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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brian P. who wrote (15994)	3/21/2000 7:39:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Brian, here's an interesting article... Accuracy In Media Media Monitor aim.org Al Gore's Special Interests By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid March 21, 2000 Using federal lobbying reports filed with the Congress, the Center for Public Integrity has put together a database exposing the special interests associated with the advisers to the presidential candidates. The material appears to prove John McCain's charge about special interests dominating Washington, except for the fact that McCain's own advisers represent those same special interests. One lobbying firm, the Duberstein Group, actually advises both John McCain on the Republican side and Al Gore on the Democratic side. It is a sign of the power of these special interests that a previous expose by the Center for Public Integrity failed to dislodge Tony Coelho from his post as chairman of the Al Gore for president campaign. Last October the Center obtained an audit report by the State Department's Office of Inspector General that exposed potential illegal activity under Coelho's watch as the U.S. commissioner general of the 1998 World Expo in Lisbon, Portugal. The report cited several questionable payments made by Coelho or his staff, including an $18,000-a-month luxury apartment and $800 for a chauffeur-driven limousine when he had a fleet of vans at his disposal. In the world of special interests, there frequently is overlap. The material available on the website, publicintegrity.org, shows that Coelho has sat on the board of directors of a Houston-based company headed by a man who is a political friend and financial supporter of Texas Governor George W. Bush. Coelho got the job as chairman of the Gore campaign after lobbyist Peter Knight lost out after stories appeared about HIS questionable dealings. His deals included securing Energy Department contracts worth millions of dollars for Molten Metal Technology after it contributed $90,000 to the Democratic Party and $20,000 worth of stock to a member of Knight?s family. In another deal, Knight maneuvered to have the Federal Communications Commission move to a new headquarters in space owned by a Knight client. Knight got a $1 million fee for that deal. Gore's connections to special interests through his own advisers are substantial. The Center for Public Integrity data base has four pages of such affiliations through his advisers, including Peter Knight, Michael Berman, former Congressman Tom Downey and former White House lawyer Jack Quinn. Downey became a lobbyist after he was defeated for re-election to the House of Representatives, where he achieved notoriety for writing overdrafts at the House bank. Quinn, now with the law firm of Arnold & Porter, is prohibited under current law from lobbying the White House for five years. This is supposed to prevent former officials from taking financial advantage of their government contacts. But a Washington Post story about Quinn pointed out that "...even if Quinn himself doesn?t trek to the White House for clients, he painstakingly instructs his associates at the firm when they go there in his stead." This kind of wheeling-and-dealing finally caught up with Al Gore and his cronies when one of his biggest fundraisers, Maria Hsia, was convicted of campaign law violations in connection with Gore's notorious Buddhist Temple fund-raiser. She has been described by a Senate report as an agent of Communist China. -------------------------------------------------