Reply #2: Alexander Strategy heavily involved with Enron, Blackwater,Cunningham [View All]

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Alexander Strategy Group in the K Street Gutter

"Representative Tom DeLay's campaign to get Republicans to dominate Washington lobbying may have worked too well for the Alexander Strategy Group," writes Bloomberg. The lobbying and political strategy firm "has links to no fewer than three of the scandals convulsing the U.S. capital." Alexander Strategy Group (ASG) partner Tony Rudy "is now a focus of the federal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff." Founder Ed Buckham "set up a South Korea junket for his old boss," DeLay, "that violated ethics rules." Lobbyist Jim Ellis "faces money-laundering charges in Texas along with DeLay." Lastly, ASG represents Group W Advisors, Inc., a defense contractor owned by Brent Wilkes, who "is one of the four un-indicted co-conspirators in a Nov. 28 criminal complaint for allegedly bribing" Representative Cunningham, who pled guilty to graft and resigned from Congress.

Enron was ASG's biggest client; they received at least $411,000 from Enron between 1999 and 2001.

"Ed Buckham and ASG were involved with a "secret 'grassroots' campaign -- spearheaded by Enron -- to deregulate energy markets... An outline for the plan was faxed to Tom DeLay's Washington office. It was printed on Alexander Strategy letterhead complete with Ed Buckham's name in print. The only problem was that Alexander Strategy's CEO was still in the employ of the federal government at the time... Alexander Strategy Group was, as Enron promised, awarded the $750,000 contract to drum up support for electric power deregulation -- a goal that Enron believed would open the $300 billion a year electric markets to Enron. The stealth campaign would operate out of an energy consortium dubbed, 'Americans for Affordable Electricity' -- a name that Californians would find bitterly ironic just three years later." <9> (http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=13104)

Blackwater USA

The North Carolina-based private military contractor Blackwater USA hired ASG for crisis management, public and media relations as Blackwater - and private military contractors in general - came under increased public scrutiny following the public killing and mutilation of four employees in Fallujah, Iraq on March 31, 2004. <10>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alexander_Strategy_Group