Corruption Digest - January 10, 2006

As my new book Hostile Takeover prepares to be released in the Spring, here is your January 10, 2006 briefing on how America's political system is being sold to the highest bidders. To sign up to receive the Corruption Digest in your email box, just go to www.davidsirota.com and enter your email address on the righthand side.

WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION
The White House is desperately trying to distance itself from the corruption scandals - and Time Magazine is doing its best to help. In a big story this week, the magazine creates the veneer of a President totally isolated from the corruption, claiming President Bush supposedly "does not like to have contributors or local officials in his cars, planes or holding rooms unless they are there for a good reason, and he sometimes questions his underlings sharply if someone he considers extraneous is admitted." Readers are expected to swallow this virtuous image and forget that "GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration," according to a May 2005 story by the Associated Press. Meanwhile, Bush has returned just $6,000 of Abramoff contributions - a far cry from the at least $100,000 Abramoff raised for the Bush campaign as one of the President's top fundraisers..UPI reports that President Bush's former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, "has banked $269,000 from four clients just three months since registering as a lobbyist...Payments include $220,000 from Oracle Corp., which won a multibillion-dollar Justice Department contract a month after hiring Ashcroft."

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - REPUBLICANS
The New York Times reports that prosecutors in the Abramoff scandal are focusing on a lobbying firm - Alexander Strategy Group - with ties to various top Republicans, including Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and the men trying to fill his position as Majority Leader - Reps. John Boehner (R-OH) and Roy Blunt (R-MO). Bloomberg News notes that both potential successors "share a broad network of lobbyist ties with DeLay." Blunt has a long history of using his office to reward those close to him, including his tobacco lobbyist wife and his tobacco lobbyist son. And he has brought K Street right into the center of Republican policymaking. As just one example, the Washington Post reported in May of 2005 that during the push for a round of massive new corporate tax cuts, "the task of rounding up the votes was delegated by Blunt's whip operation to a coalition of lobbyists, all of whom had clients with huge stakes in the outcome." Same thing with Boehner - his behavior makes him look like a corporate lobbyist dressed up in congressman's clothing. He is claiming he is a "reformer" but it was Boehner who got nailed for doling out checks from lobbyists on the floor of the House in 1996. Meanwhile, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is claiming he has a lock on the House Majority Whip slot - even though he is knee deep in the Abramoff scandal himself. Not only has he pocketed huge campaign contributions from Abramoff, but Cantor has held events at Abramoff's restaurants and signed letters on behalf of Abramoff clients...Over in the Senate, Montana Sen. Conrad Burns (R) has resorted to conspiracy theories. Instead of acknowledging that he switched his votes and positions after pocketing huge wads of cash from Abramoff and Abramoff's clients, he told Montana papers Monday that "his political enemies are behind newspaper reports linking him to confessed felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff."...The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) "is asking the U.S. attorney general to open a corruption investigation of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis because of the congressman's ties to a lobbyist who has legally donated thousands of dollars to Lewis' causes." The move follows a blockbuster story in the San Diego Union Tribune about how Lewis has used his slot on the House Appropriations Committee to direct millions in taxpayer contracts to his good friend and lobbyist Bill Lowery - all in exchange for campaign contributions...Time Magazine recently reported that Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA), who plead guilty to bribery, wore a wire to catch other lawmakers. But that story is now being denied by Cunningham's lawyers.

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - DEMOCRATS
The Tennessee Chattanoogan reports that Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) is taking heat in his potential U.S. Senate campaign for taking "at least seven donations including payment for a 'dinner reception' by 'Team Abramoff' lobbyists."...Raw Story reports that "a memorandum issued Friday by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to Democratic senators indicates that Democrats plan to take an offensive position surrounding Jack Abramoff." new Washington Post poll shows the public overwhelmingly wants serious, systemic reforms to stop corruption. Similarly, a new AP poll shows that corruption will play a big role in how people vote in 2006. Yet, there's still no word on whether either party will officially embrace such reforms.

STATE CORRUPTION
The Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland Democrats are asking the state prosecutor "to investigate whether Edward B. Miller, deputy chief of staff to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., committed criminal wrongdoing in his work with Grassroots Interactive, the company he founded that played a part in lobbyist Jack Abramoff's elaborate scheme to defraud clients." The question surrounds "the nearly $200,000 that was received" by Grassroots Interactive - no small sum...The Boston Globe reports that "A former state lawmaker facing federal corruption charges has started working as a political consultant and Beacon Hill lobbyist." Christopher Asselin, a former Democratic representative from Springfield, "was voted out of office in 2004 after pleading innocent to a slew of corruption charges that sprouted from an ongoing federal public corruption probe in the state's third-largest city." He is now a lobbyist at The Global Group.

MEDIA CORRUPTION
Chris Matthews is once again distorting the corruption scandals. Last week, he downplayed the scandals without disclosing his personal motives. Now, Matthews is claiming that indicted Rep. Tom DeLay "Really lives basically, like a regular middle class person. He doesn’t live well at all." Incredibly, he made this comment just weeks after the Associated Press published a blockbuster expose on DeLay's royal lifestyle, noting that DeLay has used tens of thousands of dollars from lobbyists to
"visiteplaces of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests."

CORPORATE CORRUPTION
A new study out by the trade newsletter Corporate Crime Reporter finds that "federal and state prosecutors are increasingly offering major corporations – including Adelphia, Computer Associates, KPMG, Merrill Lynch, Monsanto, Sears, Shell, WorldCom/MCI – special deals – known as deferred prosecution or non prosecution agreements...Under a policy implemented by the Department of Justice since 2003, major corporations caught committing serious crimes are not convicted of a crime and sentenced...The report finds that prosecutors have entered into twice as many non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements in the last four years than they have in the previous ten."

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