Congressman Maurice Hinchey is clearly stressed by polls showing his re-election campaign in serious trouble. How else to interpret his unhinged reaction when a reporter asked him about earmarks he secured which seem to have enriched him personally, Hinchey reportedly came unglued: After the shooters turned off their cameras and started to break down, Hinchey made a beeline for Kemble and got in his face, | Read More »
I’m sure if he is clean enough to have the support of Barack Obama, Alexi Giannoulias has nothing to hide – right? Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful David Hoffman late Thursday released copies of his federal income tax returns for the past five years and, with a sharp shot at competitor Alexi Giannoulias, challenged him to do the same… Mr. Hoffman also repeated his pledge to | Read More »
The Washington Post reports that Tara O’Toole is poking around at the Department of Homeland Security, and apparently anticipating the Senate will confirm her nomination soon: The Department of Homeland Security directorate of science and technology is moving office furniture around these days, apparently to fit more folks into available space. Buzz has it that the musical chairs is even going on in the suites | Read More »
This takes chutzpah: West Virginia Democrat Rep. Alan Mollohan apparently is undeterred by an ongoing Justice Department investigation of his earmarking practices because his 2010 earmark requests includes a $2 million item for a project that will benefit several of his campaign contributors, and a former staff member who is also a real estate investment partner. The project is a new National Guard facility in | Read More »
Former Congressman JD Hayworth is reportedly considering a primary challenge to John McCain. In explaining his rationale recently, he made a serious allegation about McCain’s loyalty to party: Hayworth charged that in 2005 Salter tried to “blackmail” him into stopping his public criticism of McCain’s comprehensive immigration-reform bill. Hayworth said his chief of staff got an e-mail from Salter indicating that McCain might retaliate by | Read More »
Kerry Picket has done a great job of piecing together a story that looks an awful lot like administration officials using taxpayer money to buy support for its agenda. (Full disclosure: Kerry and I both work for the Washington Times.) Check out the timeline: November 10, 2008: Former NEA chief named to Obama transition team. Bill Ivey, NEA head under Bill Clinton, will handle arts | Read More »
Speaker Pelosi, do you even remember promising to drain the swamp, and to turn ‘the most closed and corrupt Congress into the most open and honest Congress?’ If you even pretend to be serious about this, how can you allow the House of Representatives to vote on a bill that would put thousands (or millions) into the pockets of the sponsor, his wife, his father, | Read More »
Wow. I wonder if Chairman Murtha – the one who delivered all the earmarks – knew that his brother was apparently somehow implicated in this fraud. I also wonder who else on the House Appropriations Committee knew. After all, the entire committee is responsible for vetting earmark requests and at least making a minimal attempt to determine that they are spent in compliance with the | Read More »
Here’s an interesting tidbit: before Republicans lost control of the Congress, they banned most lobbyist-funded travel. Since Democrats took control of Congress, taxpayer-funded travel has gone up dramatically: Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands…. | Read More »
Norm Dicks, come on down! Last year, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) secured five defense earmarks for private companies in his hometown of Bremerton, Wash., worth a total of $10 million. Four of the companies shared something in common — they were all represented by the PMA Group, the now- defunct lobbying firm that has spurred an investigation of earmarks by the House ethics committee. PMA | Read More »
False disclosures, conflicts of interest, lying about the implications of his new disclosures… he’s really racked up quite a list of offenses in one financial filing: A new appraisal of the Irish cottage owned by Sen. Christopher Dodd concludes that it is worth about three times as much as Dodd has been reporting on his financial disclosure forms… Dodd has been criticized for understating the | Read More »
No surprise here: The House ethics committee indicated Thursday that it was reviewing the links between a number of lawmakers and the now-defunct lobbying firm The PMA Group. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the panel is called, issued a statement responding to a resolution (H Res 500) the House adopted June 3. The resolution directed the ethics committee to notify the chamber | Read More »
Roll Call reports that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is effectively siding with Republicans who want more aggressive scrutiny of ethical charges against leading Democrats. He plans to offer a motion to reveal whether the Ethics Committee is investigating corruption charges against senior Democrats (notably John Murtha and Pete Visclosky) with regard to their dealings with a defunct lobbying group: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer | Read More »
John Murtha just never gets old. Just when you think there’s nothing more that he could possibly do to earn an ethics investigation, he goes and surprises you. Today Roll Call reports that Murtha redirected an earmark away from a company that had dropped his brother as its lobbyist, and to a current client of his brother – a firm that pocketed the money instead | Read More »
Update: Since I posted on this earlier, Roll Call reports that Visclosky’s Chief of Staff has resigned his post. Does he know something about the pave and possible outcome of the DoJ investigation? Chuck Brimmer, chief of staff to Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), has resigned, leaving the lawmaker without a longtime senior aide as he confronts a federal investigation into his ties to the now-defunct | Read More »
John Murtha has disgraced his office in a host of ways since he was first elected to Congress: from his willingness to entertain bribes during the Abscam investigation, to his delivery of millions in taxpayer dollars into the hands of friends and associates, to his slandering of former Marines. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that he’s also willing to forego | Read More »
If you’ve been thinking of buying a quaint little retreat near Galway, Ireland, you might want to ask Chris Dodd for advice. He’s made off quite well on his (pictured). Here’s the quick-and-dirty: find a convicted felon and get him to put up two-thirds of the purchase price, then 8 years later – when the value of comparable real estate has quadrupled – buy him | Read More »
Alan Mollohan has been under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a few years. Today it’s reported that his charitable foundation received free rent from a high-tech consortium that he blessed with millions of dollars in earmarks: The West Virginia High Tech Consortium has provided more than $75,000 in free rent and administrative services to the Robert H. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation, according | Read More »
Offered without comment: Is it just me, or is that Governor Palin who’s pictured fuzzily in the background as the quote from Wev Shea plays? Will this be the video that turned the tide, or will it be Ted Stevens’ valedictory? We’ll know in a matter of hours.
Roll Call ($) reports that House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel’s ethics filings omit critical details about a number of his deals: In June 2007, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) reported that he had sold a condominium in Sunny Isles, Fla., for between $250,001 and $500,000. In December, he filed an amendment reporting the transaction again, this time with no value. In May, Rangel reported | Read More »
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