Arizona Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has finally been indicted, on 35 counts that include extortion, embezzlement, and money laundering. The investigation has been conducted by the FBI (working on priority #4, “combat public corruption at all levels”), the IRS, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Integrity.
How corrupt is our Congress? They’re not even pretending to follow the Constitution. Talking Points Memo reports on how Rep. Don Young (R-AK) inserted an earmark to spend $10 million on a highway interchange in Florida (“Coconut Road”) to benefit real estate developer Daniel Aranoff, a few days after Aranoff raised $40,000 for Young. The really interesting part is not an Alaskan legislator doing political favors for contributions from a Florida developer, but the fact that the earmark was not in the version of the bill that passed the House or Senate–it was added to the bill during the enrollment process, after its passage but before being signed by President Bush. This is a process which is only supposed to allow correction of typographical and technical but non-substantive errors. ...
Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home was raided today by the FBI. All of Alaska’s federal legislators are now under investigation for corruption, as are some Alaskan state legislators, such as Ted Stevens’ son Ben Stevens, president of the Alaska State Senate. UPDATE (August 1, 2007): George W. Bush continued his habit of supporting legislators with criminal investigation and ethics problems by hosting a White House dinner in Ted Stevens’ honor back on May 23 of this year. UPDATE (October 28, 2008): Ted Stevens was convicted yesterday on seven charges, making him the fifth sitting Senator to be convicted of a felony.
Rep. Rick Renzi (Republican, AZ-District 1) is now under investigation by the feds, for some deals involving San Pedro River water and land nearby which a friend of his made millions from. Renzi is on CREW’s list of the top 20 most corrupt Congressmen.
House Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), under federal investigation himself, abruptly fired 60 contract investigators working for the Appropriations Committee to identify government fraud and waste. This stalls out all of the investigations, which have been saving billions of dollars and identified numerous instances of malfeasance. Lewis spokesman John Scofield says “there is nothing sinister going on.”
That was quick. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida), whose emails to a former Congressional page asking him for a photograph and his birthday were made public yesterday, has offered his resignation today. It seems there were also a lot of sexually oriented instant messages from “Maf54." This guy was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. It looks like he may be prosecuted under laws he helped pass. The timing of this resignation is such that the Republicans will probably not be able to replace Foley’s name on the ballot. (For more details, see here.) Another dirty Republican politician down, a bunch more to go.
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)’s Washington office was raided last night, and the FBI has disclosed portions of recorded conversations last year between Jefferson and an informant. The informant had paid Jefferson $100,000 in $100 bills (caught on videotape by the FBI) to be delivered to an official in Nigeria. In a telephone conversation on August 1 which the FBI has partially disclosed, Jefferson and the informant spoke to each other in code about the bribe money, which was recovered from Jefferson’s freezer during a police search on August 3. In that conversation, the informant asked about the status of “the package.” Jefferson replied that “I gave him the African art that you gave me and he was very pleased." Jefferson apparently had the objective of getting work in Africa for a communications company, and getting his children a cut of that deal. Via Talking Points Memo.
Apparently she had some staffers leave because she lied about whether Mitchell Wade (the briber in the Duke Cunningham scandal) had bought her a very expensive ($2,800) dinner at a fancy restaurant. She ended an interview last week when the subject came up, after saying that her campaign had “reimbursed” the restaurant (which makes no sense, since Wade paid the bill). Her spokesman called the reporter and asked that the subject not be published. The following day, her campaign released a statement saying that “I have donated to a local Florida charity $100 which will more than adequately compensate for the cost of my beverage and appetizer." It turns out that the “local Florida charity” is Global Dominion Impact Ministries, a Charismatic Christian group run by Bishop Lewes and Pastor Sandra Jones. The group’s website says: “Pastor Sandra has an inspiring testimony of her deliverance from being sold to devils as an infant. She also shares her miraculous healing from her breast cancer as well as being raised from the dead.”
John McCain hired Terry Nelson as a senior advisor. Nelson was deeply involved in Tom DeLay’s money laundering of corporate contributions scandal, but the mainstream media was lax about even asking McCain questions about this issue until after a Seattle radio show caller asked him about it: CALLER: Thanks, I had a question for the senator. For a reformer, I’m kind of curious why he would hire a guy like Terry Nelson as a senior advisor. Here’s a guy who was actually in the indictment of DeLay on his money laundering charges. When he was at the RNC, he agreed to take the corporate contributions from DeLay’s PAC and then recycle them back into the Republican congressional races. And he was also, this guy Nelson was also the supervisor of James Tobin, who was the guy convicted last year for helping jam the Democratic get-out-the-vote lines in New England a couple years ago. ...
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was named Speaker of the House to replace Tom DeLay. It’s already been pointed out that he lives in a D.C. apartment that belongs to a lobbyist. The Center for Public Integrity has looked further at his record, and found that he has taken dozens of trips on private jets owned by corporations that have legislative interests before Congresshas accepted scores of privately sponsored trips (often categorized as having fact-finding or educational purposes) to some of the world’s premier golf spots and foreign localeshas hosted many high-end fund-raisers to wine and dine potential donors and Republican colleagueshas donated millions of dollars to election campaigns of fellow Republicans.All legal, but the first two items are equivalent to receiving substantial gifts from special interests, and the second two are equivalent to passing some of them on and seeking more. The CPI’s website also has a Google Map of Boehner’s trips and expenses for 2005 which includes a Scottsdale, Arizona connection–he spent thousands of dollars at the Talking Stick Golf Club at 9998 E. Indian Bend Rd: DateAmount02/13/2004$3805.1302/13/2004$469.1302/13/2004$938.2603/07/2005$7488.67