10 members of Congress took trip secretly funded by foreign government

[bigworld]

Source: Washington Post

The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the conference.

Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.

The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet nation, according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/10-members-of-congress-took-trip-secretly-funded-by-foreign-government/2015/05/13/76b55332-f720-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert

---

The lawmakers who took the trip were Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Ted Poe (R-Tex.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.).

When it comes to accepting graft, lawmakers of both sides can work together!

[geek tragedy]

1. Wish I could say I was surprised at the names on the list, but no nt

[duhneece]

2. I think of Michelle Lujan Grisham as one of the good ones...

maybe there's another side to this story?

[Buzz505]

12. do not be fooled!

This is a person that is more of a blue dog than a Democrat. She has voted with the repubs on key issues. As a resident in her district, I will never vote for her again.

[forest444]

3. Good to know - but probably just the tip of the iceberg.

It's no secret many a bribe paid to politicians at all levels of government is discreetly wired to a Cayman Islands offshore account, where it can escape detection from what's left of our investigative press. Paul Singer's NML Capital is where I'd start looking first - which makes sense given the whorish deference politicians of both parties show this TARP welfare queen.

[gordianot]

4. There are probably good reasons why legislators are not privy trade negotiations.

Maybe treason laws need to be updated and so called "Homeland Security" needs a new emphasis.

[elleng]

5. Significant:

'The congressional investigators could not determine whether lawmakers used their official positions to benefit SOCAR or the pipeline project. They also found no evidence that the lawmakers or their staffers knew that the conference was being funded by a foreign government.

The investigators noted that the lawmakers relied on representations made to them by two Houston-based nonprofit corporations, the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE) and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ). The lawmakers told investigators that they had obtained approval for the trip from the ethics committee. . .

The pipeline has long been an important U.S. policy objective because it would bolster European security by offering an alternative to Russian gas.'

[bigworld]

6. I would hope they could guess that the money was being provided by a gov't

to these flimsy front organizations. Or maybe they just don't care.

[okaawhatever]

18. It was approved by the ethics committee, it sounds like the oil company did a good job of hiding

the donors.

[MADem]

7. This is just such a weird 'bury the lede' article.

This headline by the WAPO sucks, frankly. You've got to dig down in the article to realize that the people on the CODEL weren't doing anything that was knowingly illegal by taking the trip. Where it gets weird and defensive is when the trip starts getting investigated. Taking all that goodie bag stuff, too, if that's not illegal, it should be.

The foreign government in question used nonprofits to "front" for them, to get those congressional bozos over there for a sales pitch, in essence.

The nonprofit corporations allegedly filed false statements with Congress swearing that they were sponsoring the conference. The findings have been referred to the House Committee on Ethics for investigation of possible violations of congressional rules and federal laws that bar foreign governments from trying to influence U.S. policy.

HERE's where the whole thing went squirrelly:

But no information surfaced at the time about the alleged $750,000 payment from SOCAR to the nonprofits. Ethics investigators obtained a wire transfer showing that SOCAR sent the $750,000 to AFAZ. SOCAR’s legal counsel told the investigators that the money was “dues” that were “intended to be used as funding for the Convention.”

I've got to say, though, that I know a fair bit about CODEL excesses. I've seen the phenomenon up close and personal, and I really take issue with a lot of what goes on in those things. Oftentimes, the members of the delegation expect to be waited on hand and foot, they don't want to part with a single, solitary DIME of their own dough for any reason, they are frequently unreasonable in their expectations, and they will on occasions ask for things that violate ethics regulations. They don't take it well when they're reminded of the rules, either, some of them. It can be messy.

I think they need to crack down on what's allowed, and what's not allowed, on these junkets. The whole "gift" thing gets out of hand. I frankly can't believe that anyone sitting in Congress could possibly believe that a hand crafted "oriental" rug wasn't very valuable:

Those who went to the conference and cooperated with the investigation said they thought the nonprofit corporations had funded the trip and reported their travel expenses on their disclosure forms. Several said they believed they did not need to disclose the gifts because their value did not exceed the $350 reporting threshold.

Lujan Grisham told ethics investigators that she did not disclose the rugs because she did not think they were particularly valuable. She also thought that they were unattractive.

“It’s not a carpet I would have purchased,” the congresswoman said.

[Android3.14]

8. Important reminder

The two-party system does not work for us. It works for Them.

[cosmicone]

9. Sheila Jackson Lee also looks after Pakistan's interests

in the house -- far more than her constituents' interests.

[jakeXT]

10. I feel like we are late to the game

Hookers, spies, cases full of dollars...how BP spent £45m to win 'Wild East' oil rights

By GLEN OWEN

05/13/07 "Mail On Sunday" --- - BP executives working for Lord Browne spent millions of pounds on champagne-fuelled sex parties to help secure lucrative international oil contracts.

The company also worked with MI6 to help bring about changes in foreign governments, according to an astonishing account of life inside the oil giant.

Les Abrahams, who led BP's successful bid for a multi-million-pound deal with one of the former Soviet republics, today claims that Browne - who was forced to resign as chief executive last month after the collapse of legal proceedings against The Mail on Sunday - presided over an "anything goes" regime of sexual licence, spying and financial sweeteners.

He also claims that Home Secretary John Reid was arrested at gunpoint on a BP-funded foreign trip for being out on the streets after a military curfew had been imposed.

Mr Abrahams tells how he spent £45 million in expenses over just four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan's state oil company.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17699.htm

[Fred Sanders]

11. Pervasive Corruption. Will the media avoid mention as the mountains of evidence pile up?

[d_legendary1]

16. Depends if:

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram changes formats
Kim Kardashian is pregnant again
Another cop shoots an unarmed black person
Another stupid dance is sweeping the nation
A Celebrity dies
Our infrastructure crumbles and casuses deaths
The playoffs (name your sport)
An overpriced phone hits the market
EBOLA!!!!
TERRORIST!!!!
Some sports jock caught doing something stupid

Don't make the headline first.

[neverforget]

13. Best government money can buy.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. Rather bipartisan cabal

Steve Stockman however has been one of the biggest whores for the petroleum industry. He's the clown who apologized to BP during the Congressional investigation of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

[freshwest]

17. You're thinking of Joe Barton:

On June 17, 2010, Barton accused the White House of a "$20 billion shakedown" of oil giant BP after the company reached an agreement with the Obama administration to establish an escrow account to pay the claims of people harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.[37] He made the accusation at the outset of a House hearing where BP's chief executive officer, Tony Hayward, appeared for the first time before Congress. Facing Hayward at the witness table, Barton said, "I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words — amounts to a shakedown, so I apologize." [38] Prior to the establishment of the agreement, the Obama administration had been public in their criticism of BP for the oil spill; Barton and other critics[who?] accused the White House of attempting to deflect criticism on how they handled the situation, which made it more difficult for BP to raise short-term funds in the capital market for their operations.[38]

Barton's remarks were widely criticized by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Vice President Joe Biden,[39] GOP congressional leadership[40] and fellow Republicans, some of whom called on Barton to relinquish his leadership role in the House Energy Subcomittee.[41][42]

Barton later said that his earlier remarks had been "misconstrued" and that he believed BP was responsible for the accident. Later that day, he issued a statement apologizing for using the term "shakedown" and fully retracted his apology to BP.[24][43]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Barton#BP_oil_spill_controversy

Barton is a crook and has been in office since 1984. He is a RWNJ who loves interpreting the Bible for himself:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-bible-opposes-net-neutrality

And on and on:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/11/24/132073/back-freedomworks-upton/

Steve Stockman was not in office during the BP disaster. And he's not in office now. He's a grifter traveling for money, likely.

During his fomer tenure:

Stockman belongs to the libertarian wing of the Republican Party which believes in small government and keeping government out of peoples lives. He has been known for his strong stand on the protection of Second Amendment Rights. He has always stood up against the Executive branch and included impeachment as a resort when he felt the constitution has been violated. He has worked with Rand Paul and introduced "Restore The Constitution Act." That provision is the House companion to Sen. Rand Paul's "Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act." Stockman and Paul are working together on the effort.[53]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Stockman

He may run on the Constitution Party ticket in 2016:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Party_%28United_States%29

I've been arguing with these Constitution Party folks for years and they truly dangerous in their thinking. But hey, they are both RWNJs and worse, really, so it's kinda hard to tell the difference.

[benld74]

15. The statement below is why

During the previous year, SOCAR and several large energy companies sought exemptions for a $28 billion natural gas pipeline project in the Caspian Sea from U.S. economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.

DID SOCAR GET the exemption??

YUP

[vkkv]

19. Bummer n/t