Oh, Ralph, what can we say? Best laid plans and all that.

Today's story on Ralph Reed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reveals that he knew that he was working for an online gambling company named eLottery, Inc. when he helped kill the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.

He's said, of course, that he did not know.

But really, that just makes him sound sloppy. Let's give the man his due: he very carefully and skillfully obscured his relationship with Jack Abramoff's gaming clients. He knew that it would have been bad for his reputation, and thus for business. So he took a number of key steps to leave no paper trail:

First, the true client's name did not appear on the contract. Nominally, Reed was working for Abramoff's law firm.

Second, he did not register as a lobbyist for the client. The eLottery contract specifically said that none of his activities would "require registration as a lobbyist in any state or with the federal government."

Third, the fees were routed through at least two intermediaries before they reached Reed. In the case of the eLottery work, the money went first to Americans for Tax Reform, then on to a shell organization called the Faith and Family Alliance, and then on to Reed's firm.

Fourth, and here's where you have to admire his restraint, he almost never referred to the client in writing. Hundreds of pages of Abramoff's emails have been released, and he's only gotten burned a few times.

It's a shame that the fifth step, lying to the press, has received so much attention. Reed was the architect of a much larger, more sophisticated effort than that.

In the market for a commode? a piece of history?

Duke's antiques are set to be auctioned off in three weeks.

See the loot here - it's under "Antiques."

Proceeds to benefit the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation branch and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

As a professional muckraker, I wouldn't mind so much if this whole lobbying reform effort just passed on by without much more of a fuss. True reform would be bad for business.

But as a citizen, I must admit to some frustration.

Say it with me: There is a bipartisan reluctance to pass strong ethics reform. How does that sound to you? It's true.

Yesterday, Democrats had another chance to help set themselves apart from Republicans on this issue and to really push it. Without getting mired in the specifics, here's the thing: Sens. Collins (R-ME) and Lieberman (D-CT) put forward legislation that would establish an Office of Public Integrity, an external agency to investigate ethics complaints. Sen. Obama put forward something very similar last month and it didn't make much of a splash.

It didn't go over any better this time around. Three Senate Democrats on the committee helped vote it down 11-5.

Now, two of the three Dems - Sens. Akaka (D-HI) & Pryor (D-AR) - who voted against it sit or recently sat on the Senate ethics committee. Apparently they agree with Sen. Voinivich that "The ethics committee is already doing those things." Fine. How many voters think that? Do you?

The Republicans haven't had to stick their necks out on this one yet. Make them fight for their gifts and meals. And make them, again and again, get up in front of cameras and say that the ethics process is working.

If they don't, then nothing meaningful will come of any of this. And the muckraker in me would rejoice.

Something about Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) really brings out terribly snarky responses from TPM Readers.

Yesterday, Paul noted the Florida Recount Queen took $50,000 from the infamous Mitchell Wade of MZM, only to miss the deadline to get an earmark inserted for the company.

Reader LB : "This is the same Katherine Harris, if you remember. . . who was such a stickler for deadlines in November of 2000."

Harris was wined and dined by Wade at swanky Citronelle, reader ZK spots in a Sarasota Herald-Tribune report -- a real eyebrow-raiser, since the restaurant's prix-fixe menu starts at $85, well over the Congressional $50 gift limit.

Finally, reader MP warns us to mark our calendars. In two weeks, Harris will be speaking at the Reclaiming America for Christ conference in the holy city of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Topic: how to "reset the wildly spinning moral compass of our great land."

Perhaps her new lawyer will have some suggestions.

Katherine Harris hires a "top-gun" campaign finance lawyer, Tampa Tribune reports. (via PoliticalWire)

Today's Duke Cunningham Sentencing Day! (USA Today, AP)

And it seems the only appropriate way to celebrate would be with a widening investigation into Pentagon contracts.

Read more »

Ah, now the gang's all here.

Here's a rosy-cheeked (and for some reason, overall rosy) Warren RoBold, the latest mugshot from Tom DeLay's bad bunch of money launderers -- okay, okay, alleged money launderers -- down in Texas.

RoBold, a big fundraiser for DeLay, was indicted way back in '04 for his role in funneling corporate contributions to Texas Republicans. He joins John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - and of course the beaming Tom DeLay.

A while back, we posted an email exchange that shows Warren RoBold setting up a fundraiser for DeLay's ARMPAC in Abramoff's skybox.

Well, it's not exactly a bribe menu, but...

Brent Wilkes, whom we'll simply identify as the dirtier of the two defense contractors who bribed Duke Cunningham (see below), had more than one friend in Washington. As we've mentioned before, he was close ($37-million-in-earmarks close) to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA).

On November 14, 2003, Wilkes hosted a fundraiser for Doolittle at his swanky corporate headquarters - possibly to thank him for the $18 million in earmarks Doolittle had "steered" toward Wilkes' company that year.

You can see the menu here. It comes to us courtesy of Wilkes' wife's catering company's website, which is as far as we can tell the only website left standing of the once-formidable Wilkes empire. It's one of their sample menus; they're understandably proud of their work. And no, pork was not on the menu.

One thing I can't quite figure out though: the ticket theme. Is it meant to symbolize that Doolittle was Wilkes' ticket to government contracts? Or that Wilkes, who along with his cohorts gave Doolittle $85,000 over 3 years, was Doolittle's ticket to a healthy campaign?

Oh, who cares. Mmmm... Applewood smoked bacon wrapped filet...

(Late Update: I stand corrected. TPM reader JB writes "'Actually, pork (bacon) was on the menu. No jokes about "bringing home the bacon?'")

It's getting a lot worse for Rep. Katharine Harris (R-FL).

Last Friday, Mitchell Wade, the former president of the defense contractor MZM and one of the two who so impressively and repeatedly bribed Duke Cunningham, pled guilty. He admitted, among other things, that he illegally contributed to two Congressional campaigns. They've since been identified as Harris' and Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA).

Now, Wade told the government that neither Harris nor Goode knew that the contributions were illegal, i.e. that Wade reimbursed his employees and their spouses for the $2K they laid out to the campaigns.

But in both cases, Wade approached the Member of Congress after having delivered the contributions and asked if they wouldn't be so kind as to throw an appropriation his way. In Goode's case, that resulted in a $9M MZM facility in Goode's district.

Now it's coming out that Harris followed through too. And she's been lying, breaking promises, and doing her best to cover up her involvement with Wade....

Read more »

Mark your calendars...

Duke Cunningham will be sentenced this Friday, and the U.S. Attorney's Office down in Florida tells us that the sentencing of Adam Kidan and Jack Abramoff for their SunCruz fraud is coming up March 16th.

Travis County DA Ronnie Earle is continuing to chase down Tom DeLay's ties to Jack Abramoff.

Today he subpoenaed Jack Abramoff's travel agent, the one who arranged the junket to Scotland in 2000. DeLay came along, and I think that it's fair to say from the $6,617.20 ticket price that he flew first class. The ticket was charged to Jack Abramoff's credit card. You can see his AmEx statement here.

Late Update: TPM Reader ME writes in to confirm that the "J3" code on the ticket refers to Continental's "Business First."

Oh, videotape is not the friend of George W. Bush today.

Remember this quote, right?

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will." - George W. Bush, Sept. 1, 2005

Only now the AP has unearthed videotape of the president being warned that just that could happen the day before Katrina hit.

Chris Matthews ran the tape just a few minutes ago on Hardball.

See the report on it here.

Late Update: video link here.

Even Later Update: Click here for the link to the White House photo of the August 28th briefing.

Golf and corruption brought Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) this far; it's a winning combination and he's sticking with it.

OK, so he took a golf junket to Scotland with an admitted felon lobbyist, as part of an alleged quid pro quo with an Indian tribe that the lobbyist was screwing out of millions of dollars.

Is that going to stop him from loving golf?!

Apparently not. His campaign is handing out these customized Bob Ney tees out on the campaign trail. That's bold.

(Photo courtesy of the Buckeye State Blog.)

We called Ney's campaign for comment. His congressional spokesman, Brian Walsh, called us back and confirmed the tees were real. "I think a few were handed out last night," he said. "I saw it up on some liberal blogs and I think the fact that some bored democrats are making hay out of this is one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen."

The Hattiesburg American reports that the Feds are prosecuting Forrest County, Mississippi Sheriff Billy McGee for commandeering two FEMA ice trucks and giving their contents to locals in the midst of the Katrina disaster, when FEMA was too bolloxed up to order it themselves.

A National Guard trooper tried to stop McGee; the sheriff handcuffed him. Perhaps that was a bit of an over-reaction. But, as one fire chief told the paper, "We had diabetic people who hadn't been able to put their insulin on ice for three days."

Who would you want serving your community after its next disaster, McGee or the guardsman?

(ed note: Special thanks to TPM Reader CG for the tip.)

Great moments in corruption, courtesy of the United States Attorney's Office of the Southern District of California.

On at least six different occasions, Duke Cunningham personally contacted Defense officials to demand that his favorite defense contractors, Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, got their money.

A sampling of those and other high points from the prosecutors' latest:

7/6/99 - Brent Wilkes faxes a set of "Talking Points" to Duke so that he can competently champion Wilkes' cause.

1999 - A Defense official, in the course of reviewing a number of invoices from Wilkes' company, determines that $750,000 of them are fraudulent. The official calls Wilkes and tells him the DoD is not paying. Soon after, the official receives a call from Duke, demanding to know why Wilkes' isn't getting paid. The official explains. Duke hangs up on him.

Duke calls the official's supervisor to complain.

1999 - A Defense official gets what he/she thinks to be an over-inflated invoice from Brent Wilkes' company. Wilkes tries to plead with the official, saying that "he needed the money to make a balloon payment or he would lose his company." The official is "unmoved."

Cunningham calls three separate times to demand payment to Wilkes. Wilkes then meets again with the official, has Cunningham call his cell phone, then passes the phone to the official to explain again why Wilkes isn't getting his money.

2001 - A Defense official moves $2-3M away from a $10M appropriation for Brent Wilkes' ADCS. Wilkes complains to Duke, who summons the defense official to a meeting. He berates the official; the official doesn't budge. Duke subsequently contacts the official's supervisor and demands that he/she be fired for not being a "team player."

9/27/02 - Duke Cunningham's frightened staffers email back and forth, anticipating the return of the "big chinchilla" after he's found out that his beloved defense contractor's programs have been cut. "I'm under my desk ducking and covering" says one.

Minutes later, he returns: "He stormed into his office, pissed, and said he might as well become a Democrat."

Three down, more to come in the New Hampshire phone jamming case.

According to a piece that ran in today's New Hampshire Union Leader (the piece isn't available online), prosecutors there have said that another indictment is forthcoming in "about four weeks." No word yet on who the lucky contestant is.

We'll keep you posted.

Duke was even dirtier than you thought.

Gearing up for tomorrow's sentencing, the government has issued their rebuttal to Cunningham's request for a mere 6 years imprisonment. No way, says the government - Duke was looking at life in prison if he'd gone to trial, so 10 years is lenient enough.

Why? Oh, there are plenty of reasons. From Roll Call:

Read more »

The Washington Post ran a story yesterday suggesting that the IRS bowed to political pressure by investigating a Texas public interest group that crossed swords with Tom DeLay. The investigation came at the request of DeLay's crony, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), who himself was put up to making the request by a lawyer tied to DeLay's fundraising schemes.

But we think there's more to the story. In fact, there are indications that established rules to prevent political abuse of the IRS may not have been followed.

According to IRS rules, a request like Johnson's must be reviewed by a three-member panel set up to ensure that investigations are conducted for fair, nonpartisan purposes. But there doesn't appear to be any evidence that such a review ever took place.

Under the rules, the committee must keep a record of each of its decisions. As the Post reported yesterday, Texans for Public Justice Director Craig L. McDonald asked for all documents relating to his group’s case. McDonald shared those documents with us -- and they contain no record the IRS committee had reviewed Johnson’s letter or referred it for investigation.

In its reply to McDonald, the IRS said it had held back three pages, citing a law which allows them to withhold information if it "would seriously impair Federal tax administration." But the agency would not say what those three pages were.

We followed up with IRS spokesman Eric Smith. But we didn't get any further than McDonald.

Smith would not explain what had been withheld, or make a member of the IRS disclosure office available. (Reached independently, IRS disclosure officer Valerie Barta, whose name pops up in McDonald's IRS documents, told us she was prohibited from discussing the matter.)

We asked Smith whether a review had taken place. He would not answer directly, but said the review panel is “the process that we use for all cases.” We again asked him to confirm it was used for Johnson's request; Smith said he was prohibited from discussing specific cases.

Is the IRS withholding evidence of what the review panel decided? Or is the evidence missing because the mandated review never took place? One way or another, why isn't any evidence of this review or reference to it included into the documents released to TPJ?

Remember, this isn't just any audit. It's one the IRS was put up to by a political ally of Tom DeLay for the pretty clear purpose of cracking down on an organization that was creating problems for the then-Majority Leader.

We can't see any reason why the IRS won't say whether they followed their own rules in this case. And if they did, why can't they provide some evidence or documentation about what the review panel decided?

The Democrats want to run as the party of reform? Then they can't afford days like today.

Today, the Senate Rules Committee voted on two different reform proposals. One was the Democrats' Honest Leadership and Open Government Act; the other was an earmark and lobbying reform bill by Sen. Lott (R-MS). The Democrats' bill went down on party lines, 10-8. Lott's bill passed unanimously. In other words, in one short committee meeting, the Republicans completely co-opted the issue.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama (D-IL), who's supposed to be the point man on this, introduced a measure three weeks ago that would create a Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission, an exterior agency that would handle ethics investigations and then make recommendations to the ethics committees. Sounds like a pretty sound idea, right? Especially given the shambles that the ethics committees are in right now, you would think.

Well, Sen. Obama (D-IL) sent out a "Dear Colleague" letter February 10th (read the letter here). The response? As today's Hill reports, it's been...underwhelming. As of yesterday, he had one co-sponsor, Sen. Reid (D-NV). Today, according to Sen. Obama's office, he added Sen. Kerry (D-MA). So that's two - not very impressive support. Why? As The Hill puts it: "lawmakers appear to view the medicine as too strong."

A glimpse into a day in the life of a Duke Cunningham staffer.

Roll Call tracked down Cunningham's former chief of staff, David Heil, who's referred to in the Justice Department's filings against Cunningham as a senior aide who confronted Duke over his shady dealings. Heil, "one of the few ethical bright spots" in this tale and now a lobbyist with the firm McKenna Long & Aldridge, is unique in that he's apparently one of a small number of Cunningham staffers who hasn't run as far as he could from the Hill:

...although he keeps in touch with some of his former Capitol Hill colleagues, Heil described an overwhelming feeling of disenchantment and bitterness among some of Cunningham’s former aides. Several have left politics or sought a future outside of Washington.

Heil gives an idea why: 

At one point in late 2004, after a showdown with his boss, Heil threatened to quit unless Cunningham himself left Congress — either by resigning or announcing his retirement....When Cunningham balked at Heil’s ultimatum, Heil quit.<snip>

“How else do you define when someone looks you in the eye and lies to you on several occasions?” Heil asked. “But then again, he did that to everybody.”<snip>

...in 2003, Cunningham bought a 1999 Suburban truck from Wade for only $10,000. Heil said he became worried about the price, which was thousands of dollars below the market value. According to the Justice Department, when Heil, who was not named in any official document, “raised the matter with the Congressman, Cunningham furiously slammed his hand on his desk, twice, and yelled at the staffer to ‘Stay the f--- out my personal business.’”

Read more »

We've been banging the Don Young drum for a little while here at TPM, because it's just not clear to us that Rep. Young (R-AK) really had "no personal or professional relationship" with Jack Abramoff, as he has claimed.

Now, it's been reported already that Rep. Young used Abramoff's skyboxes for fundraisers before Abramoff's fall from grace. But to date, Rep. Young or his office has sort of muddled the significance of those ties by claiming that his campaign didn't know in whose suite those events were held. (Never mind that the plaque at the door to the MCI Center suite said "Jack Abramoff").

Today, however, we're publishing a Team Abramoff email which puts those claims into further doubt.

The email is from Jennifer Calvert to Jack Abramoff and his then-assistant Susan Ralston.

At the time, Calvert was a member of Team Abramoff at Preston Gates, the law firm where Abramoff ran his operation until the end of 2000. In the email, Calvert tells Abramoff, "Don Young has asked for the use of our suites for some upcoming fundraisers". (You can read the actual email here.)

That email seems pretty straightforward to us. Young apparently asked Calvert to ask Abramoff if he could use one of his skyboxes for his fundraisers. And that seems like some sort of a relationship.

We went back to Young's office to get comment on this latest revelation. But the response seemed a bit off-point.

Young spokesman Grant Thompson emailed us back this reply:

"Mr Young does not feel it appropriate to comment on emails that are generated within a corporation. When you find communications from Mr Young or his staff, we will consider responding."

We're not sure what the problem is with commenting on emails "that are generated within a corporation." And, as a response, it's not exactly a denial - it's more of a challenge. In fact, we appreciate Rep. Young's confidence that we will ultimately find these communications. We'll do our muckraker best not to let him down.

At MZM, Inc., it really was all in the family.

In today's Daily Muck, I noted that in their story on Mitchell Wade's guilty plea, The Washington Post identified the anonymous Defense Department "Official" as Robert Fromm. In that they differed from the Times and the SDUT, each of whom said that the unnamed official was William S. Rich, Jr.

According to the plea, after Wade arranged for his son to work for MZM, the "Official" gave Wade all sorts of help in winning contracts with the Defense Department. This went on for at least a year and a half until the "Official" decided just to go ahead and make things official and moved over to MZM himself.

This seemed like a perfect description of Rich, whose son worked for MZM and who himself eventually moved over to MZM.

I thought so too, and said this morning that I thought the Post had got it wrong.

But it turns out there was just so much corruption at MZM that it's hard to keep the father-son sweatheart deal duos straight. In other words, yes, there was another father/son combination.

Walter Pincus at the Post, who reported on Rich's work for MZM last year, told me that according to his sources, Robert Fromm's son went to work for MZM in February, 2002. That matches up with the facts in the plea, which also says February, 2002. Rich's son, William Scott Rich III, didn't go to work for MZM until December 2002. Furthermore, Rich left the Pentagon to work for MZM in September 2003, long before the "Official" in the plea agreement, who left for MZM in July, 2004.

So there you have it: two defense officials, both in a position to help Wade win contracts, both of whom had sons go to work for Wade, and then went over themselves to work at MZM.

According to Pincus' story last year, at least 16 Defense Department employees made their way over to MZM. Who knows how many other father/son or mother/daughter combinations were united there?

All apologies to the Post - and as for Robert Fromm, he'll be making his Grand Ole Docket debut later in the day.

(Late Update: We've added the "Statement of Offenses" from Wade's guilty plea to the TPM Document Collection. And Fromm has arrived in the Grand Ole Docket.)

Duke Deconstructed.

On Friday, Duke Cunningham's defense lawyers issued their Sentencing Memorandum, asking for six years incarceration. The memorandum included a psychiatric evaluation. Enter Duke's mind:

A psychiatrist says Randy “Duke” Cunningham's fall from Vietnam War hero to corrupt politician grew out of “an outsized ego and a mantle of invulnerability” that allowed him to rationalize his behavior.

That mindset evolved from a military career in which Cunningham was taught to embrace aggressive tactics and ignore danger signs and enabled him to perform heroically during the Vietnam War, the doctor said.

Those traits, imperative for fighter pilots, were so engrained in Cunningham that although he was expected to behave differently in Congress “the psyche cannot make such a U-turn easily,” said Dr. Saul Faerstein....

Faerstein said Cunningham's “extraordinary deeds in the service planted a subconscious sense of entitlement which fed his rationalization to accept these gifts for his sacrifices.”

Read more »