The smoking gun tying Delay to Abramoff and Cunningham...

[FormerRepublican]

"In January the powerful Alexander Strategy Group shut down its public operations faster than merchants peddling pirated DVDs on Canal Street who hear the cops are on the way. The well-connected Republican lobbying firm, founded and run by former senior staffers of embattled ex-House majority leader Tom DeLay, explained that the publicity from the Jack Abramoff mega-scandal had fatally damaged its business. On the surface, it appears to be the fall of a major player in the GOP's K Street Project, which has made lobbying a highly partisan industry. But don't count out ASG: Already, according to the Washington Post, most of its lobbyists are setting up a "successor firm."

While ASG spins its problems as collateral damage from the Abramoff affair, it's hardly the victim of an errant public relations bomb. In fact, the firm was deeply entangled in several of the Washington scandals. Its swift shutdown offers a rare X-ray of the elaborate lobbying shell game that trades access to lucrative government contracts for funds to fill the campaign war chests keeping Republicans in power. Founded by DeLay's former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, ASG was a centerpiece of this game. In a recent report, Public Citizen lays out the rules: "In this partnership, corporations, trade associations and lobbying firms are pressured to hire only Republicans.... Those lobbyists then help the Republican leadership to 'whip on the outside'--to get Republican members of the House to vote for the leadership's legislative agenda. The lobbyists also raise enormous sums of money from their clients to ensure that Republicans remain the majority in Congress. For this fealty, the leadership grants the lobbyists access to the decision-makers and provides legislative favors for their clients." ASG had close ties to Abramoff, shared clients with him and had an overlap with some staff. The firm offered what few lobbying houses could: instant standing with the most powerful Republicans and a shortcut to the most lucrative contracts in Congress.

ASG was organized out of the same Washington townhouse as another DeLay-connected operation, the US Family Network, established in 1996 as a secret mini-war room for attacking Democratic candidates. In 1999 Buckham--then operating on behalf of USFN--funneled some $300,000 in soft-money contributions from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) through USFN to an organization called Americans for Economic Growth, which in turn used the funds to run attack ads against Democratic candidates. Buckham ran the townhouse operation with longtime DeLay crony Jim Ellis. USFN was established almost entirely with money from Abramoff's clients, according to a report in the Washington Post. Eventually, in 2004, the FEC fined the NRCC in connection with the scandal. The townhouse was also used at various points by DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), headed by Ellis, as well as a PAC run by DeLay's handpicked successor, Roy Blunt of Missouri. As it happens, when Blunt arrived in Washington and needed someone to run his PAC, DeLay sent Ellis. Shortly after Ellis was indicted in Texas in connection with another DeLay PAC, Texans for a Republican Majority, Blunt's PAC increased its payment to Ellis to $4,000 a month, up from $3,000. Among the other tidbits in this incestuous affair: ASG employed Tom DeLay's wife, Christine, for four years."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/scahill

Jeez, The Nation has ALL the dirt on Washington - they're doing an excellent job exposing these crooks. My hat is off to them!

[stillcool]

1. here's some more...

http://www.madcowprod.com/11302005.html

*World Exclusive*
Nov 30 2005--Venice,FL.

by Daniel Hopsicker

The MadCowMorningNews has learned that California Republican Congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham steered $500 million in defense contracts in less than a decade, according to the company’s own website, to a start-up San Diego software firm which—and here’s the beauty part—doubled as a lobbying firm.

The lobbying firm then gratefully kicked back—at a bare minimum—hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to a Jack Abramoff-directed Washington D.C. lobbying and consulting firm run by two former senior staffers of Texas Republican Tom DeLay.

It offered, in other words, one-stop shopping.

While the focus was on the $2 million in bribes paid to Cunningham after his guilty plea, the question of just what the Congressman had done for all that long green received scant media attention.

[Mr Rabble]

2. This is really important. K&R

[leveymg]

3. I'm missing the Abramoff-Cunningham connection here.

I may just need another cup of coffee this morning, but what I don't see here is something really substantial connecting Abramoff (or his partners in crime, Buckham and DeLay)to Cunningham and his defense contracting ripoff. They appear to have been competing organized crime groups.

The closest I could find is reference in the San Diego Union-Tribune to a relatively small $30K kickback from Wilkes to DeLay:


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20051204-9999-1n4adcs.html

By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
and Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

December 4, 2005

In government documents, he is referred to as "co-conspirator No. 1": a man who gave more than $630,000 in cash and favors to former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham for help in landing millions of dollars in federal contracts.


Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune
ADCS has received at least $80 million in government contracts since 1996. Its $11 million headquarters is located in Poway.
Poway military contractor Brent Wilkes – whom Justice Department officials identify as the co-conspirator – has long been active in local political circles, serving as the San Diego County finance co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign and the state finance co-chairman for President Bush.

Wilkes has not been charged with a crime in the Cunningham case. The former Rancho Santa Fe congressman announced his resignation Monday after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion and conspiracy. Three other men – Washington defense contractor Mitchell Wade, businessman Thomas Kontogiannis and financier John T. Michael, both of New York – also have been identified as co-conspirators.

Wilkes' story shows how gifts, favors and campaign contributions can be used to gain lucrative business from the government.

Over the past 20 years, Wilkes has devoted much of his career to developing political contacts in Washington. He and his associates have spent at least $600,000 on political contributions and $1.1 million on lobbying beyond the gifts mentioned in the Cunningham plea agreement, as they cultivated such politicians as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.

And since 1996, he has received at least $95 million in government contracts for the small family of firms based in his $11 million headquarters in Poway, including ADCS Inc. and Group W.

SNIP




Poway military contractor Brent Wilkes – whom Justice Department officials identify as the co-conspirator … who gave more than $630,000 in cash and favors to former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham for help in landing millions of dollars in federal contracts … (gave) $30,000 to Tom DeLay, who flew on Wilkes’ jet several times and has been a frequent golfing buddy.

But Tom, Abramoff’s friends already had your flight expenses comped. Why did you need this? And the golfing buddy bit? How many “charitable tournaments” of DeLay’s were you in?

[FormerRepublican]

4. This is the part that ties them together:

"ASG was organized out of the same Washington townhouse as another DeLay-connected operation, the US Family Network, established in 1996 as a secret mini-war room for attacking Democratic candidates. In 1999 Buckham--then operating on behalf of USFN--funneled some $300,000 in soft-money contributions from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) through USFN to an organization called Americans for Economic Growth, which in turn used the funds to run attack ads against Democratic candidates. Buckham ran the townhouse operation with longtime DeLay crony Jim Ellis. USFN was established almost entirely with money from Abramoff's clients, according to a report in the Washington Post."

Specifically, the last sentence. Or I guess a better way to put it is that both Cunningham and Abramoff are tied to Delay, and thus Delay ties them together.