How To Plan A Scandal: Throw A Lot Of Lucrative Favors, Money & Deals On The Table

The Lobbyist Scandals

When you spread food out on a picnic table, you can expect ants. When you put $3 trillion on the table, you can expect special interests, lobbyists and pork-barrel politicians.

That's the real lesson of the Abramoff scandal.

Jack Abramoff may have been the sleaziest of the Washington lobbyists but he's not unique. As the federal government accumulates more money and more power, it draws more lobbyists like honey draws flies.

People invest money to make money. In a free economy they invest in building homes and factories, inventing new products, finding oil, and other economic activities. That kind of investment benefits us all -- it's a positive-sum game, as economists say. People get rich by producing what other people want.

But you can also invest in Washington. You can organize an interest group, or hire a lobbyist, and try to get some taxpayers' money routed to you. That's what the farm lobbies, AARP, industry associations, and teachers unions do. And that kind of investment is zero-sum -- money is taken from some people and given to others, but no new wealth is created.

If you want to drill an oil well, you hire petroleum engineers. If you want to drill for money in Washington, you hire a lobbyist. And more people have been doing that.

The culture of deception continues to take on a life of its own.

Lobby Reform Lite

With the ghost of Jack Abramoff, the recently sentenced rogue lobbyist, wafting above the debate, the Senate has voted for a halfhearted package of reforms that would come nowhere near curing the easy money, quid pro quo culture that now bedevils the Capitol.

Facing voters' flagging confidence, the Senate chose to emphasize greater disclosure by lobbyists while rejecting such vital reforms as the creation of an independent office to investigate ethics abuses. The instinct to protect privileged clubbiness carried the day, most glaringly when the Senate spiked any idea of ending lawmakers' shameless use of the executive jets so eagerly offered by corporate officials bent on insider access.

Constituents who are grateful to see even the slightest sign of reform will be happy that the senators have voted to extend to two years the mandatory waiting time before a former lawmaker can strike it rich as a lobbyist. The current wait is one year. The bill also takes the first steps toward uncovering the stealthy world of grass-roots lobbying investments in lawmakers' home districts.

The Senate bill would make it harder — but by no means impossible — for members to quietly "earmark" pork projects in the budget at the behest of lobbyists. But even such an obvious reform as banning meals and gifts from lobbyists came equipped with a gaping loophole so the corporate employers of lobbyists could still pick up those checks.

The unfinished ethics agenda begins with the most critical issue of all: an end to the pervasive role of lobbyists as campaign finance brokers and money bundlers for incumbent politicians. It's reached the point where the people's representatives blatantly designate lobbyists to head their fund-raising teams. This moneyed back-scratching is the seedbed for scandal, but neither house shows any appetite to confront it.

Congress seems to be very committed to perpetuating the culture of deception.

Jack's House

The culture of deception has now found a place in creative literature... and pop culture: a poem that details all of the recent scandals in congress and other parts of the GOP-dominated government.

These are the men
That fleeced the tribes
That paid the money
That made the bribes
That purchased the Congress that
Jack built.

We can only hope for some poetic justice in the end.

Six Hill Aides Subpoenaed In Jefferson Investigation

More scandal under the GOP banner...

A U.S. District Court has issued grand jury subpoenas to six aides to Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) who has been implicated in a bribery case.

In statements read on the House floor yesterday, the aides notified House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that they had been served with subpoenas for testimony issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The court, located in Alexandria, Va., is set to hand down a sentence to Brett Pfeffer, a former aide to Jefferson. Pfeffer pleaded guilty in January to aiding and abetting bribery of a public official and conspiracy. He faces as much as 20 years in prison.

Pfeffer, 37, said a congressman demanded bribes in exchange for his assistance in brokering two African telecommunications deals. Court documents make clear that Jefferson is the accused congressman without naming him.

Jefferson has not been charged with a crime and has denied the allegation, saying he has never demanded or accepted anything to perform a service for which he was elected.

The six staff members -- a district manager, a legislative assistant and four congressional aides -- said in their statements that they had consulted with the Office of General Counsel and determined that compliance with the subpoena "is consistent with the precedents and privileges of the House."

Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit: Bulk of Group's Funds Tied to Abramoff

And the hits just keep on coming!

A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.

DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.

The group's revenue was drawn mostly from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. From an FBI subpoena for the records, it can be inferred that the bureau is exploring whether there were links between the payments and favorable legislative treatment of Abramoff's clients by DeLay's office.

In recent months, Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and conspiracy to defraud clients and bribe a public official; DeLay (R-Tex.) stepped down from his post as House majority leader; and Buckham folded his lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

In the late 1990s, when DeLay's influence was growing, the lawmaker depicted the USFN in a promotional letter as a nationwide, grass-roots organization. In fact, it had a tiny staff that barely registered an impact on Capitol Hill. The group appears to have served mostly as a vehicle for funneling corporate funds to DeLay's advisers and financing ads that attacked Democrats.

But these issues and revelations did not stop DeLay from duping the voters in Texas from re-electing him. Like lambs being led to the slaughter... family values, anti-abortion and small government promises are the bait.