Escape the Okie Zone

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
 

nzs wear helmets: yes we can prevent pollution and clean up rivers and lakes...it will take centuries for the beautiful coral destroyed by man in the keys and even the great barrier reef...it may 1000s of years for rainforests and other forests to come back especially if we destroy much of the earth with pesiticides, chemical waste and "God" forbid nuclear waste and fallout!!
nzs wear helmets: helmet: all you libs are mindless freaks that have been brainwashed by your liberal commie professors...tdf..prime example of why its obvious humans have over 99% of the same genes as chimpanzees! tdf
nzs wear helmets: LA has a job doing her best to bring up children and willing to push a few buttons of you racist homophobes that fear intellectuals. Have you ever looked at how your ugly personae have invaded political thinking ever since you were cavemen and then became civilized??..but you dont believe you have most of the same qualities as a testeroned gorilla viciously attacking anything that is a threat to your low lifestyle in your self imposed and hatelful bigoted jungle !
nzs wear helmets: LA has a job doing her best to bring up children and willing to push a few button of you racist homophobes that fear intellectuals. Have you ever looked at how your ugly personae have invaded political thinking ever since you were cavemen and then became civilized??..but you dont believe you have most of the same qualities as a testeroned gorilla viciously attacking anything that is a threat to your low lifestyle in your self imposed and hatelful bigoted jungle !
helmet: Hey leigh Ann Get a job you femma-nazi
helmet: all you libs are mindless freaks that have been brainwashed by your liberal commie professors
Voice's laryngitis: Many places now are fishible where none were just 20 years ago. Lake Erie was a cesspool that you couldn't swim in, now I make trips there to fish and enjoy the beaches. These were accomplished with reasonable demands, resisted by industry, but ultitmately done because the science convinced the public to go after this. This global warming stuff is mired in political intentions that often don't match up with science.
Voice's laryngitis: Warming, your comments are the type that hype without factual evidence. During my lifetime, at least in the US, rivers are cleaner as are the air and lakes. Where I live in pa, alot of local and governmental pressure has made a difference with mine drainage.
Voice's laryngitis: Bill Clinton is discussed in the article. It is interesting that he never pushed this while he was president. Even if the Senate would have vetoed Kyoto, he could have genuinely advocated for this when he was in power. Now that he wants the stage again, it is convenient for him to now make this imperative for man's survival. This is part of why this is just political fluff and not a scientific endeavor. Pleas look at the link to Stanford Univerity and comment on its merits.
Voice's laryngitis: The article that you linked to described not science but scientists making politcal arguments that makes man the whole of the problem. We have had ice ages and warming periods long before man ever walked on this earth. But according to many of that ilk, it is as if it never happened before. Let science and not politics take the lead.
Voice's laryngitis: Stanford University is not a place that would generally support Bush or Republican policies, but I give them credit for wanting scientists and others to look at the power of forces, other than man and industry, to alter climate. One study listed there, there are others there as well more liberally minded I suppose, that are studying the problem of global warming from a scientific, objective skemptism, viewpoint.
Voice's laryngitis: The site I mentioned and suggested you look at, does acknowledge the problem of warming. I do not want industry polluting indiscriminately, raping forests, killing bambi's(Unless it's me during hunting season) or any other atrocity. I just think it's fair to look scientifically at the problem and not through lenses of political expediency.
Voice : very tired tonite..."voice silenced" last two posts is really Voice of Reason.
Voice Silenced: All the best environmental minds plus hundreds of countries >>>>on the other side: George Bush and voice Silenced. I think I'll go with the majority on this one.
Voice Silenced: Voice Silence wants ME and others to believe that man has very little influence on solar warming. He tacitly gives industry full immunity in polluting the earth and makes it easy for himself and people all over the globe not have to take the neccessary steps in helping man assault on mother earth. The Global Warming Conference that 100's of nations attended and all felt strongly ( except the USA and his Bushies) that global warming is a huge promlem: Means nothing to him!
long duck dong: neo-cons flunky
long duck dong: global warming has cooked neo-con brains
warming: the fact is that we are tearing down the source to naturally turn co2 into oxygen on this planet- tropical rainforests, species are dying, rivers oceans are polluted. but who cares about the future generations that only will see wild animals in a zoo, there wont be rainforest to visit anymore, who cares well all have prayer in school and well have christian democracy! tdf
warming: religious fanatics and neocons will always find research for either the earth is flat or that Jesus walked on water!
blokehasissues: blue devil does a good job of pointing neocon insecurities!
blokehasissues: -research says many homophobes disguise their latent homosexuality with a significant amount of homophobia.
bloke: bum rushers
bloke: fairy dust
bloke: sanitation diggers
bloke: abnormal freaks
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