. Despite what Bacos said, the truth is going to prevail."
Pretrial hearings for four of the defendants are scheduled to take place the week of Oct. 15. On Tuesday, Magincalda and Jodka pleaded not guilty when they were formally arraigned on murder, kidnapping and related offenses.
Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwaker@nctimes.com.
Guilty pleas latest chapter in long line of events
CAMP PENDLETON ---- Guilty pleas submitted by a Navy Corpsman on Friday came after nearly six months of investigation into the alleged murder of an Iraqi civilian by Camp Pendleton troops. Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos testified in a military court Friday that the incident began on the evening of April 25, when his squad put together a plan to kidnap and kill an Iraqi. Since then, eight men have been charged with murder in the incident. Until Friday, the men stuck together with a story that they had done nothing wrong. Bacos' plea, while the latest chapter in the story, promises not to be the last.
The following is a time line of events in the case:
- April 26 ---- Alleged murder of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.Alleged incident took place in Hamdania, Iraq.
- May 1---- Preliminary investigation begins as officials learn of the alleged killing.
- May 7 ---- The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Navy's investigative branch begins a criminal investigation.
- May 12---- Eleven Marines and Bacos are removed from their unit and ordered back to Camp Pendleton, where they arrive May 24.
- May 25 ---- Seven Marines and Bacos are placed in pre-trial confinement at the Camp Pendleton brig.The additional four Marines are placed on base restriction.
- June 21---- Seven Marines and Bacos are charged with murder in connection with Awad's death.
- Aug. 30 ---- Pretrial hearings, known in the military as Article 32 hearings, begin for some of the men charged in the alleged killing.
- Sept. 25 ---- Officials order military trials, or courts martial, for Private First Class John J. Jodka, Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda and Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate.
- Oct. 4---- Jodka and Magincalda plead not guilty to the charges against them.
- Oct. 6 ---- Bacos, a Navy corpsman with the squad, pleads guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy. Murder charges are dropped. He is sentenced to a year in military confinement in exchange for testifying against seven others charged in the incident. In accordance with the plea deal, he is not discharged.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/07/news/top_stories/1_29_9910_5_06.txt
http://www.nctimes.com/special_reports/hamdania/
Six Marines charged with assault
The Marine Corps has filed charges against six Marines for an alleged April 10 assault on an unnamed Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania, officials announced Thursday.
Three of the charged are already in the base brig awaiting court action on charges they kidnapped and killed another Iraqi civilian on April 26.
The early evening announcement from Camp Pendleton identified the suspects in the April 10 incident as Lance Cpls. Saul H. Lopezromo and Henry D. Lever and Pfc. Derek I. Lewis. Also charged are Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas and Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., who along with four other Marines and a Navy corpsman stand accused of premeditated murder in the April 26 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.
Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman at Camp Pendleton, said more specific details about the alleged April 10 assault would not be available until this morning.
Victor Kelley, a civilian attorney hired by the Thomas family to defend him on the murder charge, termed the latest allegation "bull...." and said his client is innocent.
"It didn't happen," Kelley said in a telephone interview from his home in Birmingham, Ala. "Cpl. Thomas had nothing to do with that, and it is not going to be proven."
Salahuddin province, Soldiers say orders were to kill all military-age Iraqis
Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military-age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.
The soldiers took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.
"The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name. That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp.
Girouard, Spc. William Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey Clagett and Spc. Juston Graber are charged with murder and other offenses in the shooting deaths of three of the men during the May 9 raid.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/278480_soldiers22.html
Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, US soldiers charged in rape case
Four US soldiers have been charged with rape and murder over an attack on an Iraqi woman who was killed along with her family last March. The soldiers, on active duty in Iraq, are accused of conspiring with former soldier Steven Green to commit the crimes in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. Mr Green, who is being held in the US, denies the rape and murder charges. A fifth soldier serving in Iraq has been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the offences.
Iraq rape-slaying hearing begins
A preliminary hearing began Sunday for four U.S. soldiers charged in connection with the rape and slaying of an Iraqi female and the killings of her family earlier this year in Mahmoudiya, Iraq.
Three witnesses took the stand on the first day of the Article 32 hearing at Camp Victory near Baghdad, including an Iraqi army medic who gave graphic testimony about the state of the bodies.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spec. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard were all charged with conspiring with former Pfc. Steven D. Green to commit the crimes, the military said.
The four could face the death penalty, the military has said.
A fifth soldier, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, was charged with failing to report the rape and killings but is not alleged to have been a direct participant. He is not facing an Article 32 hearing at this time.
Green, who was discharged from the Army in May due an "anti-social personality disorder," faces rape and murder charges in federal court. He is being held in a Kentucky jail, where last month he was granted a three-month delay in his arraignment. He has pleaded not guilty.
All six are from the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) out of Fort Campbell, Ky.
The incident took place in March in Mahmoudiya, just south of Baghdad. A Justice Department affidavit filed in Green's case says Green and other soldiers planned the rape.
The affidavit says Green shot and killed the woman's relatives, including a girl of about 5 years of age; raped the woman; then fatally shot her. It says the incident took place "on or about March 12, 2006."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/06/iraq.main/index.html
Friends of former soldier charged in Iraq deaths recall unpredictable behavior
Medic testifies at U.S. troops' hearing
Investigator: Troops drank, golfed before Iraqi killings, rape
Torture and Prisoner Abuse
Colonel's leadership at Abu Ghraib questioned
Ex-intelligence officer testifies he was concerned about prison conditions
October 17, 2006 The former top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib said he began doubting his deputy's leadership ability shortly after the deputy, who is now charged with abusing detainees, arrived on the job.
Col. Thomas Pappas testified at Fort Meade today that he became concerned about the job performance of Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan and about conditions inside the prison after the International Committee of the Red Cross visited in October 2003, about a month after Jordan's assignment there. Pappas said Jordan did not immediately tell him that the Red Cross had objected to naked detainees inside Abu Ghraib.
Pappas also testified that Jordan had not immediately informed him of a Nov. 24, 2003, incident in which a detainee was shot and wounded by military police during a struggle after guards found a handgun in the prisoner's cell.
Pappas testified by telephone from Fort Knox today at Jordan's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. The hearing is to determine whether Jordan, the highest-ranking officer charged in the scandal, should be court-martialed for any of the 12 charges he faces. He faces a maximum of 42 years in prison if convicted of all counts.
On Monday, the court heard from Maj. Gen. George Fay, who wrote a report on detainee maltreatment at the prison in Iraq. Fay said Jordan lied to investigators about his knowledge of detainee abuse.
Fay said his investigation found that Jordan, a military intelligence reservist, was in charge of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center despite Jordan's insistence to Fay that his director's title meant he was just a liaison between the center and superior officers.
"I believe Lt. Col. Jordan knew about some of those abuses and did not stop some of those abuses," Fay said under direct questioning by prosecutor Lt. Col. John P. Tracy.
Fay also said that Jordan "told us a story that was deceptive and it was misleading and he tried to avoid responsibility for his role at Abu Ghraib."
For instance, Fay said that when he asked Jordan if he had seen prisoners stripped naked, Jordan told him he had, but that the nudity had nothing to do with interrogations. Jordan replied that "it all had to do with the lack of clothing at the time," Fay said in response to a question from hearing officer Col. Daniel Cummings
Jordan, 50, of Fredericksburg, Va., is the highest-ranking officer charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and early 2004. Now assigned to the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., he was director of the interrogation center from mid-September through late November 2003, when detainees were physically abused, threatened with dogs and sexually humiliated.
The Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center was created in September 2003 as part of a reorganization aimed at extracting more and better intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.
Eleven lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted of crimes in the scandal. Pappas was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval. Several other officers also have been reprimanded or relieved of their command as a result of the investigation.
Shays: Abu Ghraib abuses were sex ring
October 13, 2006 HARTFORD, Conn. - Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (bio), who is in a tough re-election fight, said Friday the Abu Ghraib prison abuses were more about pornography than torture.
The veteran Connecticut congressman said a National Guard unit was primarily responsible for the abuses although it was actually the 372nd Military Police Company from Cresaptown, Md., an Army Reserve unit.
"It was a National Guard unit run amok," Shays said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable ... This is more about pornography than torture."
Shays sought to defuse controversy over his previous comments suggesting the Abu Ghraib abuses weren't torture but instead involved a sex ring of troops.
"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture," Shays said at a debate Wednesday.
"It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked," added Shays. "And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."
The lawmaker's comments were in a transcript of the debate provided by his opponent, Diane Farrell. Shays' campaign, contacted Friday, did not dispute the comments.
Abu Ghraib is the Baghdad prison where abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers led to an international scandal. Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were brutalized and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence agents in the fall of 2003. At least 11 U.S. soldiers have been convicted in the scandal.
Elected in 1987, Shays has distinguished himself as a moderate Republican who often breaks with his party, especially on his signature issue of campaign finance reform. But in the last week, his comments have echoed conservative talk radio.
Shays defended House Speaker Dennis Hastert's handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like at Chappaquiddick in 1969 when Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) was involved.
"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day," the embattled Connecticut congressman told The Hartford Courant in remarks published Wednesday.
"Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody," he added
Shays is waging a bruising re-election fight against Farrell.
"Once again, Chris is trying to back away from an earlier statement because it's politically expedient," Farrell said Friday. "It's typical Chris."
Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, who appeared at a news conference with Farrell on Friday, said people are going to jail because of torture at Abu Ghraib.
"It's not because it was some pornography ring. I'm surprised anyone would make that suggestion," Dodd said. "The suggestion that somehow this was something less than that is, again, almost bordering on the bizarre."
During the campaign stop, Dodd criticized a direct-mail flier from the National Republican Congressional Committee titled, "Diane Farrell: Coffee Talk with the Taliban," that had been sent to voters in the southwestern Connecticut district.
"This is absolutely the worst kind of politics in America," Dodd said. "The people who associate themselves with that party and these things must be held accountable."
Farrell has received money and an endorsement from the Council for a Livable World, a 44-year-old Washington, D.C., organization that works to reduce nuclear weapons. In the mailer, Republicans said the Council has a "leader who wanted someone to sit down and talk with the Taliban instead of just forcibly removing them from power."
In a statement Friday, Shays said the NRCC had crossed the line with the mailing and called on the Republican organization to "put an end to sending this type of garbage."
On its Web site, the council calls the NRCC claim bogus and says board member Roger Fisher, an expert on conflict resolution who teaches at Harvard University, "recommended combining carrots and sticks to persuade the government of Afghanistan to turn over Osama bin Laden."
Recently, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist said during a trip to Afghanistan that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and he favored bringing "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061013/ap_on_el_ho/connecticut_shays
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5I1rGFCVOs
Marine Sergeant Comes Forward to Report Abuse at Guantanamo Bay
The Pentagon says it is fully cooperating with a brand new investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
The allegations come from a Marine Corps sergeant, 23-year-old Heather Cerveny, who spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer representing detainees.
In a sworn affidavit filed with the Pentagon Inspector General, Sgt. Cerveny says she met several Navy prison guards at a club on the base where, over drinks, they described harsh physical abuse.
"One sailor specifically said, 'I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door,'" Sgt. Cerveny tells ABC News in an exclusive interview.
She says she was "shocked" to hear several guards from different parts of the camp speak openly of mistreating prisoners.
"Everyone in the group laughed at all their stories of beating detainees," she recalled. "None of them looked like they cared. None of them looked shocked by it."
One of the guards "was telling his buddy, 'Yeah, this one detainee, you know, really pissed me off, irritated me. So I just, you know, punched him in the face.'"
Sgt. Cerveny says the guards also talked about taking away detainees' privileges "even when they're being good" and denying their requests for water. In her affidavit, she states she was told "they do this to anger the detainees so they can punish them when they object or complain."
When asked why, she claims a guard named Steven told her it's "because he hates the detainees and that they are bad people. He stated that he doesn't like having to take care of them or be nice to them," she says in the affidavit.
Sgt. Cerveny says the guards told her they worked at Camps 5 and 6. When she asked one of the guards about the consequences of their actions, "He said nothing. Everyone in the group was laughing."
They stopped laughing when they found out she worked for a marine defense lawyer.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/exclusive_full_.html
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Haditha killings
Report suggests Marines culpable in Haditha killings
03 August, 2006 A probe into the killing of 24 Iraqis by a squad of Camp Pendleton Marines last November concluded the killings were carried out deliberately and apparently in violation of the rules of engagement, an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted as saying Wednesday.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/08/03/news/top_stories/8106191650.txt
beginning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings
outside Samarra, U.S. soldiers crossed the line in slayings, prosecutor argues
TIKRIT, Iraq -- A military prosecutor said Friday that four U.S. soldiers accused of murder in Iraq crossed the line and violated the "laws of war," arguing they freed three detainees, encouraged them to flee and then shot them down as they ran.
"Soldiers must follow the laws of war. That's what makes us better than the terrorists, what sets us apart from the thugs and the hit men. These soldiers did just the opposite," Capt. Joseph Mackey said in closing arguments at a hearing to determine if the four should face a court-martial -- and possibly the death penalty.
But a lawyer for one of the accused soldiers said the three Iraqi men "got exactly what they deserved" and urged a military investigator to recommend that murder charges filed against the four be dismissed.
Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. Juston R. Graber are accused of murder in the killing of the three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 outside Samarra.
The soldiers, all from the 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, declined to testify at the hearing, relying instead on statements they made to military investigators.
By RYAN LENZ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
sexual assault on military personnel
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/274349_robert17.html
http://hometown.aol.com/milesfdn/myhomepage/
West Point cadet found guilty of rape, attempted rape
September 29, 2006 West Point — A senior at the U.S. Military Academy will spend the next eight years behind bars for the rape and attempted rape of two former cadets.
Lonnie Austin Story of Poplar Bluff, Mo., was found guilty after a four-day court-martial that ended yesterday.
He is the first cadet convicted of rape at the nation's oldest service academy since women were admitted in 1976. A previous case nine years ago ended in acquittal.
Cadet Story "hasn't just ruined his own reputation; he tarnished the reputation of West Point, where trust, loyalty, honesty and respect are supposed to mean the world," said Capt. Tom Song, an Army prosecutor.
"Cadets are supposed to live by (these ideals) so when they are tested they know what the right thing to do is. After four years at West Point, he missed the point all together," Song said.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/NEWS/609290319
Female Soldiers Treated 'Lower Than Dirt'
U.S. Army Specialist Suzanne Swift will spend her 22nd birthday tomorrow confined to the Fort Lewis base in Washington, where she is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants in Iraq.
Swift says the sergeants propositioned her for sex shortly after arriving for her first tour of duty in February 2004. She remained in Iraq until February 2005. "When you are over there, you are lower than dirt, you are expendable as a soldier in general, and as a woman, it's worse," said Swift in a recent interview with the Guardian.
When Swift's unit redeployed to Iraq in January 2006, she refused to go and instead stayed with her mother in Eugene, Oregon. She was eventually listed as AWOL, arrested at her mother's home on June 11, sent to county jail, and transferred to Fort Lewis.
"She's miserable and isolated," says Sara Rich, Swift's mother. "It's not good to have an idle mind while you're dealing with PTSD and sexual trauma. I want them to release her so I can get her the care she needs. I'm tired of waiting."
A colonel outside of Swift's chain of command is investigating the case, but Rich says she has been given little information with no time frame. "I believe they're trying to break her down using fear and intimidation."
http://www.alternet.org/story/38942/
Reagan Regime scandals
More Executive branch appointees were indicted and convicted of felonies during the Reagan Administration than any other administration.
More than likely the Bush 43 regime will push Reagan to second place in the 'Most Corrupt' rating.
Iran Contra
#26: Michael Ledeen: Improving on Mussolini
Ledeen has been called the driving philosophical force behind the neoconservative movement and (by me) "the most influential and unabashed warmonger of our time." A resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (#7), contributing editor at National Review and former Pentagon, State Department and White House consultant under Reagan (when his Israeli intelligence contacts were used to help broker the illegal Iran-contra affair), Ledeen is often quoted by top Bush officials, including Cheney, Rumsfeld and former Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. But they don't quote quotes like these--at least not in public: In March 2003, Ledeen, a leading and longtime proponent of the invasion of Iraq--and of Iran, Syria and no doubt other countries yet to be named--told a forum that "the level of casualties [in Iraq] is secondary" because "we are a warlike people...we love war."
He has written that "Change--above all violent change--is the essence of human history"; "the only way to achieve peace is through total war"; and "The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people." He was quoted approvingly by National Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg as saying, "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."
In April 2003--one month into the Iraq war--Ledeen gave an address titled "Time to Focus on Iran," and declared, "the time for diplomacy is at an end." Ledeen's attacks on Iran, even when Iran was assisting the US, "helped keep the Bush administration from seeking any rapprochement with Tehran," wrote William Beeman of the Pacific News Service in 2003. "Were it in Ledeen's hands, we would invade Iran today."
Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, Beeman noted, but if the US "ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration."
