IT’S been a rotten year for Chris Dodd. Time and again, the Connecticut senator has been caught both doing favors for heavy hitters and receiving them — and then lying about it. Sometimes the mess involves a firm like AIG or Countrywide, enmeshed in the abuses that have so damaged the US economy. Sometimes Dodd’s pal is just a felon in need of a presidential pardon. But the cavalcade of scandal clearly puts the five-term senator in danger of losing his next re-election bid.
Dodd’s collapse began last June, when Conde Nast Portfolio revealed that he had gotten two cut-rate mortgages of nearly $800,000 from subprime giant Countrywide Financial in 2003. As the magazine reported, Dodd was a “Friend of Angelo” — one of several notables marked for special treatment by Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo. That triggered a dizzying carnival of misleading Dodd statements. First, he issued an angry written statement denying any favorable treatment. A few days later, he told some reporters that he knew he’d been treated as a VIP by Countrywide, while the same day assuring other reporters that he hadn’t. He also promised he would release documents related to his mortgages. It took more than seven months for him to produce anything, and he still hasn’t disclosed all the paperwork. On Feb. 2, he let some Connecticut reporters look at some papers — but allowed no copies to be made and refused to list the documents provided. Dodd has promised to refinance the Countrywide deals, which would save him at least $70,000 over the life of the mortgages. But this is plainly damage control, not remorse. There’s no question why Countrywide wanted Dodd’s friendship. Dodd has long been a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the industry. In 2003, at the time of the first sweetheart loan, he was close to becoming chairman — and a big catch for a company that depended on government policies that encouraged lending over prudence.

Nor is this the only sweetheart deal to surface:
* He bought a Washington, DC, condo in 1986 with New York bon vivant Edward Downe Jr. Dodd lived in the unit; Downe paid half the mortgage, fees and taxes — but rarely used the apartment. The subsidy ended in 1990 as federal authorities closed in on Downe’s lucrative off-shore insider-trading scheme. In 1994, Dodd bought a waterfront home on 10 acres in County Galway, Ireland. Actually, he got a 1/3 interest: Buying the rest was William “Bucky” Kessinger, Kansas City, Mo. real-estate developer (and also a college classmate and longtime business partner of Downe, who by then had been convicted. The total purchase price was $160,000; eight years later, Dodd bought out Kessinger for only $122,351. He says he also paid the balance of the outstanding mortgage — but other records suggest that couldn’t have been much, so Dodd still realized a substantial profit on the deal. Dodd claims that price was based on an independent appraisal. If so, he owned the only piece of property in Ireland that was nearly untouched by the biggest boom in Europe. Dodd’s Irish real-estate bonanza, likely worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars in 2002, came the year after he obtained a full presidential pardon for his and Kessinger’s pal Downe. Circumventing the usual vetting process for pardons, Dodd had made his plea directly to President Bill Clinton. Downe still owed millions to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The latest Dodd disaster, of course, involves those AIG bonuses. In February, Dodd inserted an amendment into the stimulus bill ensuring that executives of firms bailed out by the government could still collect already-contracted bonuses. When that became so controversial this month, Dodd at first denied doing the dirty work — then admitted it, but tried to blame the Obama administration. Even voters who might believe that story will also note that AIG had donated more to Dodd than to any other American politician. And now it turns out that his wife served for three years (2001-2004) on the board of a Bermuda-based company in the AIG constellation.

Polls show Dodd, long unassailable as a Democrat in Connecticut, in a close race with ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Stonington). But his real danger comes from outside Connecticut. Jay Leno no longer needs much setup to skewer Dodd in his monologue. The California audience gets it, and the Connecticut one does, too.

Kevin Rennie, a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator, is a columnist for The Hartford Courant.

Posted: Friday, March 27, 2009
From NBC’s Chuck Todd

In the midst of the congressional outrage over bonuses and bailouts, many of the very firms who benefitted from TARP funds are still making political donations. And the politicians are still taking them. According to the latest F.E.C. data for February, several members of Congress who have been critical of the federal government’s bailout of U.S. companies have received campaign contributions just in the last six weeks – from the firms they bailed out. Campaign-finance-reform advocate Fred Wertheimer says the government’s been bailing out banks and other major “too-big-to-fail” firms — as these same companies continue to use their PACs to make contributions. “It all adds up to kind of a magic circle involving the government, TARP recipients, members of Congress, and campaign contributions.” The reality, of course, is that these contributions, individually, aren’t a lot of money. But many members of Congress (including Speaker Pelosi and Financial Services Chair Barney Frank) have decided against taking any of the money. The optics of this for both the banks and for the members of Congress is bad, and only feeds the credibility problems both entities have with the American public.

So who is getting money and giving it right back to the politicians? Here’s a list of companies who received at least $1 billion in TARP funds and in February alone also gave money to members of Congress or national parties: (Note: more TARP-recipients may have given money in February but not every company PAC reports their contributions monthly, some do it quarterly, meaning we won’t know until mid-April if these figures are actually higher)

Citigroup
Bank of America
Goldman Sachs
U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Chrysler
American Express
KeyCorp
BB&T
Huntington Shares

Now here’s a list of House leadership and banking committee members who got money from these bailed-out companies:
(Note: Some members of Congress received contributions directly to their campaign accounts and some received money to their leadership PACs.)
Steve Austria, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Melissa Bean, D-Ill., $5,000 from Bank of America
Roy Blunt, R-Mo., $1,500 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
John Boehner, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from American Express; $1,500 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Kevin Brady, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from American Express
Eric Cantor, R-Va., $2,500 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from Chrysler; $2,500 from American Express
Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of America
Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., $1,200 from Huntington Shares
Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Steny Hoyer, D-Md., $1,500 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp
Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Leonard Lance, R-N.J., $1,000 from Citigroup; $2,000 from Goldman Sachs
Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of America
Gary Miller, R-Calif., $1,000 from Bank of America
Gwen Moore, D-Wis., $2,500 from Bank of America
Richard Neal, D-Mass., $4,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from American Express
Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Devin Nunes, R-Calif., $5,000 from Bank of America
Glenn Nye, D-Va., $250 from BB&T
Mike Pence, R-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $1,000 from Chrysler
Mike Rogers, R-Mich., $1,000 from Chrysler
Pete Sessions, R-Texas, $5,000 from Bank of America
Lamar Smith, R-Texas, $1,000 from American Express
Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mel Watt, D-N.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from BB&T; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC

But Senators also benefitted:
(Note: Both Reid and Shelby say they returned their checks.)

Michael Bennet, D-Colo., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Robert Bennett, R-Utah, $1,000 from Chrysler
Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Chrysler
Richard Burr, R-N.C., $5,000 from Bank of America
Tom Carper, D-Del., $620 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Jim DeMint, R-S.C., $2,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $2,000 from BB&T; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., $1,000 from Citigroup
Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., $1,000 from Bank of America
Bob Menendez, D-N.J., $5,000 from Bank of America
Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., $2,500 from Citigroup; $4,000 from Bank of America
Harry Reid, D-Nev., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Richard Shelby, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Arlen Specter, R-Pa., $2,000 from Chrysler
George Voinovich, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America

And so did the Parties.

The Democrats:
(Note: Both the DSCC and the DCCC say they never received the checks Bank of America reported in their March FEC report)
NDCPAC, $5,000 from Citigroup, $5,000 from Bank of America
Blue Dog PAC, $5,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
DSCC , $15,000 from Bank of America
DCCC, $15,000 from Bank of America
FourOhDems, $1,000 from Huntington Shares

And the Republicans:
HouseConFund, $5,000 from Bank of America
GOP Main Street, $5,000 from Bank of America
NRSC, $15,000 from Bank of America
NRCC $15,000 from Bank of America

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs actually reported members of Congress who refused to cash their checks, including Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., Rep. Pete DeFazio, D-Ore., and then-Congressman and now chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Sen. Chris Dodd says Treasury forced him to add language to the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage. In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage. Dodd, D-Conn., told FOX News that Treasury officials forced him to make the change. “As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it,” he said. “They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous.” But the provision has become a flash point for criticism amid the controversy over $165 million in bonuses given out by AIG after securing more than $170 billion in federal aid. The language in the stimulus bill wasn’t specific to AIG, but some have expressed outrage that it appears to have created a loophole. Dodd said the argument put forward by Treasury was that a “flood of lawsuits” would come forward if the change was not made. Dodd said he was unaware of the AIG bonuses at the time the bill was being written back in early February. He also said he has no reason to believe Treasury officials making the argument knew about the AIG bonuses. When asked how administration officials have this kind of leverage over members of Congress, Dodd said, “The administration has veto power. … No one suggested a veto to me, I don’t want to imply that to you. But certainly that’s not an insignificant tool.” On Tuesday, Dodd told FOX News that he didn’t add the exemption. “When the language went to the conference and came back, there was different language,” he said then. “I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did.” Dodd still thinks the Treasury can get the bonuses back, despite the inclusion of a date in the stimulus bill, and he said officials are, in fact, using his very language to claw back the money.
“There is language after that date that says explicitly that the Treasury has the right to modify, reaching back, those bonuses, compensations, if it’s inconsistent with the TARP legislation or contrary to the public interest,” he said. “In fact, it’s that phrase that the administration is relying on this evening as a means by which they can reach back and maybe get these bonuses back,” he said.
Still, Dodd has his enemies. The Senate Republican re-election campaign quickly shot out a statement on the Dodd reversal, as he is a prime target in the 2010 midterm elections and is facing a Republican opponent who, in one poll, is in a statistical tie with him.
“Senator Dodd’s reversal on this issue is both astonishing and alarming,” the National Republican Senatorial Campaign said in a written statement. “Contrary to his statements and denials over the last 24 hours, Senator Dodd has now admitted that he and his staff did in fact change the language in the stimulus bill to include a loophole for AIG executive bonuses.” The group added that Dodd had “misled voters and equivocated on his statements .”

What set Abramoff apart from legitimate Washington power brokers, federal prosecutors say, was his willingness to exploit an extensive network of Capitol Hill contacts — from well-positioned congressional staffers to members of the Republican leadership — regardless of the rules. “The corruption scheme with Mr. Abramoff is very extensive,” Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said. “Government officials and governmental action are not for sale.” Abramoff’s campaign of corruption officially ended Tuesday (1/3/2006) when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion. In addition to about 10 years in prison, he may be forced to repay more than $25 million, according to court documents. Prosecutors say Abramoff’s cooperation is central to a wide-ranging corruption investigation that stretches from Capitol Hill to congressional districts across the USA. At least a dozen FBI field offices have been drawn into the inquiry, FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said. Authorities have declined to disclose the number of possible targets in the ongoing inquiry, but it goes beyond one member of Congress or his office. “No criminal resources of the FBI will be spared in support of this important mission,” Swecker said.

MAJOR FIGURES IN INVESTIGATION
Some leading figures in the Washington corruption investigation:
Jack Abramoff: The central figure is a Republican lobbyist who cultivated ties on Capitol Hill over a decade with two prominent Washington firms, Preston Gates and Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff kept luxury boxes at sports venues where he entertained clients and lawmakers, and he owned a restaurant in Washington.

Michael Scanlon: A former press secretary for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, he made millions when Abramoff counseled clients to hire his public relations business. Unknown to the clients, the firm did little work but funneled kickbacks to Abramoff, according to prosecutors. Scanlon pleaded guilty to fraud and bribery in November.

David Safavian: The former procurement chief at President Bush’s Office of Management and Budget was charged last fall with lying and obstructing justice in the Abramoff case. Safavian, a former lobbying partner of Abramoff, accompanied the lobbyist in 2002 on a golfing trip to Scotland, and he discussed Abramoff’s interest in acquiring federal property, according to the charges.

Adam Kidan: Abramoff’s Florida business partner pleaded guilty last month to fraud in connection with a deal to buy SunCruz, a company that runs casino ships.

Rep. Bob Ney: An Ohio Republican, Ney is chairman of the House Administration Committee and sometimes is referred to as “the mayor of Capitol Hill.” Federal documents allege that “Representative #1″ helped Abramoff clients in return for trips, meals and entertainment. Ney’s attorney said he’s the lawmaker involved. Ney denies wrongdoing.

The plea agreement outlined a scheme by which Abramoff and his secret partner, public relations operative Michael Scanlon, billed Indian tribes for exorbitant fees, then split the profits. Abramoff hid some of the money from the IRS by directing it to a non-profit group he established, the Capital Athletic Foundation.
Abramoff’s share of the kickbacks from fees paid by four Indian tribes in Louisiana, Texas, Michigan and Mississippi came to more than $20 million, prosecutors said.

Abramoff and Scanlon also provided “a stream of things of value” to public officials to get their help. The stream included “foreign and domestic travel, golf fees, frequent meals, entertainment, election support … employment for relatives of officials and campaign contributions,” court documents say. Among the recipients were a House member identified by the lawmaker’s attorney as Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and members of Ney’s staff. They got trips to the Northern Marianas Islands in 2000, to the Super Bowl in Tampa in 2001, and to Scotland’s storied St. Andrews golf course in 2002, according to the documents. Ney also held fundraising events at Abramoff’s now-defunct Washington restaurant, Signatures. In return, Ney and his aides put statements in the Congressional Record supportive of Abramoff’s interests and helped an Abramoff client get a wireless telephone contract with the House of Representatives, the government charged. In a statement, Ney denied that he was influenced by Abramoff.

Abramoff also funneled $50,000 to the wife of an unnamed congressional aide in 2000 and 2001, in return for the aide’s help in blocking legislation for a client. Abramoff’s guilty plea follows weeks of other scandal news involving government officials.

Republican Tom DeLay stepped down from his position as House majority leader last year after he was indicted on money-laundering charges in a separate case in his home state of Texas. DeLay has close ties to Abramoff, who employed some of the Texan’s former aides and paid for a separate golf trip to Scotland for DeLay. Randy “Duke” Cunningham resigned from the House in November after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.

A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Dec. 16-18 found that 49% of American adults say they believe “most members of Congress are corrupt.” That’s 1 percentage point below the level of 1994, when voters turned control of Congress over to Republicans. The GOP appears to be tarred by scandal slightly more than the Democrats; 47% said “almost all” or “many” Republicans are corrupt, compared with 44% for Democrats.
Among registered voters, 55% said the issue of corruption will be the “most important” or a “very important” factor in their decision on whom to vote for next year. The poll has a margin of error of +/—3 to 5 percentage points, depending on the question.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called Abramoff’s confessed conduct “outrageous.”
“He needs to be held to account, and he needs to be punished,” McClellan said. Abramoff was among President Bush’s Pioneers, who raised at least $100,000 for his re-election in 2004.

WASHINGTON — A longtime former aide to Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran has been charged in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, accused of accepting gifts and granting favors for the imprisoned former lobbyist. Court documents filed Thursday say Ann Copland took thousands of dollars worth of event tickets and meals out in Washington from Abramoff and associates at his firm. Prosecutors say the gifts were in exchange for her favors benefiting one of their top clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

Charges against Copland were outlined in a legal document called a criminal information, which only can be filed with the defendant’s consent and typically signals a plea deal. The document says Copland understood that Senate rules prohibit staffers from soliciting gifts from lobbyists, but still secretly did so.
“It was a purpose of the conspiracy for defendant Copland to be unjustly enriched by her receipt of things of value, and to conceal these gifts from the U.S. Senate and the people of the United States,” the document said. Copland worked for Cochran for 29 years, then abruptly left his office last spring after Abramoff prosecutors had netted a dozen convictions in the scandal.Cochran’s office refused to comment on the case Friday.

Campaign finance records show that Abramoff, his associates and his clients gave Cochran at least $82,500 in campaign donations during the years in question, from 2001 to 2004. But there is no indication from the documents that Cochran, a Republican, knew of Copland’s behavior or is being investigated.
E-mails revealed in court documents show Abramoff’s firm went out of its way to keep Copland happy because, as lobbyist Todd Boulanger once wrote to his boss, “she’s more valuable to us than a rank-and-file house member.” The e-mail was revealed in a plea agreement Boulanger struck recently .
Prosecutors included a copy of an e-mail that Copland sent to one of Abramoff’s deputies, Kevin Ring, in March 2002, detailing a list of tickets she wanted and how many for each event. She asked to see Paul McCartney, an ice skating event, ‘NSync, Green Day and a hockey game. She also asked for two to six tickets to see the circus, but only if they were floor seats.

Ring, currently awaiting trial on charges of conspiring to corrupt government officials, forwarded the note to Abramoff saying, “Wow … We already told her she was fine on McCartney, ice skating, and Green Day _ although we need to let her know how many tix she can have for each. Also, please review the other requests and let me know what we can do there.” Abramoff wrote, “She’ll get everything she wants.”
Other court documents show that Copland was not shy to complain when she didn’t like her accommodations, like when she got the lobbyists’ luxury suite for a Baltimore Orioles game. “Ackkk. Only beer and no Hebrew National hot dogs,” she complained in an e-mail to Boulanger.
Copland sounded angry in another e-mail from the firm’s box suite at a the ice-skating event after no food had arrived for her party of 14 people. “I’m freaking out here,” she wrote, and Boulanger replied that she would be reimbursed for any food she had to buy. The documents say Copland “on repeated occasions” provided official actions benefiting Abramoff’s firm, particularly the Mississippi Choctaws.

For example, when Copland asked a lobbyist for the suite at the Orioles game in 2003, he responded in part by asking whether a Choctaw provision the firm no longer wanted had been removed from an appropriations bill. Copland assured him it had, and the final version of the bill contained an explicit statement that the provision “is no longer necessary.”

By Susan Crabtree
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the most vocal critic of pork barrel spending in the House, is trying to shake the House ethics committee into action on the link between earmarks and campaign contributors.

Flake has seized on the public corruption investigation of PMA Group, a once-powerful lobbying force that has disintegrated in the wake of an FBI investigation into fraudulent campaign donations to numerous members of Congress.

In the past 24 hours, Flake has highlighted earmarks in the omnibus appropriations bill for PMA clients, written a scathing op-ed to The New York Times about Congress’s pay-to-play practices and offered a privileged resolution on the House floor that would force the House ethics panel to scrutinize the connection between earmarks and campaign cash and report back to the full body in two months.

“The appearance does not reflect well on the dignity of the House,” Flake said. “These earmarks are essentially for no-bid contracts directed to for-profit entities.”

The privileged resolution, which must be voted on within 48 hours of its introduction, is Flake’s boldest anti-earmark move yet. Despite several reforms to the earmarking process in the last few years, most members on both sides of the aisle have been reluctant to crack down on the general practice of securing specific appropriations for pet projects, so Flake’s resolution has little chance of passing. Most likely, the House will overwhelmingly vote to table it.

Still, the resolution could jog a new ethics entity created last year into reviewing the donations from PMA, a firm with close ties to Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), two senior members of the appropriations panel. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed controversial legislation through the House last year creating the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to provide an extra layer of scrutiny of lawmakers’ activities.

The OCE’s board is made up of several former House members, the first time the House has relinquished some of its power to police itself to a more independent-minded body. The new office is supposed to respond to questionable activities raised in complaints, the media and by members of Congress and staff and provide recommendations for further action to the ethics committee.

The FBI raided PMA’s offices in November as part of a Justice Department investigation into fraudulent donations from “strawmen,” contributions from people who either do not exist or whose names were being used to make the donation without their permission. PMA has distributed millions to several lawmakers over the past 10 years.

Whiskey Ring was a group of distillers and public officials who defrauded the federal government of liquor taxes. Soon after the Civil War these taxes were raised very high, in some cases to eight times the price of the liquor. Large distillers, chiefly in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Chicago, bribed government officials in order to retain the tax proceeds. The Whiskey Ring was a public scandal, but it was considered impregnable because of its strong political connections. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow resolved to break the conspiracy. To avoid warning the suspects, he assigned secret investigators from outside the Treasury Dept. to collect evidence. Striking suddenly in May, 1875, he arrested the persons and seized the distilleries involved. Over $3 million in taxes was recovered, and of 238 persons indicted 110 were convicted. Although President Grant’s secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was acquitted through the personal intervention of the President, many persons believed that the Whiskey Ring was part of a plot to finance the Republican party by fraud.