Tag: murtha

PMA head used family members to pay off Democrat appropriators.

I’m not a federal prosecutor. That means that I don’t have to bend over backward to avoid making what is really a fairly obvious statement. Via Instapundit:

PMA Lobbyist, Relatives Gave Lawmakers $1.5 Million Since 2000

A defense lobbyist and his family made $1.5 million in political contributions from 2000 through 2008 as the lobbyist’s now-embattled firm helped clients win billions of dollars in federal contracts. A sizable chunk of those campaign dollars went to the House members who control Pentagon spending.

Paul Magliocchetti, founder of the PMA Group, and nine of his relatives — two children, his daughter-in-law, his current wife, his ex-wife and his ex-wife’s parents, sister and brother-in-law — poured contributions into the coffers of candidates, political action committees and national and state party committees, according to a CQ review of public documents.

Continue reading PMA head used family members to pay off Democrat appropriators.

Democrats reject Flake Corruption Probe.

You do not expect them to live on their *salaries*, do you?

(Followup to this post)

The bad news, of course, is that majority party Democrats are adamant against having any investigation into whether there are links between campaign contributions and earmarks in bills – which is very interesting, given that they control Congress, and thus can presumably make sure that the proceedings are fair…

The House voted Wednesday to kill a resolution calling for an ethics investigation into potential quid pro quo between lobbyist campaign donations and lawmakers.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sponsored the proposal that would have forced the House Ethics Committee to launch a probe into ties between the source and timing of campaign contributions by lobbyists and subsequent legislator requests for special projects or earmarks.

While open-ended, Flake’s resolution was a direct response to the ongoing federal investigation into the PMA Group, a lobbying company accused of making fraudulent donations to lawmakers using names of people who did not exist.

The firm, which has contributed millions to politicians in the last decade, has close ties to senior Democratic appropriators including Reps. John Murtha D-Pa., and Pete Visclosky,D-Ind. The FBI raided PMA’s headquarters in November and is investigating the group’s founder and president, Paul Magliochetti, a former Murtha aide.

Ah. That might be the problem, right there. Continue reading Democrats reject Flake Corruption Probe.

Rep. Jeff Flake’s anti-earmark resolution up today.

As you know, it’s in response to the PMA meltdown/outrage (see here for some background posts):

Rep. Flake targets earmarks amidst PMA controversy
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the House’s most vocal critic of pork barrel spending, is trying to shake the 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 probe 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.

Continue reading Rep. Jeff Flake’s anti-earmark resolution up today.

Looking at the PMA Porkers: An examination of CQ’s List of Appropriators.

So, I crunched the numbers of the PMA defense budget earmarks (raw info found here), and came up with something interesting. Below are the top twenty current House members who have taken money from PMA and placed earmarks in that bill, sorted by cumulative donations. A “#” represents being on the Defense Appropriations Committee at the time, and Republicans are bolded:

Requesting Member Total Credited PMA campaign $ since 2001
Peter J. Visclosky# $23,800,000 $219,000
John P. Murtha# $34,105,000 $143,600
James P. Moran# $10,800,000 $125,250
Norm Dicks# $12,130,000 $91,600
Bill Pascrell Jr. $2,400,000 $73,200
Mike Doyle $1,600,000 $69,400
Loretta Sanchez $3,200,000 $60,118
Tim Holden $3,200,000 $57,275
Tim Ryan $1,000,000 $54,250
Michael E. Capuano $2,800,000 $54,000
Chet Edwards $6,040,000 $48,734
Silvestre Reyes $800,000 $42,300
Christopher Carney $5,900,000 $38,500
Paul E. Kanjorski $4,800,000 $37,150
Jerry Lewis $8,000,000 $34,649
Marcy Kaptur# $1,600,000 $34,500
Carolyn McCarthy $1,000,000 $31,500
Patrick J. Murphy $1,600,000 $29,250
Rodney Frelinghuysen# $7,300,000 $29,129
Ander Crenshaw $1,000,000 $27,300

Continue reading Looking at the PMA Porkers: An examination of CQ’s List of Appropriators.