NEW LOTT WORLDCOM REVELATIONS
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Lott, the Big Fixer, Flattered With Millions of Off-Book $$$
Trent MCI's First Among Equals -- Except He Got More
Continuing probes into Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott's ties to WorldCom have unnerved the incipient purveyors of the D.C. conventional wisdom that the Democratic and Republic Party alike are tainted by WorldCom money.
The conventional reports are based on figures provided by the estimable Center for Responsive Politics, which obtains its information about campaign contributions from the Federal Elections Commission.
But useful as it is, the CRP misses a great deal of obscure and off-the-books deals involving big money and political influence. And it is precisely those more hidden operations that Lott and WorldCom have helped pioneer.
For example, WorldCom, its subsidiaries, and their executives have been huge contributors to a PAC that goes by the name of the New Republican Majority Fund. Sounds partisan but fairly generic, right?
Except the NRMF is but a front PAC for Trent Lott, coordinated in part by Lott's old Mississippi associate, former National Republican Committee chairman Haley Barbour.
That cash for the "New Republican Majority" is really just cash for Trent.
Pretty slick, huh? About as slick as MCI-WorldCom's massive donation to the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at the University of Mississippi -- all off the books.
In 1999, before his Bush sycophancy began, Frank Bruni laid out how in the New York Times how the Lott operation worked, and its dangers to democracy:
But observant students of government may well divine an additional lesson: that money follows politicians to a surprising number of places, and that individuals and corporations have ways above and beyond direct campaign contributions -- and the legally mandated limits on those donations -- to make politicians feel loved.
So we don't REALLY know how much dough WorldCom has ponied up for Lott.
All we know is that it's a lot more (pardon the pun) than we've been told -- something Lott and the Republicans are desperately trying to hide.
Well not quite. We also know even more about what Trent did for WorldCom.
Lott, on WorldCom's behalf, repeatedly opposed broadband legislation offered by Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-La.)and John Dingell (D-Mich.) that WorldCom waged an all-out battle against.
When the Justice Department and European Union blocked WorldCom's $129 billion bid for control of rival long-distance company Sprint in 2000, Lott helped rally Senate opposition to a plan by Germany's Deutsche Telekom Inc. to buy Sprint instead.
According to a Wall Street Jounral report, Lott also "shepherded an amendment giving LDDS WorldCom, a long-distance service based in Jackson, Mississippi, a competitive edge over major carriers."
According to Roll Call, Lott, when asked about the WorldCom scandal, "took a cautious approach":
"Well, obviously we are very disappointed," he said Wednesday. "I don't know the truth yet of what happened. But obviously this is a big problem for that company, and it shakes your faith again in these accounting practices."
Lott added:"I don't know yet, is this an Arthur Andersen problem or is this some sort of something that our corporate officials did wrong. I don't know. But it is a concern and we have to address it."
Will the press and the Congress let Trent get away with this sort of evasive response?
"Gee, I dunno, fellas, beats me, but we'll look into it, you can be sure of that, especially that bad bad Arthur Andersen firm, and, y'know, maybe, hey, what's the name of that other company?"
Or will they do their jobs and get to the bottom of Trent's Enron? |
