Today's Washington Post profile on Tony Rudy continues the split personality theme in the Jack Abramoff investigation. You know about Abramoff's double identity ("Good Jack" and "Bad Jack") - well, meet Tony Rudy's "darker side":

...according to friends and co-workers, Rudy got involved with a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff, and a darker side to the young aide emerged.

And not only did Tony Rudy have two sides, but he represented one side of Tom DeLay:

One GOP lobbyist who worked with DeLay's office and asked not to be identified said Rudy represented DeLay's "harder edge."

One Republican close to DeLay's operation who asked not to be identified called Rudy "the implementer," a practical, no-nonsense aide who made sure the Texas Republican's political vision became reality.

So, for those of you keeping score at home - the Tony Rudy who pled guilty yesterday was "the implementer," the "darker side" of Tom DeLay's "harder edge." I wonder if prosecutors could just indict that portion of DeLay and leave the rest alone?

Yes, that's right. Here's Howard Kaloogian, supposedly on the same trip when he visited his Turkish Baghdad - the caption on his site reads, "Howard in Aremenia, Mount Ararat in the background."

From the San Diego Union-Tribune's Logan Jenkins' April Fool's Day column:

In a snapshot in his photo gallery, Kaloogian is supposedly standing near Mount Ararat in "Aremenia." (Most of us know it as as Armenia.)

Thanks to a biblical blogger with an interest in geology, I have learned that the mountain in the photograph is not Mount Ararat, the post-flood landing platform for Noah's Ark.

No, a close analysis of the outcropping's outline proves that Kaloogian is actually posing in the San Pasqual Valley with a snow-capped Mount Palomar in the background. When told of the error, Kaloogian said, "I can't believe it. Somehow photos from my tour of the Wild Animal Park got switched with those taken on the Iraq trip."

Late Update: And yes, this was an April Fool's Day column in the truest sense. I'll admit - he got me. I blame Kaloogian.

If campaign aides were hair, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) would be bald, the Orlando Sentinel reports this morning:

Harris, who is running against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, is likely to lose her chief political strategist, her campaign manager, her spokeswoman, her director of field operations and even a traveling aide who helps hand out stickers at campaign appearances.

Even the guy who hands out the stickers.

In a preposterous attempt to stem the defections, the Recount Queen apparently is stealing a page from the playbook of. . . a third-rate Eastern European dictator? She's requiring the few staffers staying behind to swear a loyalty oath to her campaign:

[S]ources said Harris met with staffers earlier in the day. . . Campaign workers could stay, she said, but they would have to recommit themselves to the Senate race. She gave them until 5 p.m. Sunday to decide.

Yeah, that'll work.

Tony Rudy was the second former aide to Tom DeLay to go down - the first was Michael Scanlon. But the details in his plea, it looks like he's going to take down a third with him, Ed Buckham. Buckham's name might not be immediately familiar to you now, but it will be if he eventually pleads guilty.

Buckham will be the biggest and hardest to fall - his lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group was central to DeLay's operation. And he ran the U.S. Family Network, the non-profit pumped full of money from Jack Abramoff's clients ($2.3 million) in a bid to (ahem) influence DeLay. Not only that, but Buckham was the one who seems to have perfected the practice of using wives as pass-throughs to members of Congress - both Christine DeLay and Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA) wife Julie Doolittle worked for Buckham.

And as if that wasn't enough, keep in mind that Buckham also plays a major role in the Duke Cunningham story - he was the lobbyist for Brent Wilkes, one of the two defense contractors who bought into Duke.

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Oh, Howard. Howard Kaloogian, a GOP candidate for Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Congressional seat, came to our attention earlier this week when he misrepresented a photograph of a Turkish suburb as downtown Baghdad.

He apologized, and we were ready to move on. And then he pulled a similar stunt -- falsely claiming an endorsement from a prominent GOP state senator.

And today we find he's done it again! On his campaign Web site, Kaloogian lists the Center for Reclaiming America as endorsing his campaign. The right-wing Christian activist group was recently involved in a petition drive to keep Terry Schaivo's feeding tube inserted.

But John Aman, the group's media representative, said they have never endorsed Kaloogian. "The endorsement listed on the website is not correct. We don't endorse candidates," he told us.

When will this madness end?

Late Update: We missed one! The San Diego Union-Tribune discovered Kaloogian falsely claimed an endorsement from state Sen. Bill Morrow:

"Howard Kaloogian's campaign Web site includes a picture and a quote from me from 2001 that implies that I have endorsed his candidacy for Congress," Morrow, R-Carlsbad, said in a press release. "Howard knows that I have not endorsed his candidacy, and that I am running for the same congressional seat."

Another Late Update: Jonathan Krive, spokesman for Kaloogian, called us back. "I think that's just a mistake on the part of the webmaster," he said. They gotta get a new webmaster.

Along with the "Information" the government issued earlier today as part of Tony Rudy's guilty plea, the government has also released Rudy's "Factual Proffer." It's another summary of the crimes for which Rudy is pleading guilty and includes more details. We've posted it here.

This document does mention Ed Buckham (he's "Lobbyist B") and gives more details on Rudy's lobbying of DeLay's office. Rudy left DeLay in December 2000 -- by January, 2001, he was lobbying DeLay's office. The proffer provides two examples:

a. From January 2001 to March 2001, Rudy solicited from the office of [Tom DeLay] support for legislation providing for reparations payments to certain U.S. citizens from assets in United States of foreign companies and governments; and

b. In or about July 2001, Rudy coordinated with the leadership staff of [DeLay] on legislation affecting automobile emissions.

More soon.

Americans for Tax Reform, the non-profit organization run by powerful GOP operative Grover Norquist, is little more than a front for lobbying operations, the Boston Globe reports today.

With the cover of a nonprofit enterprise, Norquist's "clients" become "donors," and ATR never needs to disclose who they are. Meanwhile, Norquist lobbies heavily on Capitol Hill for their interests, the Globe says, and no one's the wiser.

Until now -- the Globe's Michael Kranish got hold of ATR's donor lists. Fun stuff.

Remember, Norquist was a close associate of Jack Abramoff's. He laundered money for the disgraced lobbyist, set up front groups to fight battles for Abramoff's clients, arranged meetings between Abramoff's clients and the White House, and more. I have a feeling we may hear more.

Over at TPM, Josh asked for backstory on Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) PunchGate. After all, lawmakers don't often erupt into violence, even feisty ones like McKinney.

Well, it seems that cops have a hard time recognizing McKinney as a lawmaker. From a 2002 Slate profile of the congresswoman:

In August 1993, during her first term in office, a Capitol Hill police officer tried to prevent her from bypassing a metal detector, as members of Congress are allowed to do. For years afterward, The Hill reports, the Capitol Police pinned a picture of McKinney to an office wall, warning officers to learn her face because she refuses to wear her member's pin. (And because officers are innately suspicious of a black woman with braided hair and gold shoes.) Five years later, she blasted White House security after guards thought her 23-year-old white aide was the congresswoman.

I wouldn't say such treatment warrants violence -- but you gotta admit, most lawmakers probably don't have to deal with stuff like this.

The Capitol Police plan to issue an arrest warrant for lawmaker Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who punched one of their boys in blue a couple days ago.

McKinney canceled a news conference she was planning to hold to address the matter.

The fracas erupted when a policeman at a security checkpoint failed to recognize McKinney, who has served in Congress for over a decade.

See TPM for more thoughts on this.

Tony Rudy pled to a single charge of Conspiracy. Rudy faces a maximum sentence of five years, a fine of $250,000, and $100,000 in restitution. Because of his cooperation, Rudy is likely to receive a sentence in the range of two years to two years, 6 months.

Two Members of Congress are identified in the plea: Representative #1 is Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Representative #2 is former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Keep in mind that this doesn't mean that this is all Rudy has to give. Guilty pleas are not exhaustive.

Three main observations:

1) I'm not sure there are room for any more nails in Bob Ney's coffin, but if there were, Tony Rudy's plea squeezes them in there.

2) The plea does mention DeLay, but it seems like he's not going to serve up DeLay to prosecutors on a silver platter.

3) The plea doesn't mention Ed Buckham at all.

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Here is the "Information" - the facts to which Tony Rudy pleaded guilty today.

It can be hard to keep all these corrupt former DeLay aides straight - so let's go over who Tony Rudy is.

First, it's absolutely no surprise that Rudy is pleading guilty. He was identified in Jack Abramoff's plea agreement twice (as "Staffer A"). The most serious allegation was that he accepted $50,000 in payments through his wife in order to kill two key pieces of legislation while working for DeLay.

He worked for Tom DeLay through December, 2000, when he left to work for Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig. He was no doubt involved in some shady business there, and he left after a little more than a year to go work for Alexander Strategy Group, the lobbying firm run by Ed Buckham, another former DeLay aide. ASG, whose business was access to Delay, folded shortly after Abramoff pled guilty.

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Reports AP:

Tony Rudy, a former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, has agreed to plead guilty to charges in the widening federal investigation of lobbyist fraud, a law enforcement official said Friday.

Late Update: The hearing is scheduled for 10:30 AM, according to the Justice Department.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) is refusing to apologize for punching a policeman, the AP reports.

She has said she regretted the incident, but when an Atlanta TV station asked if she would apologize, she refused to comment. On her Web site, McKinney has posted the following comment:

"I know that Capitol Hill Police are securing our safety, and I appreciate the work that they do. I have demonstrated my support for them in the past and I continue to support them now."

No apology there.

Meantime, the CHP are weighing whether or not to bring charges against the congresswoman. And the Repubs are having a field day. Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), was so excited he channeled Bob Dylan: "How many officers would have to be punched before it becomes a big deal?"

Hell Hath No Fury

The sordid backstory of the Abramoff scandal finally gets a proper airing, thanks to the Wall Street Journal. The saga revolves around Emily Miller, the jilted fiance of Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's longtime business partner and confidant.

As the paper tells it:

As the [couple's wedding] date approached, Mr. Scanlon bought a $4.7 million oceanside mansion and guest house, formerly part of the DuPont estate, in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He furnished it down to the monogrammed towels and presented it to his bride-to-be.

Then, with the wedding a few months away, he called off the engagement and started dating a 24-year-old waitress.

Classy! Prosecutors went to Miller to get dirt on Scanlon; the feds flipped Scanlon, who gave up Abramoff. And the GOP establishment trembled.

Ah, the things we do for love, eh? Or for 24-year-old waitresses. Or for revenge. (Wall Street Journal)

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Has Howard "You're Being Really Picky" Kaloogian been improperly portraying support from a prominent Calif. GOP leader?

From a statement today by Calif. State Sen. Tom McClintock:

"It has come to my attention that a campaign mailing on behalf of Howard Kaloogian includes a picture and quote from me that suggests that I have endorsed his candidacy for U. S. Congress. I have not."

At the National Journal, Murray Waas rakes muck on how White House aides in 2003 plotted to hide the fact Bush knew of disputes over pre-war intelligence. In particular, they were worried voters would learn Bush knew the intelligence on the aluminum tubes was questionable when he used it as evidence of Iraq's WMD program:

. . . Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons. . .

"Presidential knowledge was the ball game," says a former senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. "The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn't in the know. You could do that on Niger. You couldn't do that with the tubes." A Republican political appointee involved in the process, who thought the Bush administration had a constitutional obligation to be more open with Congress, said: "This was about getting past the election."

Here's a new development in a story I've been puzzling over for the better part of a year: the Justice Department is prosecuting one of its own attorneys because, they say, he was too aggressive -- to the point of breaking laws -- in an effort to catch terrorists on U.S. soil.

It's a comfort to know the Justice Department has chosen to start reining in the government's more aggressive anti-terrorism practices. But I can't help but wonder if the administration isn't going after the guy for its own reasons.

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We flagged this today in the Daily Muck, but it really shouldn't be missed.

Roll Call reported today that Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) has put his D.C. home on the market, and it looks like he's leaving town.

Jefferson is the target of a long-running bribery probe, and all signs point to Jefferson being indicted if he does not plead guilty. His ex-aide Brett Pfeffer has already pled guilty to his roll in the scheme and is due to be sentenced May 26.

But his spokeswoman says the sale has nothing, nothing, nothing at all to do with the investigation, no: it's because "the housing market 'has gone flat and is expected to decline' and that the Congressman's house has 'seen a large appreciation,' so now is the time to sell."

At the very least, the $799,000 ticket price will help Jefferson pick up what must be some hefty legal bills.

Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele (R) is making a run for Senate there. The GOP loves him - he is after all, that rare thing, a Republican African-American, and there are signs he's finding his way into the GOP machine.

Today, Roll Call reports that he's just picked up Doug Heye as his communications director. Who's Doug Heye? Well, he comes to Steele by way of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). Before that, he worked for Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), who's very close to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. TPM's cache of Abramoff emails showed Heye frequently using Abramoff's skybox back in 2000.

So the AP picked up our story on Rep. Jim Ryun's (R-KS) townhouse deal. Let's look at what he came up with in his statement - he refused to be interviewed about it. There are some gaping holes in his story.

To repeat the facts: the U.S. Family Network bought the house in 1999 and sold it about two years later for a $19,000 loss, when they should have sold it for about a $100,000 gain in that market, according to experts we spoke to.

And the USFN wasn't just any old political organization - they were a front group that Ed Buckham used to funnel in $2.3 million from Jack Abramoff's clients. The money propped up Buckham's lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group, paid for the townhouse which also housed Tom DeLay's political committee, and generally helped fund Abramoff's and DeLay's political machine.

So let's just focus on the USFN for a second. Ryun's spokeswoman told the AP that "Ryun 'was not specifically lobbied by USFN' and that the group has not made any contributions to his campaign."

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As we mentioned yesterday, Howard Kaloogian, of Turkish Baghdad fame, founded Move America Forward. They're a nonprofit and tax exempt 501(c)3 organization - and so required to be non-partisan. There are a number of organizations that push that line, but look at Move America Forward's past work and you can see that they push it more than most.

Because they're a non-profit, Move America Forward has to file publicly accessible disclosures, called 990s, with the IRS. We've posted their 2004 disclosure here. Take a look. We'd like to know, especially from TPMM readers who are experts on non-profits - how does it look to you?

It looks like MZM was in the Department of Homeland Security, and may still be there. Here's why:

As we reported last week, Mitchell Wade's MZM held a contract with the Pentagon's homeland defense office to provide "watchstanders."

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the office of Paul McHale, Asst. Sec. of Defense for Homeland Defense, has no "operations centers" -- the 24/7 intelligence monitoring centers where watchstanders monitor intelligence feeds and sound alarms when big stuff happens. (McHale's office held the MZM contract we reported.)

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Ryun Denies He Got Deal on House

Following up on a story broken by some website that shall not be named, the AP reports that Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS) says his purchase of the U.S. Family Network's townhouse was on the up and up. See our reporting for what it's all about. More on this later. And read TPM for Josh's thoughts on the AP's theft. (AP, TPMM, TPMM, TPM)

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There's no reason to wait around until Howard Kaloogian produces a photo that shows the Baghdad he found during his trip to Iraq, which "is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be."

You can look for yourself through the photos from the trip made available on Move America Forward's website. Let's see, is it this one, of Camp Victory, where the truth tellers stayed?

Or is it this one, of the bombed out Republican Guard palace, hosted on Truth Tour participant Mark Williams' site?

Maybe not. Keep looking.

Ed. Note: Thanks to TPM Reader CJ for the tip.

Late Update: See TPM for what Kaloogian came up with.

Looks like while Howard Kaloogian was touring Iraq with the truth, his partner at Moving America Forward was signing contracts.

Sal Russo, who's the chief strategist for Move America Forward as well as the chief strategist for Kaloogian's campaign, is also one of the principals of Russo, Marsh, and Rogers, a big-hitting GOP consulting firm. Move America Forward operates out of the firm's offices.

On July 9th, 2005, Kaloogian and his five talk radio hosts went over to Iraq on their trip sponsored by Move America Forward. On July 13th, an item appeared in Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter, which reports on the PR industry, that Sal Russo's firm had picked up a contract to "to get 'free media' to promote the interests of the Kurds in the post-Hussein Iraq." And that business also extended to the U.S. market - Russo, Marsh, and Rogers were hired to produce ads stateside. The Wall Street Journal described it as a "political-advertising contract with the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq" to produce "advertisements that run in the U.S. seeking investment in Kurdistan."

"I just returned from a 10-day trip to Iraq," begins GOP candidate Howard Kaloogian's Web essay on his experiences visiting troops in the country. The page, part of his campaign Web site, includes photographs and captions which illustrate his point: the situation in Iraq is "absolutely counter" to what the "old-line media" reports.

His web page, like his argument, is loosely knit. And when independent researchers yesterday tugged at one string -- the veracity of a photo caption -- the rest of it has begun to unravel.

A bit of checking revealed Kaloogian did not "just return" from his trip, but in fact got back to California in July 2005. "I talk about my trip that way," Kaloogian told me when we spoke late this afternoon. "I speak to groups that way -- I didn't mean I did it this week. That was my trip last year. . . I took my vacation time to go to Iraq." He wrote the piece late last year, he said, when he launched his candidacy for convicted felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham's old House seat.

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Hotline is reporting:

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer today after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.

Howard Kaloogian's "Truth Tour" to Iraq in July, 2005 was sponsored by Move America Forward, a non-profit, "non-partisan" outfit that Kaloogian founded. You might have never heard of them before, but you certainly know their work. It includes:

-- Producing a series of TV ads late last year that claimed Iraq did in fact have WMDs;

-- Shuttling pro-war protestors to Crawford to counter Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" as part of their "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" tour;

-- a campaign supporting John Bolton's contentious nomination" for UN ambassador - including financing the ad campaign in Ohio that attacked Sen. George Voinivich (R-OH) for not backing Bolton;

-- backing U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by selling 'I [Heart] Gitmo' bumper stickers."

The "Truth Tour" sent five conservative radio-talk-show hosts to U.S. military bases in Baghdad for "a week of upbeat broadcasts."

And according to the WSJ, the group grew out of the successful 2003 recall effort in California.

The Kaloogian for Congress campaign is no longer making the candidate available for interviews or making comments on the Iraq photo fiasco.

Which is too bad, because we have a few questions. For instance, the page featuring the photo includes text by Kaloogian beginning, "I just got back from Iraq." Yet he appears to have gone there in July 2005 -- several months before he entered the House race, or created the Web site. Was this an oversight akin to the bad Baghdad pic?

And who exactly snapped the photo, anyway? And who approved its use?

We may yet find out, but not from the Kaloogian campaign. Calvin Collins, campaign manager for Howard Kaloogian's bid for Randy "Duke" Cunningham's old House seat, said that the Kaloogian was not available to be interviewed, and no one else was speaking on his behalf. "No one is giving any comments," Collins told me.

It's pretty clear there wasn't just one wrong step here, but a series of doozies. Coming in the middle of a highly-charged debate over what the ground truth in Iraq is, Kaloogian's already facing accusations he's deliberately making this stuff up to support his argument that Baghdad is calm. Why won't he come clean and explain how it all happened?

It now appears California GOP Congressional hopeful Howard Kaloogian was for his misidentified "Iraq" photo before he was against it. (Google cache of photo here -- it's third from top)

In a post on the Democratic Underground web site, "KBlagburn" wrote yesterday of a conversation he had with Kaloogian in which he tried to bring the error to the candidate's attention. Kaloogian stood by the photo and caption, according to KBlagburn.

Kaloogian's campaign did not confirm the conversation but said it was possible. "If that's the case, it's because [Kaloogian] didn't have the correct information," campaign volunteer David Krive told me.

Krive said he first heard Kaloogian admit the error this morning, in a phone conversation with a newspaper reporter.

Fate officially caught up with Jack Abramoff today, as he received his first criminal sentencing. But the Abramoff scandal has created trouble for folks all over Washington -- and Jack's apparently giving plenty of dish to federal investigators from a variety of agencies looking to bring down their own targets.

As Vanity Fair reported a few weeks ago, "[a]llegedly as many as 15 people -- from various branches of the Justice Department (including the F.B.I.), the Department of the Interior, the Internal Revenue Service, and other federal agencies" have spent 200 hours pumping Jack for information. So who could Jack be implicating?

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Just to be clear about what Howard Kaloogian means could mean when he says "webmaster," we called Allen Valkoun of MDKS, the company that developed the program that runs Kaloogian's website. He said that they "don't have control of the content," and that the images are entered by who he called the "webmaster." In Kaloogian's case, he said he thought it was someone on his staff.

According to the AP. His business partner, Adam Kidan, got the same sentence.

More later.

Update: That was the minimum sentence they could have received according to the plea deal with prosecutors. See our posts here and here for how this sentencing fits in to the broader investigation.

Oops.

Howard Kaloogian, a leading GOP candidate for Randy "Duke" Cunningham's seat in Congress, posted a photo on his Web site of a quiet Turkish suburb. No problem there -- but his site said it was of Baghdad, taken during his trip there. He called it proof that Iraq was calmer than the media was reporting.

Josh tells the story at TPM of how the blogosphere rounded up a posse and proved the pic was a fake -- or rather, the pic was real, but the caption was hooey.

We reached Kaloogian by phone moments ago. Here's what he had to say:

[O]n the way back from Baghdad some of the crew stopped in Istanbul as a layover. We turned all the photographs [from the trip] over to the webmaster, and it appears he took one from the stopover and not from Baghdad. If a mistake happened, we'll correct it.

Kaloogian noted that he brought back "hundreds and hundreds" of photographs from the trip. He declined to identify his webmaster's name, saying only that he was "a member of my staff."

Jack Abramoff and his partner Adam Kidan are being sentenced for their SunCruz fraud today in Florida. Back in 2000, they faked a $23 million wire transfer to fool other investors into dumping millions into their casino deal.

It might make for a good bit of theater - and Abramoff's lawyer has promised that he'll "name names" today (we'll see) - but keep in mind that Abramoff will also be sentenced later this year in Washington for tax evasion, bribery charges and more fraud (his Indian clients). That sentence will be longer, and since it's part of his plea deal that the two sentences for the two separate investigations will be running concurrently, today's sentence is more or less academic. Abramoff won't find out how long he'll actually be in prison for months.

In the meantime, he's got a lot more cooperating to do.

Abramoff Apologizes for Bad Language in Bad Film

In the 62-page memo crafted by Jack Abramoff's defense team to eke some leniency out of his sentencing judge, Abramoff says he was "appalled" that bad language was used in the film he produced, Red Scorpion. (Raw Story)

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TPM reader RI writes in:

Just called Ryun's office and told the person that answered my name. Then I said that Jim Ryun [who was an Olympic athlete] was a childhood hero of mine, and that I was very disappointed to hear that he had made a kiling in a real estate deal with the US Family Network. I was asked to hold on, and the person then came back on the line to say that Rep Ryun had done nothing wrong and that he is going to produce documentation to back it up. I thanked him and told him that I was looking forward to his announcement.

Sounds like it took calling him as a disillusioned track and field fan to get any kind of statement out of him!

We wait with bated breath.

Here's an update on our report on Rep. Jim Ryun's (R-KS) sweetheart real estate deal.

Yesterday we reported that the U.S. Family Network, a sham nonprofit controlled by former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham and funded by Jack Abramoff's lobbying clients, sold a Capitol Hill townhouse to Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS) at a $19,000 loss. Given the hot real estate market in Washington, D.C. at that time, the low sale price raiseed the question of whether transaction was a de facto gift to Rep. Ryun.

To refresh everyone's memory, the USFN bought the house in January of 1999 for $429,000. Almost two years later, they sold it to Ryun for $410,000.

That sounded low to us -- and legions of TPM readers, a number of whom work in real estate, wrote in to agree. So today we spoke to two real estate appraisers who work in the Capitol Hill area to get a sense of just how low that sounded to them.

Don Boucher, an appraiser who focuses on residential properties in the D.C. area, said that the property should have appreciated “about 15% or more” during that time period, meaning that it would have sold around $500,000.

Another appraiser, who preferred to remain anonymous because he often works with members of Congress, said that the townhouse should have appreciated "by $100,000 at least." He said the low sale price "wouldn't make sense at all unless there was a fire and the place was gutted." He added, "It looks like they gave it away."

There's also a question of whether the house was ever actually formally put on the market as opposed to being sold to the Ryun's in a private sale.

The property was not listed in 2000 on the Metropolitan Regional Information System as are most properties when a realtor is involved. The area real estate professionals we spoke to said that members of Congress frequently ask that properties not be listed on the MRIS out of privacy concerns. In this case, though, the seller (USFN) was a nonprofit tied to a lobbying firm, not a member of Congress, which raises the question of why they opted not to list the property and whether the U.S. Family Network pursued competitive bids.

We again contacted Rep. Ryun's office for comment, but our calls were not returned.

Woe betide the Democrat who violates ethics laws. Especially if he was trying to land a blow on the GOP's top lawmakers.

In 1996 -- that was back when we all used Mosaic browsers on the World Wide Web -- Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) leaked to the press an illegally-taped phone call of several GOP lawmakers, including then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

The men were coordinating media strategy for how Gingrich could best weather his ethics problems -- after Gingrich had promised the ethics committee not to do just that.

Current House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), then a higher-up in Gingrich's revolutionary cadre, was on the call, and sued McDermott for violating his privacy rights. (Ironically, Boehner voted for the surveillance-happy Patriot Act in 2002; McDermott voted against it.) McDermott lost the case and appealed; yesterday, he lost the appeal, too.

Now he's been ordered to pay Boehner $60,000 in damages and over $600,000 to cover Boehner's legal fees.

And McDermott's trouble still isn't over! Roll Call reports the House Ethics Committee is expected -- at long last -- to create a special subcommittee to investigate him.

You may remember that a couple of months ago, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said on Air America that there had been day-traders working out of Rep. Tom DeLay's (R-TX) and Sen. Bill Frist's (R-TN) offices.

Well, today's Wall Street Journal reports that Slaughter and Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) are introducing legislation to stop the practice. Although they're still quiet about who in Frist's office was doing this (and Frist has an entirely separate insider trading investigation to deal with), they've named one culprit: Tony Rudy, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff. According to the WSJ, he "bought and sold hundreds of stocks from his computer in the U.S. Capitol in 1999 and 2000."

If Rudy's name sounds familiar, it's because he's already been implicated in the Jack Abramoff investigation. Among other things, he's accused of taking $50,000 in payments through his wife in exchange for helping Abramoff's clients on two key pieces of legislation. He left DeLay in 2000 to go work for Abramoff.

So Rudy's already in trouble.

But it looks like what he's accused of here wasn't actually illegal. Classic insider trading is when someone uses non-public information obtained from inside a company. That's not the case here, which is why Slaughter and Baird are introducing the bill. Apparently the practice of this brand of insider trading is so widespread that there's a whole industry built up around exploiting insider news about forthcoming legislation that will effect a stock price. So the bill also "would require that companies register with Congress if they sell information about congressional activity to Wall Street investors."

Here's what Rudy was up to while working for DeLay, according to today's WSJ:

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President Bush said last night: "I kind of like being on the same platform as Senator Burns because he makes me sound like Shakespeare. I like a plain-talking fellow."

Now, we've spent a lot of time here at TPMmuckraker laying into Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), Jack Abramoff's favorite senator, but we're prepared to acknowledge his positives too, and it is true that he has a talent for "plain-talking."

So in honor of what may very well be Senator Burns' last campaign, TPMMuckraker offers a compilation of his most colorful comments on Abramoff and the heat he's been taking over the guy:

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The fallout from the Dubai ports deal continues.

The senior exec for DP World, the company at the center of the brouhaha, has asked to withdraw his nomination to head the U.S. agency which overseas ports.

If you recall, critics used President Bush's pick of David Sanborn, director of operations for DP World in Europe and Latin America, to criticize the White House's closeness to the company. Well, you won't have David Sanborn to kick around anymore.

There are good questions to ask about Joshua Bolten, who's replacing Andrew Card as President Bush' s new chief of staff. Over at TPMCafe, Todd Gitlin has one: Would you buy an economic analysis from this man?

A continuing theme in the Jack Abramoff investigation, and one that seems to interest investigators very much, has been the use of wives to channel money to key players. So as a kind of public service, here's a rundown of which wives were on the take.

Rep. Tom DeLay's (R-TX) former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, seems to have been something of a trailblazer with this scheme. As early as 1997, his wife Wendy made $43,000 in "commissions" on contributions to Buckham's sham non-profit the U.S. Family Network. The contributions came from Jack Abramoff's clients - all very eager to win DeLay's favor. I'll let you judge how hard she had to work to win these "commissions."

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Abramoff: a "Selfless Patriot" Scarred by Early Life in Beverly Hills

The defense team for disgraced GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff is pulling out all the stops as his first trial enters its sentencing phase.

They found over 260 people who would still admit to knowing the guy, and got them to write letters expressing varying degrees of support of the man who has come to personify Beltway corruption. In one of the letters acquired by AP, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) tells the judge that Abramoff, who bilked millions from Indian tribes and funneled millions of dollars through a labyrinth of fraudulent charities for personal gain and political leverage, was a "selfless patriot, most of the time I knew him."

In another effort to gin up sympathy for the convicted felon, Jack's defense constructed a farcical hagiography of the guy which stretches both facts and credulity. For instance, when his family moved to Beverly Hills, the defense writes Jack was ''among the non-upper class in a land of spoiled kids." Ah, the poor, destitute non-upper class of Beverly Hills.

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Recently, the Washington Post and TPMmuckraker.com have been reporting on the DeLay-Buckham front group, U.S. Family Network. Ed Buckham, you'll remember, was Tom DeLay's Chief of Staff until he left the Hill to open up his lobby shop, Alexander Strategy Group. USFN purported to be a grassroots activist group pushing causes dear to social conservatives. In fact, it functioned as a slush fund and all-purpose political favor mill through which Jack Abramoff clients (Russian tycoons, Marianas sweatshop owners and the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe) funneled money to Buckham, his lobbying shop and other DeLay causes.

One thread of the USFN story was the townhouse it bought near Capitol Hill. Called the "Safe House" by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's aides, it was the headquarters for DeLay's ARMPAC, Buckham's lobby shop, Alexander Strategy Group, and of course it even had a little office for the USFN itself.

By 2000 the FEC was starting to look into the USFN, and the USFN's Capitol Hill neighbors had begun to complain that it was a business operating in a residential area in violation of local zoning laws. In their big piece on the U.S. Family Network yesterday, the Washington Post reported that when Buckham's USFN had to part with the beloved "Safe House" in late 2000 it took a $19,000 loss.

Now, that got us to wondering. A loss of that scale is far from Duke Cunningham territory. But the DC housing market was pretty hot back then and the USFN held the property for just about 2 years.

So who got such a good deal?

The buyer was Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS).

D.C. property records show that the townhouse was sold to Ryun for $410,000 on December 15, 2000. According to the Post, the USFN purchased the townhouse for $429,000; the deed was signed January 12, 1999.

(To confirm that this was the same Jim Ryun, we found this 2004 FEC contribution listing in which a Jim Ryun who identifies his profession as "congressman" lists the former "Safe House" address, 132 D Street, as his place of residence. Roll Call, it turns out, briefly noted Ryun's purchase on June 4th 2001, but long before the scope of Buckham's and Abramoff's bad acts had come to light.)

Property sold to a member of Congress at substantially under market value can, in some instances, be construed as a de facto gift. In this case, that would be from the Buckham-controlled and Abramoff-client-funded front group USFN to Rep. Ryun.

Naomi Seligman of CREW told TPMmuckraker.com that Ryun's house deal should prompt a House Ethics Committee investigation. "Who else in America has lost money on a real estate transaction except [Cunningham contractor felon] Mitchell Wade?"

According to Ryun spokesperson Michelle Schroeder, Rep. Ryun was on a plane Monday and unavailable for comment.

The AP is reporting that the newest indictment in the New Hampshire phone jamming case is Duane Hansen, the former co-owner of the Idaho telemarketing firm that executed the jamming of Democratic phone lines on Election Day, 2002.

Hansen was basically the low-level enforcer - so it looks like we'll have to wait a little longer to see if the investigation bags any more heavies like RNC New England political director James Tobin. As we noted last week, Tobin was in close contact with the White House on the day of the jamming.

An exoneration for Ralph Reed in Texas...sort of.

Texas Travis County Attorney David Escamilla has just released a statement saying that he will not pursue a formal criminal investigation into Ralph Reed's lobbying activities in Texas. Not because Reed didn't break any laws - actually he says quite the opposite - but because there is a two-year statute of limitations for prosecuting misdemeanors in Texas. So Reed gets off the hook.

Reed was facing a possible investigation for not registering as a lobbyist in Texas in 2001 and 2002 while he was working there for Jack Abramoff. As I pointed out before, Reed didn't register because he wanted his work for Abramoff to be as much off-the-books as possible.

Texas law generally requires people to register as lobbyists "if they receive more than $500 a quarter to directly communicate with a state official on public policy." It was evident from emails released as part of the Abramoff investigation that Reed had done a lot of traditional lobbying - contacting public officials and the like. And Reed was certainly getting a lot more than $500 a quarter. So Common Cause Texas, Public Citizen Texas, and Texans For Public Justice filed a complaint with Escamilla's office and asked for an investigation.

But they were too late. It just took too long for all this to come to light.

Here's what Escamilla had to say about it:

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For those of you who didn't get a chance to read through yesterday's Post story on the U.S. Family Network, the Post had a handy graphic that broke down the money going in and out of the fund. It is, simply put, the finest example of a GOP slush fund that you'll ever hope to see.

There's been a lot of focus on how Ed Buckham, Tom DeLay's former chief of staff who ran the network, was getting rich off of it. But the point of such a slush fund is not just to get rich (although that's certainly part of it) - it's also to feed the political machine.

Russian oil, sweatshop labor, Indian casino, big tobacco, and political committee money goes in... and where does it go?

First, there are the general expenses of running a political machine. It financed attack ads against Democrats, paid for the townhouse used by Ed Buckham's lobbying firm and Tom DeLay's PAC (which in turn spread money to Republican congressional candidates throughout the country), and helped pay for Abramoff's skyboxes.

And then there's just straightforward personal enrichment. $1 million to Buckham and his wife, his travel costs, a Salvador Dali print, etc.

Jack Abramoff had a handful of these types of organizations (Capital Athletic Foundation, Grassroots Interactive, Eshkol Religious Academy, Toward Tradition, and the American International Center), but it seems to me that none of them were quite as successful as the U.S. Family Network. And all of them were formed later - which makes me wonder if the U.S. Family Network was his inspiration.

Here's the graphic. Enjoy.

"The systems that exist right now wouldn't be able to handle it."

That's what current Citizenship and Immigration Services director Emilio Gonzalez said of President Bush's proposed temporary guest worker program.

He said it last October, before he was confirmed as CIS head. Now he's got a different line -- something out of George Bush's old cheerleading days. "Can we do it? Yes we can," he told reporters earlier this month about the administration's proposal.

There are reasons to doubt his new enthusiasm. Many of them came from Michael Maxwell, Gonzalez's former chief of investigations, who became so disgusted by the rampant security problems at CIS that he quit his post and blew the whistle to Congress.

Why would Gonzalez strike back? Maxwell had some pretty startling revelations. Among them:

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DeLay Denied His Concealed Handgun

Well, I for one feel safer. It's against Texas law for an indictee to carry a concealed handgun - so they're taking Tom DeLay's away. (Raw Story)

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Move along people, nothing to see here! Move along now.

By some strange coincidence, Robert Novak had the following item in his column today:

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has advised friends that he has no derogatory information about former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and is not implicating him as part of his plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

Funny. Seems like there was plenty of derogatory information in that story today in the Post.

Today's Washington Post story on the U.S. Family Network adds crucial details about how Ed Buckham, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay worked their money wheel. Go read - but first, keep this in mind.

Ed Buckham, who founded and controlled the U.S. Family Network, was DeLay's chief of staff. He left at the beginning of 1998 to run his own lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group - but even then he was widely known to be at DeLay's right hand. He was serving essentially the same function; he'd just privatized his role.

Buckham's business model at Alexander Strategy Group was simple - he provided access to DeLay, something that companies would pay a lot for. And what we've learned is that Jack Abramoff was the first customer in line; in fact, for quite awhile, he was the only customer. It's key to keep that in mind as the Abramoff scandal unfolds: Alexander Strategy really started up as an extension of Abramoff's machine.

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I've been trying to keep up this week with Tom DeLay's various schemes and the details of Gov. Rick Perry's sweet lobbying deal, but it seems like Texas Republicans are always going to be one long step ahead of me. News of further ingenuity from the San Antonio Express News:

Exactly how much did a major political donor give a state official as a gift? According to the Texas Ethics Commission, the public doesn't have a right to know.

State law requires officials to file personal financial disclosure statements including a description of gifts they get in excess of $250.

But the commission, in a case involving a check received by a prominent Republican and trustee of the Employees Retirement System of Texas, has found that describing such a gift simply as "check" is enough. No amount is necessary.

That means the gift could be $251 or any amount over that - whether it's $1,000 or $1 million - in a decision one lawmaker called an "Alice in Wonderland" interpretation.

Genius! Let's see if the trend catches on.