Former Aide to DeLay
Posted By: Pleads Guilty - sm - Starcat on 2005-11-21
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November 21, 2005
Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case
By DAVID STOUT
and PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Michael Scanlon, former aide to a powerful congressman and onetime partner of a wealthy lobbyist, pleaded guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge as part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with an investigation into possible wrongdoing by some lawmakers.
Mr. Scanlon's comedown from a young and wealthy Washington power-player to disgraced felon, formalized before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court here, had been expected. But it still may have sent shivers down Capitol corridors.
Mr. Scanlon agreed to pay restitution totaling more than $19 million to the tribes and faces up to five years in prison. He was allowed to remain free on $5 million bond. After pleading guilty, the well-tanned Mr. Scanlon appeared incongruously cheerful. Asked by reporters why he was smiling, he replied, I'm always smiling.
Mr. Scanlon, 35, was accused of conspiring to defraud Indian tribes out of millions of dollars as part of a lobbying and corruption scheme that involved wining and dining of some lawmakers, treating them to lavish trips and contributing to their campaigns.
Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican, who heads the House Appropriations Committee, was alluded to in the indictment (although not by name) as a main beneficiary of largess, in return for helping Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon with their clients.
Lawyers involved in the case have confirmed that Mr. Ney is the Representative #1 cited in the indictment. The congressman - who has not been charged - has asserted that he was duped by the two and is cooperating with prosecutors, a spokesman for Mr. Ney says.
Mr. Scanlon's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, was asked whether any other members of Congress had anything to fear. I have no comment on that, he replied.
Until recently, Mr. Scanlon occupied a powerful - and lucrative - position at the intersection of political power and lobbying influence. For several years, he worked as a top aide to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican majority leader. He left Mr. DeLay's office in 2000 to become an associate of Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist.
Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon earned more than $80 million representing a few wealthy Indian tribes on gambling issues. Those transactions have been under investigation by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee as well as federal prosecutors.
In an e-mail message made public by the committee, Mr. Scanlon seemed to lust for wealth, and seemed to see the Indian tribes as easy targets. I want all their money!!! he wrote of one tribe in 2002. Referring to the money available from another tribe, he exclaimed, Weeez gonna be rich!!!
Mr. DeLay has been indicted in Texas on charges involving political fund-raising that are not related to the inquiry in which Mr. Scanlon pleaded guilty today. And Mr. Abramoff has been indicted in Florida on unrelated fraud-and-conspiracy charges involving an attempt to buy a fleet of casino boats.
Like Mr. Ney, Mr. DeLay has been named as a beneficiary of Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's generosity. He, too, has denied wrongdoing. Mr. Cacheris, when asked whether Mr. DeLay had reason to worry over Mr. Scanlon's cooperating with prosecutors, said, You'll have to ask his lawyers.
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The fact that the aide stated it, NM
x
Not me, I'm drinking Obama-aide. I haven't been....sm
this happy in almost 50 years. My Hope-ometer is off the chart. I think that honesty is refreshing and no malice was intended. It was funny. I am still chuckling over politically incorrect Jill and the response of her husband, Oprah and the audience.
More DeLay fun and
AP: DeLay, Blunt Traded Secret Donations
By JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writers1 hour, 33 minutes ago
Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess funds to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men's causes.
When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also came into the picture.
The complicated transactions are drawing scrutiny in legal and political circles after a grand jury indicted DeLay on charges of violating Texas law with a scheme to launder illegal corporate donations to state candidates.
Blunt last week temporarily replaced DeLay as House majority leader, and Blunt's son, Matt, has now risen to Missouri's governor.
The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.
These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions, said Lawrence Noble. It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source, said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred.
None of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations DeLay collected for the 2000 convention were ever disclosed to federal regulators because the type of group DeLay used wasn't governed by federal law at the time.
DeLay has temporarily stepped aside as majority leader after being indicted by a Texas prosecutor.
Spokesmen for the two Republican leaders say they disclosed what was required by law at the time and believe all their transactions were legal, though donors might not always have know where their money was headed.
It illustrates what others have said, that money gets transferred all the time. This was disclosed to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable law, said Don McGahn, a lawyer for DeLay. It just shows that donors don't control funds once they're given.
Blunt and DeLay planned all along to raise more money than was needed for the convention parties and then route some of that to other causes, such as supporting state candidates, said longtime Blunt aide Gregg Hartley.
We put together a budget for what we thought we would raise and spend on the convention and whatever was left over we were going to use to support candidates, said Hartley, Blunt's former chief of staff who answered AP's questions on behalf of Blunt.
Hartley said he saw no similarity to the Texas case. The fact that DeLay's charity, Christine DeLay's consulting firm and Blunt's son were beneficiaries was a coincidence, Hartley said.
Much of the money — including one donation to Blunt from an Abramoff client accused of running a sweatshop garment factory in the Northern Mariana Islands — changed hands in the spring of 2000, a period of keen interest to federal prosecutors.
During that same time, Abramoff arranged for DeLay to use a concert skybox for donors and to take a golfing trip to Scotland and England that was partly underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients. Prosecutors are investigating whether the source of some of the money was disguised, and whether some of DeLay's expenses were originally put on the lobbyist's credit card in violation of House rules.
Both DeLay and Blunt and their aides also met with Abramoff's lobbying team several times in 2000 and 2001 on the Marianas issues, according to law firm billing records obtained by AP under an open records request. DeLay was instrumental in blocking legislation opposed by some of Abramoff's clients.
Noble said investigators should examine whether the pattern of disguising the original source of money might have been an effort to hide the leaders' simultaneous financial and legislative dealings with Abramoff and his clients.
You see Abramoff involved and see the meetings that were held and one gets the sense Abramoff is helping this along in order to get access and push his clients' interest, he said. And at the same time, you see Delay and Blunt trying to hide the root of their funding.
All of these transactions may have strings attached to them. ... I think you would want to look, if you aren't already looking, at the question of a quid pro quo, Noble said.
Blunt and DeLay have long been political allies. The 2000 transactions occurred as President Bush was marching toward his first election to the White House, DeLay was positioning himself to be House majority leader and Blunt was lining up to succeed DeLay as majority whip, the third-ranking position in the House.
The entities Blunt and DeLay formed allowed them to collect donations of any size and any U.S. source with little chance of federal scrutiny.
DeLay's convention fundraising arm, part of his Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC), collected large corporate donations to help wine and dine Republican VIPs during the presidential nominating convention in Philadelphia in late summer 2000. DeLay's group has declined to identify any of the donors.
Blunt's group, a nonfederal wing of his Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, eventually registered its activities in Missouri but paid a $3,000 fine for improperly concealing its fundraising in 1999 and spring 2000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.
Both groups — DeLay's and Blunt's — were simultaneously paying Ellis, the longtime DeLay fundraiser who was indicted along with his boss in Texas in the alleged money laundering scheme.
The DeLay group began transferring money to Blunt's group in two checks totaling $150,000 in the spring of 2000, well before Republicans actually met in Philadelphia for the convention. The transfers accounted for most of money Blunt's group received during that period.
DeLay's convention arm sent $50,000 on March 31, 2000. Eight days later, the Blunt group made a $10,000 donation to DeLay's private charity for children on April 7, 2000, and began the first of several payments totaling $40,000 to a northern Virginia-based political consulting firm formed by DeLay's former chief of staff, Ed Buckham.
That consulting firm at the time also employed DeLay's wife, Christine, according to DeLay's ethics disclosure report to Congress.
Hartley said Blunt was unaware that Mrs. DeLay worked at the firm when he made the payments, and that she had nothing to do with Blunt's group.
On April 14, 2000, Concorde Garment Manufacturing, based in the Northern Marianas Islands that was part of Abramoff's lobbying coalition, contributed $3,000 to Blunt's group.
Hartley said the donation was delivered during a weekend of fundraising activities by Blunt and DeLay but his boss did not know who solicited it.
Concorde, derided for years in lawsuits as a Pacific island sweatshop, paid a $9 million penalty to the U.S. government in the 1990s for failing to pay workers' overtime. The company was visited by DeLay.
The company was a key member of the Marianas garment industry that the islands' government was trying to protect when it hired Abramoff to lobby DeLay, Blunt and others to keep Congress from imposing tougher wage and tax standards on the islands.
After the November 2000 election, Abramoff's firm billed its Mariana Islands clients for at least one meeting with Blunt and three meetings with Blunt's staff, billing records show. Abramoff's team also reported several meetings with DeLay and his staff on the issue, including one during the presidential convention.
On May 24, 2000 — just before DeLay left with Abramoff for the Scottish golfing trip — DeLay's convention fundraising group transferred $100,000 more to Blunt's group. Within three weeks, Blunt turned around and donated the same amount to the Missouri Republican Party.
The next month, the state GOP began spending large amounts of money to help Blunt's son, Matt, in his successful campaign to become Missouri secretary of state. On July 25, 2000, the state GOP made its first expenditure for the younger Blunt, totaling just over $11,000. By election day, that figure had grown to more than $160,000.
Hartley said Blunt always liked to help the state party and the fact that his son got party help after his donation was a coincidence. They are unrelated activities, he said.
Exchanges of donations occurred again in the fall. Just a few days before the November election, DeLay's ARMPAC gave $50,000 to the Missouri GOP. A month later, the Missouri GOP sent $50,000 to DeLay's group.
___
Associated Press Writer David Lieb in Missouri contributed to this story.
On the Net:
Documents for this story are available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/delay/index.html
Senate scandal snares Obama Chief Aide...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5337807.ece
Tomy DeLay just indicted for conspiracy.
It is just one scandal after another with these guys.
Troops die without body armor. Why the delay?
For Lack of Body Armor, Troops Die. Why the Delay? |
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Paul Rieckhoff on body armor in USA Today: Rieckhoff and other veterans are calling for a congressional investigation. That's justified. Tracking their complaints could save lives in future wars — not to mention this one.
From USA Today
After Army and Marine Corps generals were summoned Wednesday to a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, the brass emerged with vows to improve body armor for all U.S. troops in Iraq.
That's good to hear, but shouldn't it have happened sooner?
Members of Congress were reacting to a newly reported analysis by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, which concluded that 80% of the fatal injuries to Marines in the study might have been prevented by additional armor coverage. Side armor, a special concern, is just beginning to arrive in Iraq.
The armor situation fits a deadly pattern of blunders by the war's architects. The quick invasion of Iraq happened as planned, but — as former Iraq civilian administrator Paul Bremer acknowledges in his new book — the Bush administration didn't anticipate the widespread and lethal insurgency that followed.
The occupying U.S. troops soon found themselves facing deadly new tactics with inadequate armor on both their vehicles and themselves. This tragic miscalculation has had tragic consequences.
To date, 1,510 soldiers and 633 Marines have died in Iraq, many of them killed by rifle shots or explosions in which better armor could have made a difference.
Army generals say the body armor used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan has already been improved seven times. All soldiers there have bullet-proof body vests called Interceptors, which have front-and-back ceramic plates. Side panels, which are added to the Interceptors to provide more coverage, are just now being distributed to Marines.
Defending their body-armor decisions, Army spokesmen conjure up images of medieval combatants whose ever-heavier personal armor brought their horses to their knees. A soldier wrapped in armor can't fight in the heat of Iraq, they say.
Maybe not, but the Pentagon owes further explanations to military families and to Congress, which since 2001 has appropriated $302 billion to cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the questions that need answering include:
• Was there proper planning? Thousands of troops arrived in Iraq with old-style flak jackets. Not until January 2004 did all troops have the new Interceptor vests, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year.
•Was the armor upgraded fast enough? The Marine Corps says it moved quickly to add side armor upon learning the news from the examiner's report. But the Army has yet to supply its soldiers with side protection.
• Do the services have adequate supply systems? Those systems appear hobbled by slow turnarounds and poor reliability. In November, more than 18,000 vests were recalled for failing to meet ballistics tests.
Army and Marine commanders know that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. The question is how quickly the services adapt. The answer in Iraq is tooslowly, says Paul Rieckhoff, who led an Army platoon there protected only by the flak jackets, which can't stop an AK-47 round.
The body armor delays mirror problems with the Humvee. Not until last July did the Army finally replace its soft-skinned Humvees, proven tragically vulnerable to roadside bombs, with a fully armored version.
Rieckhoff and other veterans are calling for a congressional investigation. That's justified. Tracking their complaints could save lives in future wars — not to mention this one. |
My bet is Delay will be found innocent and Rove is old news.
Besides, last time I check we had a system of balances in this country. The time and the law will prevail, I have no doubt.
Pot meets kettle. You mean like Tom Delay's 2000-2001
We are still dealing with the aftermath. But hey, he was just trying to help out the shrub and the rest of the GOP good ole boys.
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