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

To: DMaA who wrote (124563)	1/31/2001 8:23:46 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

The Leahy connection The Landmark Legal Foundation has asked Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, to explain what role, if any, he and Democratic Senate staffers played in possibly illegal lobbying efforts against Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft by nonprofit or government-subsidized groups. Government-funded or tax-exempt nonprofit groups are not allowed to engage in lobbying. "According to a published report, staffers working for leading Senate Democrats, as well as the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, secretly met with over 200 national organizations opposed to the nomination of former Senator John Ashcroft for attorney general of the United States. Among other things, the group established a lobbying committee," Marc Levin, Landmark president, wrote in a letter sent to Mr. Leahy yesterday. "At the time of the Ashcroft hearings, you served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Therefore, we ask you whether the Senate staffers present at the meeting were aware that the nonprofit organizations were preparing to lobby senators, and whether they did so with your knowledge." The letter, which was forwarded to the Internal Revenue Service and the Senate ethics committee, asks Mr. Leahy to identify the role of congressional staffers in the meeting, and whether they attended at Mr. Leahy's direction. It also asked whether the staffers consulted with the groups about lobbying and whether the staffers attempted to determine whether this was in violation of federal lobbying restrictions. Eighteen taxpayer-funded groups were believed to be involved in the anti-Ashcroft lobbying, including the American Bar Association, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club. washtimes.com