Murtha's looming earmarks scandal
Betsy's Page
Congressional Quarterly has traced back the earmarks that congressmen got in a Defense Appropriations bill shepherded through John Murtha's subcommittee and the donations that the PMA Group lobbying firm made to those same politicians. The FBI recently raided PMA and politicians have been sprinting to return the campaign donations that they got from PMA.
<<< More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha, the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.
“It shows you how good they were,” said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The sheer coordination of that would take an army to finish.”
PMA’s offices have been raided, and the firm closed its political action committee last week amid reports that the FBI is investigating possibly illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and other lawmakers.
No matter what the outcome of the federal investigation, PMA’s earmark success illustrates how a well-connected lobbying firm operates on Capitol Hill. And earmark accountability rules imposed by the Democrats in 2007 make it possible to see how extensively PMA worked the Hill for its clients.
In the spending bill managed by Murtha, the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriation, 104 House members got earmarks for projects sought by PMA clients, according to Congressional Quarterly’s analysis of a database constructed by Ashdown’s group.
Those House members, plus a handful of senators, combined to route nearly $300 million in public money to clients of PMA through that one law (PL 110-116).
And when the lawmakers were in need — as they all are to finance their campaigns — PMA came through for them.
According to CQ MoneyLine, the same House members who took responsibility for PMA’s earmarks in that spending bill have, since 2001, accepted a cumulative $1,815,138 in campaign contributions from PMA’s political action committee and employees of the firm. >>>
Read the rest of the details. And note the names, mostly Democrats, of those who inserted earmarks into the bill for those PMA clients. Many of them are associated in one way or another with John Murtha. Murtha was lucky enough to skate by over 30 years ago when he was caught on the FBI sting tapes in the ABSCAM scandal. Ruth Marcus, no right-wing stooge summarized Murtha's role.
<<< The videotape is grainy, dark and devastating. The congressman and the FBI undercover agents -- the congressman thinks they represent an Arab sheik willing to pay $50,000 to get immigration papers -- are talking business in the living room of a secretly wired Washington townhouse.
Two other congressmen in on the deal "do expect to be taken care of," the lawmaker says. But for the time being -- and he says repeatedly that he might change his mind and take money down the road -- he'd rather trade his help for investment in his district, maybe a hefty deposit in the bank of a political supporter who's done him favors.
"I'm not interested -- at this point," he says of the dangled bribe. "You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't, you know." Indeed, he acknowledges, even though he needs to be careful -- "I expect to be in the [expletive] leadership of the House," he notes -- the money's awfully tempting. "It's hard for me to say, just the hell with it." >>>
He got off then. Perhaps he'll get off now. He is a lot smarter three decades later about not being explicit when he accepts a quid pro quo, but he sure is slimey. And he's one of Nancy Pelosi's major lieutenants in the House. Even if he doesn't suffer anything more than some more uncomfortable headlines in this whole PMA scandal, he's the posterboy for trading money for influence and a clear indication that, despite all their fine talk, the Democrats didn't do anything to change the climate on Capitol Hill. Nancy Pelosi should have to answer questions about why she keeps supporting these old dirty dogs like Charlie Rangel and John Murtha. She is knowingly presiding over her very own culture of corruption.
UPDATE: Here's a chart of all those congressmen who secured earmarks for PMA clients along with how much money they have accepted as donations from PMA. It's a bipartisan stinklist.
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