Look! Dropping Shoes!

by hilzoy

Via TPMMuckraker, The Hill:

"The FBI searched the Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) last Friday in its investigation into ties between the congressman and his wife, Julie, and disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to law enforcement and other Congressional and K Street sources. (...)

Doolittle came within three percentage points of losing his election in November after facing months of scrutiny over his relationship with Abramoff, who is in jail for an array of fraud, bribery and money-laundering charges. The lawmaker has denied any wrongdoing. (...)

Doolittle also has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created. (...)

Doolittle also received contributions from indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his associates, and investigators are probing whether those contributions are linked to any official action Doolittle took to help Wilkes’ company obtain millions of dollars in government earmarks.

Wilkes recently was indicted in connection with his investigation stemming from former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s (R-Calif.) bribery conviction and jailing."

Doolittle is Deputy Whip in the Republican Caucus, and sits on the House Appropriations Committee. He also seems like one of those points at which seemingly disparate scandals all converge. (TPMMuckraker has a summary of them here.) I wrote about one of them about a year ago, and summarized it his way:

"Julie Doolittle has no known fundraising experience. Her business, which was started right after her husband landed a seat on the appropriations committee, has no office, phone listing, or other employees. Whenever someone gives money to her husband's campaigns, however, if she claims a commission, 15% of that donation gets transferred from the campaign's accounts to Julie Doolittle and her husband, for their own personal use. See how easy?"

One of my favorite Doolittle snippets from the Abramoff investigation is this charming testimonial, from TPMMuckraker:

"An email obtained by TPMmuckraker and never before published provides perhaps the best example of a lobbyist hitting up his colleagues for donations to a friendly lawmaker. In it, one of Abramoff's lobbyists makes a strong pitch for contributions to Cochran in the midst of his 2002 re-election campaign because "Sen. Cochran's office [had] never said 'no'" to the Mississippi Choctaw -- the casino-owning tribe that was one of Abramoff's prime clients since the beginning of his lobbying career.

"[W]e have been hitting them up for projects almost everyday [sic] the last couple of months," Abramoff associate Todd Boulanger wrote of Cochran's office. The Choctaw tribe is one of the largest employers in Mississippi. (...)

"I know it's pricey," Boulanger concluded, "but nobody comes even close (except for Doolittle, maybe) to doing as much for our main clients as Senator Cochran."" (Emphasis added.)

May this FBI search be the first of many, and may they all be very, very productive.

Comments

[JakeB]

More evidence, I guess, that the FBI is filled with America-hating leftofascist Democrats.

[Steve]

The idea that 15% of your political fundraising goes directly into your wife's bank account is about as corrupt as it gets.

[liberal japonicus]

Not to be picky, but isn't it that you *hear* shoes drop, not see them? ;^)

[JakeB]

LJ--
I will second the notion that it would be even better titled "Hark! Dropping Shoes!"

[sidereal]

I prefer to taste them drop

[OCSteve]

May this FBI search be the first of many, and may they all be very, very productive.

I agree – get them all of either party. (Feinstein included of course.)

[bril]

Those wonderful Democrats here are really cleaning up Congress...

Congress is keeping Andrews Air Force base plenty busy this year ferrying lawmakers all over the globe at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans - Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama - on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort.

In a separate trip to the Caribbean last week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to Grenada and Trinidad.

All told, the military flew at least 13 congressional delegations to various destinations during the Easter recess -- at an estimated rate of $10,000 or more per flying hour.

...House guidelines also stipulate that delegations include members of both parties to qualify for military planes -- a requirement that Speaker Nancy Pelosi waived for Engel’s group and two other delegations.

Thompson’s office said he toured the Caribbean because he now chairs the Homeland Security Committee and wanted to see vacation hot spots to “examine border security and port security.” Three other members of the delegation also brought along their spouses.

“They are going from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. everyday,” a committee spokeswoman told The Examiner. “They do not have down time.”

At the Caneel Bay resort, where room rates reach $1,100 per night, the spokeswoman said Thompson and his wife paid the “government rate.” But, according to the reservations department, Caneel Bay doesn’t “offer any government rates.”

...
Traveling with Engel and his wife were Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who went to Belgium in a delegation led by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., earlier in the week, also joined Engel’s Caribbean trip. She brought her husband with her.

...
Frank’s trip to Belgium and London was related to his work as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, according to his office. The trip, which also included Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., was designed “to further understand the interrelationship between various issues related to the financial services regulatory structures” of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, according to Frank’s office.
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., also led a trip to Belgium over the two-week Easter recess. In February, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, took a delegation there.

As the senior Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I serve as an Ex Officio member of the Subcommittees on Aviation, Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation, Public Buildings & Economic Development, Railroads, Surface Transportation, and Water Resources & Environment. I have worked tirelessly to improve safety and efficiency for the traveling public.

Hypocrites are everywhere.

[John Thullen]

"Hypocrites are everywhere."

Pesky hypocrites. When we populate that base on Mars, there will be hypocrites on Mars. I hope some of them are female hypocrites so the male hypocrites can practice hypocrisy so far away from home, just to keep their chops up.

Some hypocrites vacation on extravagant per diem.

Other hypocrites, the really competent variety, go to hypocrisy jail to have rough sex with the professional hypocrites. Then they write their memoirs, see the image Jesus in the prison oatmeal, and get their own cable show upon release.

Then they write a self-help manual, with DVD,
on how to fleece the amateur hypocrites among us.

There in only one human being who is not a hypocrite, and I don't know how he does it.

[Dan Miller]

Bril: link please?

[theo]

I'm already tired of Bril and the selective outrage brigade.

Where were they when DeLay's Republicans were stealing everything that wasn't tied down?

Oh yeah, they were listening to Rush and Drudge soothingly tell them everything was OK. And now at the behest of those professional liars, they're rising to a level of outrage that ranks them somewhere between "spammer" and "concern troll" in relevance.

I suspect it's all about as reliable as the Pelosi plane lies. But if there's some truth behind the lies and spin, then the 240some politicians in the Democratic House caucus aren't all perfect saints. Who knew.

[russell]

Hypocrites are everywhere.

You know, there are lots of perks to holding federal office. People want to buy you lunch, people want to treat you to a night at the theater, people want to fly you to the Bahamas for a "fact finding" junket.

It's tough work, but someone's got to do it, I guess.

Maybe all of that should be shut down, so that nothing of value, in any form, can be transferred to any federal office holder. That would be fine by me.

Short of that, the bottom line is whether (a) the giving and receiving of perks exceeds the limits allowed by law, and (b) the giving and receiving of perks affects votes. If you have any evidence of either of the above regarding folks with a "D" after their name, we'd all love to see it, because we'd love to see those folks out on their well-funded behinds just as much as folks with "R"s.

Over to you, bril.

THanks -

[cleek]

Hypocrites are everywhere.

ain't it funny how bril always shows up here complaining about Dems as soon as a Republican gets caught doing something ? i wonder if he's over on righty blogs complaining about corrupt Republicans whenever a Dem gets caught? nah... probably not.

so, no i guess it's not funny. but his "hypocrites!" schtick is kindof unintentionally amusing, to me.

[Dantheman]

"Not to be picky, but isn't it that you *hear* shoes drop, not see them? ;^)"

In light of the name of the Congressman involved, would he be able to talk to the dropping shoes, or is that only before they were turned from cows to leather?

[Newport 9]

So, the people in Doolittle's district knew that he and his wife were embezzling 15% of their campaign contributions, but they went ahead and re-elected him anyway.

And why not? They already knew he was a Republican.

[Anderson]

The import of the Cochran/Doolittle e-mail is lost on me -- what's the big deal?

[Slartibartfast]

May this FBI search be the first of many, and may they all be very, very productive.

And may prosecution be swift and sure.

I've given up any hope that politics will become civil and productive, and am now willing to settle for just cleaning out the outright criminals.