Bush Donor Profile
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Katharine Armstrong
Occupation: Owner
Employer: Katharine Armstrong, Inc.
Home: Dallas, TX
Warren Idsal and Katharine Armstrong both worked for major investment firms at the time of their 1982 wedding, with the Paine Webber (see Joseph Grano) groom marrying a Smith Barney bride. During the 2000 campaign the then-married couple still romantically shared a common Bush Pioneer tracking number. Katherine is the daughter of Pioneer Tobin Armstrong, an heir to the fabled Armstrong and King Ranch fortunes. Her mother, Anne Armstrong, who is Kay Bailey Hutchison’s best friend, helped launch the senator’s career as Republican National Committee co-chair in 1971. As Texas Treasurer in the early 1990s, Kay Bailey Hutchison returned the favor by hiring Armstrong’s son-in-law, Warren Idsal, as a top aide. But Hutchison fired him after a short tenure. Warren Idsal also was an executive at health and life insurer United Insurance Companies (UICI) for several years in the late 1990s. Then-Governor George W. Bush appointed Katharine Idsal to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in 1999. The Idsals divorced and Katherine reclaimed her maiden name after Bush’s gubernatorial successor appointed Katherine chair of the commission. This heir apparent to the Armstrong Ranch resigned her state post in mid-2003, citing her need to make a living for her three children. In 2004 she reported three Texas lobby contracts, led by construction company Parsons Technology and Dannenbaum Engineering, a major contractor for Texas water projects. That year she teamed up with Pioneer
Karen Johnson to lobby the Bush administration. Armstrong and Johnson lobbied then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to adopt mad-cow tests made by Swiss client Prionics. They also lobbied the administration on undisclosed issued on behalf of Baker Botts (see James Baker, Robert Jordan and William Barnett). President Bush invited Katherine Armstrong and her parents to a White House sleepover.
http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=621• MAD COW. Prionics Ag, a Switzerland-based biotechnology company, has retained Baker Botts to lobby the U.S. government on Prionics’s “rapid tests” for mad-cow disease. As the Department of Agriculture looks to step up its initiatives on preventing mad cow, Prionics is touting its “second generation” mad cow test that was approved by Swiss authorities in 2001.
http://www.hillnews.com/business/022404.aspx Snip…
Ms. Armstrong's business partner,
Karen Johnson, spent several years lobbying for Parsons, including procuring contracts with the State Department, the Department of Transportation and the United States Agency for International Development, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks federal lobbying. Ms. Johnson also lobbies for major corporations, including Lockheed Martin, and has been one of Mr. Bush's leading fund-raisers.
Ms. Armstrong has a relatively limited list of lobbying clients in Texas and in Washington. Public records show that she has worked for Baker Botts, the law firm; Prionics AG, a biotechnology company; Trajen, a firm that performs aviation technical support for the United States military; and the King Ranch, the property next to her family's ranch.
Records in Texas indicate that she has lobbied at the state level for three companies: Avex Group, the Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation and Ecocreto USA.
Ms. Armstrong played down her role as a lobbyist and suggested that she had not brought up business during Mr. Cheney's visit. She was appointed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in 1999 by Mr. Bush, who was then the Texas governor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/politics/14cheney.html?pagewanted=2Article from October 2005:
Snip...
Meanwhile, Radar magazine yesterday reported on its Web site that Texas political insiders are predicting the demise of the married Rove's "very close relationship" with wealthy forty-something Texas lobbyist
Karen Johnson.
"Everyone knows how close Karen is to Karl, but she's sick of it," the mag quotes a source "familiar with the situation," noting that Johnson and Rove didn't return phone calls.
Apparently Johnson's family wants her to marry her handsome ranch foreman, Rhett Hard, who works on Johnson's Cinco de Mayo property in Austin.
But Moore, a veteran Texas political reporter who has known Rove well since the late 1970s, told me that he and co-author Slater have no plans to include Johnson in their new book.
"It's a tough thing for me," Moore said. "Darby, Karl's wife, is a wonderful woman. And they've got a great kid. They just happen to live with an evil man."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/359560p-306346c.html
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