The DeLay Foundation for Kids and CorporationsIt’s long been an open secret among special interests that giving to the DeLay Foundation for Kids was a quick way to Tom DeLay’s heart. And now, courtesy of Texas Lawyer, we know who decided to buy in.
The DeLays themselves were candid about the charity’s appeal to those who wanted the Majority Leader’s ear. A number of months ago, for instance, after Tom DeLay was forced to step down as Majority Leader because of his indictment in Texas, Christine DeLay said to George Will: “I hated to lose the leadership position because it helps me to raise money for those kids.” Will commented approvingly:
Note her agreeably guileless acknowledgement that some friends of Rio Bend [a DeLay Foundation project] may not have been seized by simple altruism. She shares here husband’s credo — power is useful and should be used — and knows the moral ambiguities it can involve.
I think that’s just Will’s fancy way of saying that Tom DeLay was for sale, and sometimes his wife did the selling. This is the same Christine DeLay, mind you, who was paid by Ed Buckham’s Alexander Strategy Group to create a master list of other lawmakers’ favorite charities. Why would a corrupt lobbying firm want such a list? Selling access via charitable donations worked for DeLay, and it no doubt worked for others too.
But the DeLays provided a gold standard for corruption for which other lawmakers could only strive.
So in the DeLays’ case, who was buying? According to Texas Lawyer, a diverse array of special interests (particularly pharmaceuticals, oil, and tobacco), and one very special interest in particular: Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor who appeared in Duke Cunningham’s guilty plea as Co-Conspirator #1.
According to documents Texas Lawyer obtained from the DeLay Foundation for Kids, companies or their foundations that have contributed $10,000 or more to the congressman’s charity between 2001 and 2005 include the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation; Pfizer Inc.; Abbott Laboratories Corp.; Eli Lilly and Co.; Merck & Co. Inc.; Bristol Myers Squibb Co.; AstraZeneca PLC; Royal Dutch Shell PLC; Motorola Inc.; Lockheed Martin Corp.; RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Citigroup Inc.; Xcel Energy Inc.; Corrections Corporation of America; Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac); Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae); Marathon Oil Co.; and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.Also among the contributors to the DeLay Foundation for Kids was San Diego businessman Brent R. Wilkes, who owns a number of defense contracting companies.
Just think of it - all of these donors wanted something. The pharmaceutical companies, for instance, stepped up their donations in 2003, which was when DeLay played a key role in getting the Medicare Prescription Drug Act passed. Brent Wilkes was lobbying hard for earmarks for any one of his bogus companies. The list goes on. A muckraker could spend a lifetime sifting through the donors and deriving their intent.