Your Democratic Scandal Scorecard
The Campaign Spot
Jim Geraghty Reporting
If you’re reading NRO, you’re probably already used to revelations of Democratic lawmakers saying one thing and doing another, and in some cases, violating the law with impunity. But for a congressional majority, and later, a president and administration that ran against a “culture of corruption,” the breadth, depth, and variety of recent and ongoing Democratic scandals is pretty eye-opening.
SEN. CHRIS DODD (D., CONN.): Dodd is most notably and recently in trouble for the provision of the stimulus bill that ensured that already-existing contracts for bonuses at companies receiving federal bailout money would be honored. In an interview with CNN, he initially denied any role in the provision.
As chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd tried to put together federal aid for the then-troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. Dodd’s homes in Connecticut and Washington, D.C., were refinanced to below-market rates under the “Friends of Angelo” program (meaning he was a friend of then-CEO Angelo Mozilo). He did not disclose the refinance in the six financial-disclosure statements he’s filed since then and has failed to keep promises to release more information about them. He later said he knew he was part of the company’s “VIP” program, but he didn’t know being a part of the VIP program meant he would receive favorable mortgage terms. (Really.) Those noted anti-Democrat partisans on the New York Times editorial board have declared “his excuses are wearing ridiculously thin.”
NRO and the Los Angeles Times have reported that Dodd’s financial bailout legislation was “exactly what Bank of America and Countrywide wanted.”
In Dodd’s Senate ethics filings, he has repeatedly listed the value of his “cottage” in Ireland as between $100,001 and $250,000. Others have assessed the value of the property at $1 million or more. He bought it with a Missouri businessman who was friends with a felon convicted of insider trading. Dodd helped secure the felon a pardon from President Clinton, and later bought his partner’s two-thirds share of the property for $127,000.
In summer of 2008, when he was responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Dodd argued that to “suggest they are in major trouble is not accurate.” Fannie and Freddie employees donated $133,900 to Dodd since 1989, more to him than to any other lawmaker.
REP. JACK MURTHA (D., PA.): Federal agents are examining how nearly $250 million in defense appropriations were steered to clients of KSA Consulting, which employed Murtha’s brother Robert, and the PMA Group, founded by a former Murtha aide. The clients then contributed $775,000 to Murtha in the last election cycle. The lawmaker is also under scrutiny for steering federal earmarks to John Murtha Airport.
REP. CHARLIE RANGEL (D., N.Y.): He is being “investigated by the House Ethics Committee in at least four areas, including his reported failure to properly report income taxes on a Caribbean villa in the Dominican Republic; use of four, rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; questions about an offshore firm asking Rangel for special tax exemptions; and whether Rangel improperly used House stationery to solicit donations for a school of public affairs named after him at City College of New York,” Fox News summarizes.
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D., N.M.): His nomination as commerce secretary was “derailed by a federal grand jury investigating whether one of his campaign donors won state contracts because of pressure from the governor’s office. The probe is moving along aggressively, sources close to the investigation said, and it is unclear whether Richardson could be indicted or what may become of his top aides, some of whom have been questioned,” the Washington Post reported.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D., CALIF.): Introduced legislation to steer $25 billion to the FDIC, days after before CB Richard Ellis Group, a commercial real-estate firm headed by her husband, Richard Blum, won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that the FDIC had inherited from failed banks. As the Washington Times noted, Feinstein is not a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments — not direct federal dollars. (UPDATE: The legislation was introduced before the contract was awarded to CB Richard Ellis Group. See Feinstein office response below.)
REP. JIM MORAN (D., VA.) and REP. PETER VISCLOSKY (D., IND.): Along with Murtha, these two congressmen are under scrutiny for their ties to PMA Group, a lobbying firm that steered millions of dollars in donations to their political committees from its lobbyists and earmark-seeking clients.
REP. JESSE JACKSON (D., ILL.): The Chicago Sun-Times reports that two allies of Jackson told former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s camp that the congressman would raise up to $5 million in campaign cash for the ex-governor if he was appointed to President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. Jackson is under investigation by the House Office of Congressional Ethics.
REP. JANE HARMAN (D., CALIF.): This lawmaker can allegedly be heard on an NSA wiretap offering to help seek reduced charges for two pro-Israel lobbyists suspected of espionage in exchange for help from a suspected Israeli agent in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to give Harman a key chairmanship.
STEVE RATTNER: President Obama’s “Car Czar” was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state’s pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In addition, since the beginning of the year, the House Office of Congressional Ethics has opened 10 preliminary investigations and six of them have moved to the “second phase review” stage. The identities of the lawmakers or staff under investigation are not known, other than Jesse Jackson Jr.
Then there is the separate category for scandals that have come and gone, and not been considered sufficient to impede cabinet nominees from performing their duties — the unpaid taxes of Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who overcame questions about $6,400 in tax liens against her husband’s business. Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer withdrew their nominations after revelations of unpaid taxes.
And this list is just the folks currently in office. Among those who have left office are former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D., Ill.), former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; and former Rep. William “The Freezer” Jefferson (D., La.).
And also file away the news that the National Enquirer, the first to break the news of John Edwards’s affair with a former campaign staffer, reports that a federal grand jury is examining allegations he paid her hush money with campaign funds.
But other than that, they’re “draining the swamp” and beating back the “culture of corruption,” as promised . ..
UPDATE: Feinstein's office strenuously objects to the linked Times article [read it at the link below].
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