Edwin Buckham paid Christine DeLay

You may have noticed that I've gutted this blog. I never really was a blogger, and I'm not going to be one going forward.

One Republican likened herself to an orphaned child as Tom DeLay left the public stage. Many other Republicans saw no reason for Mr. DeLay to leave at all. Even though I'm not as optimistic as I used to be, I still maintain some hope that the Republican Party will shun those connected to corruption. Even though I don't believe that the local party knowingly accepted corruption, they certainly remained intentionally ignorant. There is rot in our local party. I hope that someday that those in the local party will recognize what happened and hold themselves accountable for doing nothing as we lost the majorities in Congress and our Congressional seat in particular. Not a single person connected to the local party accepts any responsibility for supporting a fatally flawed candidate in 2006.

I know I said I would quit before. That was immediately after Mr. DeLay resigned. It seemed to me that Mr. DeLay's resignation announcement three days after Tony Rudy's plea bargain would be all the evidence anyone would need of his corruption. Consequently, I thought that my desired outcome had been achieved. I was wrong. I continued this site to thoroughly document Mr. DeLay's corruption for those who simply refused to see it.

This time I'm quitting because my heart isn't in it anymore. That, I think, will not change.

Before I leave, I want to thank a few people. Thank you to my loyal readers. I had a few in Houston, many more in Washington, and a smattering around the rest of the country. I was getting 2,000 hits / month. I'm not sure if that was good or bad. Thank you to the Houston Chronicle. Links from the Chron could generate a few dozen hits for me. Thank you to Kuff, who could direct twice as many people to me depending on how strongly he recommended for his readers to click through. Lastly, thank you to those who provided me inside information and tips related to the content of the blog. A special thanks goes out to Brian Mann, an individual personally connected to this scandal. We have exchanged several friendly emails, many not even related to this scandal. While I gained insight into some of the players in this matter from Brian, Brian taught me more important things than facts surrounding this scandal.

My readers know what to expect as prosecutors zero in on Tom DeLay. Christine DeLay and Edwin A. Buckham. Enough said.

My last piece of advice to everyone is to read Kuff whenever there are major developments in this case. Kuff smelled Ed Buckham's stench even before I did, and Kuff personally has an institutional memory.

Good Bye!

A couple of weeks ago, I observed how the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee newspaper was preparing its readers to learn that the Jack Abramoff scandal was related to the Duke Cunningham military contractor kickback scandal. Well, the SacBee reveals a little bit more today:

Investigators have been looking at links between Abramoff; lobbyist Edwin Buckham, who had been chief of staff to Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas; defense contractor Brent Wilkes; and Kevin Ring, a former Doolittle staffer who later worked for Abramoff. A key element is payments to wives, including Christine DeLay and Julie Doolittle.

What is known about Doolittle's links to Abramoff, whom he calls a close friend? In 2000, Ring e-mailed Abramoff expressing Doolittle's interest in finding work for his wife. Abramoff's firm hired Julie Doolittle from September 2002 through January 2003 (paying her $27,000) and from July 2003 through February 2004 (paying her $40,000). During that period, Doolittle wrote letters on behalf of Abramoff's Indian clients and sought federal earmarks for the Northern Marianas Islands. Ring handled these accounts.

Buckham, another close friend of Doolittle and founder of the Alexander Strategy Group lobbying firm, hired Christine DeLay from 1998 to 2002 and Julie Doolittle from 2002 to 2005. Julie was paid about $30,000. During that period, Buckham introduced his defense contractor client, Wilkes, to John Doolittle. Wilkes held a $50,000 fundraiser for Doolittle. Wilkes and his associates also gave Doolittle's committees $118,000. Julie Doolittle received 15 percent fundraising commissions on most of these contributions. From 2002 to 2005, Doolittle sponsored $37 million in earmarks for Wilkes' firm for technology the Defense Department hadn't requested.

I'm almost convinced the Wilkes scandal is related to the Abramoff scandal through Ed Buckham. I've known that Buckham was Wilkes' lobbyist for some time, but for some reason, I didn't want to believe that the brazenness of each scandal was connected. The only thing I need to see to absolutely convince me that the Wilkes-Buckham-Abramoff chain is unbroken is some sort of hint from the Justice Department's Public Integrity unit that they are investigating this angle. Remember, the Wilkes-Cunningham connection was prosecuted out of San Diego, not Washington. Get Washington involved, and I'm a believer.

As for the SacBee, they've certainly got my attention. I hope they continue to deliver the goods.

From US News and World Report:

The Democratic "Culture of Corruption" campaign against Republicans is making a comeback, according to associates of House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel.

The reason: Both parties believe that more House Republican members will be ensnared in ongoing ethics investigations and that one to four members will be forced to resign. Democratic officials said that the effort has a national and local push.

I'll choose the high end of that range. The article gives us two likely names, Rep. Doolittle (R-CA) and Rep. Renzi (R-AZ). Here are my top four resignation candidates:

1. Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)
2. Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
3. Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
4. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) (a.k.a. Representative #3)

My list is majority Republican. There are really no surprises there, either, are there? Republicans need to make substantive changes in the way that they deal with their corrupt members in order to regain the trust of America's voters. Minority Leader Boehner's current policy is a failure.

The Hill leads the news again with an article entitled "Rohrabacher rues support for Abramoff". There's no need to quote from the article -- you can get the gist just from the headline.

Rep. Rohrabacher is at the margins of this scandal. He certainly accepted a lot of free meals at Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures, but he also had a 20+ year relationship with Abramoff. The long relationship is not insignificant. Ethics rules are more lenient when there is a pre-existing personal relationship. Such rules are common, and I support them. For instance, a college football backer can give gifts to a high school football recruit without stepping outside NCAA rules as long as there was a personal relationship with the student-athlete prior to the 8th grade.

I have no reason to believe that Rep. Rohrabacher is in any legal jeopardy. That probably makes it easier for him to distance himself from Abramoff now. Tom DeLay can't do that. Recall that DeLay says he'd still go on the Abramoff funded Scotland trip again. DeLay has to say that. Otherwise, he'd be admitting that it was wrong for him to do it in the first place.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Rep. John Doolittle said Wednesday that the Justice Department tried to get him to admit to criminal behavior before agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his house looking for evidence in connection with the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal.

GreginTX22 to Rep. Doolittle: RESIGN First, then CONFESS!

There's also this nugget in the SacBee article:

Julie Doolittle said she was not a "patsy" who allowed her company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, to be a conduit for Abramoff money intended to buy the influence of her husband on Capitol Hill.

"This isn't a fly-by-night business I am involved in," she declared. "It's real."

But she said the FBI has questioned each of her clients, whose names she has not publicly disclosed. "They have effectively ruined my business," she said.

Sure Julie Doolittle had clients other than Abramoff. We learned that from The Hill newspaper:

[Rep. John] Doolittle has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created.

Emphasis Mine

1. Rep. Doolittle's Campaign
2. Rep. Doolittle's PAC
3. Greenberg Traurig (Abramoff's former lobbying firm)
4. Signatures (Abramoff's restaurant)
5. Korea-U.S. Exchange Council (An Edwin A. Buckham creation)

Yeah, I have no doubt that the FBI has looked at all of Julie Doolittle's clients. I doubt Greenberg Traurig still has a relationship with Sierra Dominion. Signatures is closed. That leaves her husband's entities and Edwin Buckham's non-profit as her possible current clients. Don't show too much sympathy for Sierra Dominion's clients who had their bookkeeper disrupted.

I know that Rep. Doolittle claims that Julie had other non-political clients. He and Julie just can't name them due to privacy concerns. And with that, I'll leave you with a few lines from the Gen-X classic "The Breakfast Club":

Bender: Op, watch what you say, Brian here is a cherry.

Brian: A cherry?

Claire: I wish I was on a plane to France.

Brian: I'm not a cherry.

Bender: When have you ever gotten laid?

Brian: I've laid lotsa times!

Bender: Name one.

Brian: She lives in Canada, met her at Niagra Falls. You wouldn't know her.

The Hill reports that former Rep. Tom DeLay had a temper tantrum disguised as a press conference:

DeLay said the evidence shows that his wife did not accept improper payments: “She did her work and she was underpaid for the work she did and they can’t make the case. It’s a Justice Department that is running amok. Fish or cut bait. Do something.”

"Fish or cut bait". You know, I never heard that term until I was in my twenties. I guess it just wasn't used often where I grew up in the northern half of Michigan's LP. But someone else used that term recently, too. Last week, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) called upon the FBI and Justice Department to "Fish or cut bait". For what it's worth, prosecutors are looking into suspicious payments by Edwin Buckham to the wives of both Doolittle and DeLay.

The similar behavior of DeLay and Doolittle also corroborate my speculation that DeLay's records have been raided. Why else is DeLay so angry?

As to the substance of the Hill article, we have this:

The inquiry appears to be focused on determining whether DeLay’s wife, Christine, earned her pay from two organizations controlled by Ed Buckham, a lobbyist once closely affiliated with the former Republican leader, according to sources interviewed by federal investigators. Several former employees of the groups have received subpoenas for documents, some in the past few weeks.

. . .

One source familiar with the investigation said federal officials have given immunity to at least one senior member of DeLay’s political circle who may now be cooperating with investigators. Former associates of the majority leader say investigators are apparently attempting to indict DeLay for corruption by proving that Buckham sought to influence him with unearned payments to his wife.

That DeLay accepted bribes through his wife has been my thesis since the beginning of this blog. But we learn that prosecutors have "given immunity to at least one senior member of DeLay’s political circle who may now be cooperating with investigators". A little over a week ago, I suggested that former DeLay CoS Susan Hirschmann had been given immunity in exchange for testimony.

In an effort to provide balance, The Hill talks to a source friendly to Tom DeLay:

A person still close to DeLay said a wealth of evidence proves Christine played an important role at ARMPAC and deserved her salary.

“There are dozens of people who will demonstrate that Christine DeLay was a central cog in DeLay’s political world and was a, if not the, key adviser of ARMPAC,” said the source. “No major decision affecting DeLay was made without Christine being the protector.”

Christine DeLay approved the content of fundraising letters, her husband’s fundraising schedule, and the hiring of new employees, the source said.

Testimony and memos showing that Christine played an active role at the PAC are likely to be an important part of the DeLays’ defense if they are charged.

Now I'm not suggesting that the ARMPAC payments are not significant, but I have called this focus on ARMPAC to be a little misdirection. The payments that convinced me DeLay was corrupt were the payments from Ed Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group (ASG) to Christine DeLay purportedly as compensation for creating a list of lawmakers' favorite charities. The conservative Weekly Standard magazine couldn't find any evidence that Christine DeLay did any work for ASG.

DeLay and his lawyers have had over a year to substantiate their claim that Christine DeLay was properly compensated for creating a 535 item list. There has been no indication that Team DeLay plans to do so. All we get is this assertion by DeLay from the Hill:

DeLay said the evidence shows that his wife did not accept improper payments: “She did her work and she was underpaid for the work she did and they can’t make the case."

Um. I don't give much weight to the uncorroborated self-serving statements of potential criminal defendants. If it is true, prove it! Maybe DeLay could have Sheila Jackson Lee and Nancy Pelosi testify that Christine DeLay contacted them to find out their favorite charities. Until then, I will stand by my long-standing position that Tom DeLay is undeserving of holding an office of public trust and furthermore that Tom DeLay is simply not a credible witness.

==

Richard Cullen's Comprehension

It is difficult for me to explain these few paragraphs from the Hill article:

DeLay said the evidence shows that his wife did not accept improper payments: “She did her work and she was underpaid for the work she did and they can’t make the case. It’s a Justice Department that is running amok. Fish or cut bait. Do something.”

Speaking after a meeting with former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on Capitol Hill, DeLay said, “We have cooperated with everything. We’ve given them everything, including computers; they’ve taken computers that I had here. They’ve gotten everything that’s got anything to do with my life.”

Seeking to deflect DeLay’s wrath away from Justice, his lawyer, Richard Cullen, said his client was exasperated by an unrelated case in which a grand jury indicted him on money laundering charges arising from actions at a Texas fundraising committee.

“When Tom DeLay said that [about Justice], it reflected frustration that many people feel when they are involved in an investigation,” said Cullen. “In Tom’s situation, most of the frustration centers around the Texas case, which is dragging on and on. We are very comfortable that the Justice Department is proceeding properly and expeditiously.

My comprehension abilities indicate to me that Tom DeLay when on a tirade about the federal investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice. Why does DeLay's lawyer, Richard Cullen, say that DeLay's "frustration centers around the Texas case"? DeLay didn't mention the case brought up by Ronnie Earle and merry partisans at all. Even though I don't care for lawyers all that much, I'll give Cullen the benefit of the doubt and suggest that maybe Cullen was distracted and didn't hear what his client said.

This brings me to another point. There is a significant segment of the Republican electorate that wants moral and ethical government. When this wing of the Republican Party withheld support from DeLay in the 2006 election, DeLay knew he was toast and eventually withdrew. Is there a moral and ethical counterpart in the Democratic Party? Why don't any Democrats denounce Ronnie Earle's political prosecution? Is there a single Democrat out there with that kind of moral strength?

==

Missing Person

There's something interesting in both "The Hill" article and my original post about it. Neither one contains the name of Jack Abramoff. Readers of my blog have long been prepared to learn more about Edwin A. Buckham, though.

==

Even Odds

Despite the fact that a Google news search for "Susan Hirschmann" yields no hits as of 6:30 p.m. CDT on May 9, 2007, I am getting a slew of hits from people searching that term. Based on the quality of those hits, I'm offering even odds that Susan Hirschmann is our DeLay aide who has received immunity and is cooperating.

==

FBI Director Responds to DeLay

Link

“In each case, I’m comfortable that we’ve taken the steps that are appropriate in the course of the investigation,” [FBI Director Robert Mueller] said.

“Every investigation we do, we follow whatever leads, whatever pieces of information that will take us to a just resolution of the case,” he said, adding that, after counterterrorism, public corruption has been the FBI’s No. 1 criminal priority.

“It’s important to democracy that democracy be exercised without being waylaid by those who engage in public corruption,” he said.

Emphasis Mine

I'd like to second Mr. Mueller's motion.

The Blog of Legal Times (BLT) gives me the kind of thing I really like -- original documents. Today, BLT shows us a motion to set a sentencing date for former Ney aide Will Heaton. BLT says Heaton "has been yapping to investigators about any misdeeds of his one-time colleagues" and that Heaton's cooperation is "substantially complete".

A reading of the motion itself seems to back up BLT's claim. This is what I found most interesting from the motion:

Long before entry of his plea agreement, Mr. Heaton agreed to and began cooperating with the government in any and all matters required.

I've never claimed to know precisely how the criminal justice system works, but for some reason, I thought that plea bargains came before the cooperation. This motion clearly indicates that Mr. Heaton was cooperating prior to his February plea bargain. I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that it is most likely that Mr. Heaton provided information on his former boss, Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty in September 2006.

If this is indeed the way things work, is it possible that Ed Buckham is already working with prosecutors to build a case against Tom DeLay? Did Buckham give details about his phony employment of Julie Doolittle that led to the raid of her business records? Of course this is all speculation and I don't have any evidence to back this up, but it certainly is one plausible explanation as to why these corruption cases have been moving forward as of late.

Clarification: Edwin A. Buckham is at the core of this scandal. I am suggesting that it is possible that Edwin Buckham has entered into some sort of deal with prosecutors like Will Heaton has. Prosecutors will insist that Ed Buckham plead guilty to something. He was too far into this scandal to let him go unpunished.

Good ol' Tom DeLay has an op-ed piece that appeared on politico.com. DeLay's main point seems to be that Democrats gained precious little ground in the Western United States during the 2006 mid-term elections. And what ground Democrats gained, Democrats could easily cede in 2008:

The loss of a few seats on the other side of the Mississippi River during the 2006 election cycle wasn't much of a trend in itself; it was simply the Western part of an electoral thumpin'. Republicans lost 30 seats. By my count, we lost nine in the Midwest, four in the South, 12 in the Northeast and six in the West. And even those six deserve something of an asterisk: One of them was in California, which is basically its own world rather than a part of a broader region in the traditional sense. Two of them were in Texas, which could just as easily be classified as part of the South rather than the West (and one of those was in Texas' 22nd, where the Republicans had no nominee and instead ran a write-in campaign).

Guess what? Believe it or not, I agree with Tom DeLay! Well, except when he talks about the "other side of the Mississippi River". From my vantage point, it is this side of the Mississippi River. But I understand that Mr. DeLay is now a Virginian. For that matter, Mr. DeLay enjoyed the smell of Washington DC's marble long before he quit being the Representative from TX22, so I understand why he thinks we live on the "other side of the Mississippi River".

The complaint I have about Mr. DeLay's article is what he doesn't say. Mr. DeLay looks at the six House seats the GOP lost in the West. I assume he's talking about AZ-05, AZ-08, CA-11, CO-07, TX-22 and TX-23. Corruption played a leading role in fully half of those seats, but Mr. DeLay doesn't mention that. (It is clear that Mr. DeLay considers Texas as part of the West. Four other seats were lost west of the Mississippi, IA-01, IA-02, KS-02* and MN-01, but I strongly suspect that Mr. DeLay categorizes those seats as being in the Midwest.)

Let's look at each of those Western seats individually:

AZ-05 (Rep. JD Hayworth defeated)
Wife Mary Hayworth may be worthy of "Wives Club" status. Strong Abramoff influence in this race.

AZ-08 (Open Seat; formerly held by Rep. Jim Kolbe)
Rep. Kolbe did not run for re-election, and open seats are always harder to defend. Republican Party nominated a weak candidate named Randy Graf. Conventional wisdom is that Mr. Graf lost by running a divisive anti-immigrant campaign. Corruption not an issue in this race.

CA-11 (Rep. Richard Pombo defeated)
Rep. Pombo clearly had Abramoff problems. Lots of Abramoff money flowed his way, and Pombo championed federal recognition of the Mashpee, an Indian tribe in Massachusetts. Yes, the Mashpee were an Abramoff client.

CO-07 (Rep. Bob Beauprez defeated)
In 2004, Rep. Beauprez only won by 121 votes. This seat was naturally precarious for the GOP. Corruption not an issue in this race.

TX-22 (Open Seat; formerly held by Rep. Tom DeLay)
Need I say more? Obviously corruption led to the loss of this seat. For some inexplicable reason, Republicans nominated the extremely weak DeLay even though he could not win the general election due to his corruption. Mr. DeLay eventually resigned rather than face defeat. Christine DeLay is clearly a member of the "Wives Club".

TX-23 (Rep. Henry Bonilla defeated)
Large demographic change after court-ordered redistricting. Corruption not an issue in this race.

None of these losses were really seismic events. The most surprising, I guess, was the loss of AZ-08, the open seat that Randy Graf sought. Republicans should have an easy shot at winning the seats lost due to corruption (including TX-22) as long as they nominate clean candidates. The scary part is that the Republican Party, like Tom DeLay himself, can't seem to come to the conclusion that corruption played a huge role in the 2006 mid-terms. If the party doesn't know what went wrong, they can't fix it. Republicans will certainly reaquire TX-22, but other landmines exist (Rep. Doolittle [CA], Rep. Renzi [AZ], Rep. Feeney [FL], Rep. Lewis [CA] and Rep. Miller [CA]) if the Party doesn't take the corruption issue seriously. Worse, if the Party doesn't act decisively, the corruption issue may affect the GOP as a whole instead of largely affecting only the corrupt candidates.

And why does Mr. DeLay attack the good folks in CA-11? They live in their "own world"? CA-11 includes wonderful cities like Tracy and Lodi. Not exactly San Francisco or Berkeley. Maybe this is just another example of Mr. DeLay attacking anti-corruption Republicans.

As the Wall Street Journal said, a GOP victory in 2008 is a perishable fruit. The Republican Party needs to get serious about eradicating corruption from its ranks. Tom DeLay is clearly in denial. Let's hope the rest of the party isn't.

* KS-02 was another Republican loss linked to corruption. It was formerly held by Jim Ryun. Mr. Ryun had a suspicious real estate deal with Ed Buckham.

Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) submits an op-ed to the Auburn Journal attacking the Jack Abramoff-related FBI search of his wife's business records. I won't quote anything from the piece because, quite simply, it is entirely unremarkable. (The FBI took Julie's cell phone and iPod! Oh, the indignity!)

Politically, I'm aligned with Rep. Doolittle. I wanted to find something -- anything -- exculpatory. There's nothing there. Rep. Doolittle sounds like a juvenile little kid: "Dad, the only reason you're doing this is because . . . (some entirely unrelated reason)." When I discipline my children, I tell them specifically what was wrong with their behavior. I suspect the FBI told Rep. Doolittle and his wife specifically what they were looking for and the reason why.

If Rep. Doolittle wants a little sympathy from me, he must explain what kind of work Julie Doolittle did for Jack Abramoff and Ed Buckham.

One last thing, I love how Rep. Doolittle tries to argue that "innocent until proven guilty" is the standard that should apply to him. That applies to the criminal justice system, not the political system. I oppose some politicians simply because I don't agree with their ideology. "Innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply.

I routinely have to go to midtown Manhattan. A few years ago, I discovered a great flight (2x / day) on American Airlines that went from Hobby to LaGuardia non-stop. LaGuardia is New York's most convenient airport, and given that I live in Pearland, Hobby is the most convenient airport for me. What a win-win! AA's flight appeared to be Hobby's little secret, because the flights were never crowded. Unfortunately, it was too much of a secret, and American discontinued the HOU-LGA flight a little over a year ago.

The good news was that the HOU-LGA route was picked up seamlessly by ATA Airlines. ATA is Southwest's codeshare partner, so even though ATA was quite the spartan airline, I still got Rapid Rewards credit. ATA was somehow able to fill the planes a little more than American, but it was still a great flight since it was non-stop between Hobby and LaGuardia.

Guess what? ATA has uncerimoniously discontinued the HOU-LGA route! The last flight is this week! No one got my permission for that! I just found that out when I tried to book a flight later this month. Best I can tell, no airline will fly the HOU-LGA route non-stop anymore. JetBlue offers a 3x / day flight from Hobby to JFK, but who wants to go to JFK? LaGuardia is just a $30 cab ride from midtown.

Without a HOU-LGA route, I'd rather drive to Bush Intercontinental than fly into JFK. I'll miss the HOU-LGA route.

I take this little nugget from the Sacramento Bee to be supporting evidence for my theory that prosecutors are pressuring wives (See: "Subtle Difference") to get husbands to plead:

In his weekly press conference Thursday, [Rep. John] Doolittle said the Justice Department urged [Doolittle and his wife] to hire separate lawyers because it believes "there is a potential conflict of interest between my wife and me."

I've also predicted that prosecutors will pressure Christine DeLay to get former Rep. Tom DeLay's cooperation.

From the Fresno Bee:

The California Republican [Rep. Doolittle] said he had information from sources he wouldn't name that federal agents had executed search warrants recently against two other members of Congress -- a Republican and a Democrat -- in raids that hadn't become public yet. He said he thought that those raids were related to the Abramoff probe.

I know I should take a guess at who these unidentified congressmen are. Check this post later to see if I have any speculation.

==

OK, here's some instant speculation. If the Republican who has been raided were still in Congress, he would have run afoul of even the lenient standards of Minority Leader John Boehner's "Clear Likelihood" standard. Since I know of no Republican who has recently resigned from any of his committee positions, I do not believe that this Republican is a current member of the House. (Remember that Rep. Doolittle was pressured to resign from his seat on the Appropriations committee after the FBI raid on his wife's business.)

My guess: Our own former Rep. Tom DeLay. After all, DeLay's wife, Christine DeLay, had the same phony employment racket as Julie Doolittle.

Get on it, Chronicle! Ask the question!

- or -
Who is Susan Hirschmann?



A few days ago, I looked at some of the travellers on Jack Abramoff's trip to Scotland in August 2003. That was the trip with Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL). Mark Zachares has already pleaded guilty in connection to that trip.

As a result of that post, I decided to see who all went on a Scotland/England trip hosted by Jack Abramoff, the one our former Congressman Tom DeLay attended. The following is a list of people who went on the trip that straddled May and June of 2000:

1. Jack Abramoff - GUILTY
2. Edwin Buckham - not charged
3. Tony Rudy* - GUILTY
4. Lisa Rudy - not charged pursuant to deal in Tony Rudy's plea
5. Tom DeLay* - not charged
6. Christine DeLay - not charged
7. Amy Ridenour - not charged
8. Susan Hirschmann* - not charged
9. David Hirschmann - not charged

* Denotes federal employees at the time of the trip.

This list may not be exhaustive.

The travelers can be broken down into a couple of categories. We have the lobbyists, Jack Abramoff and Ed Buckham. We have three federal employees and their spouses. Lastly, we have Amy Ridenour. Ms. Ridenour is the president of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). Nominally, this is the organization which funded the trip for the government employees since it would be illegal for the lobbyists to do it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine where the lobbying activities of Abramoff/Buckham end and NCPPR begins. I've written about the close relationship between Team Abramoff and NCPPR before with respect to the Tom Feeney Scotland trip. The Washington Post describes the blurred distinction in an article about the DeLay trip:

But dozens of e-mails show that Abramoff and his team considered the national center [NCPPR] and other tax-exempt groups a ready resource in their efforts to influence Congress.

In one instance, Abramoff's team wanted to send two lawmakers on a trip to the Mississippi Choctaw reservation in 2001, but one congressman's office had concerns about accepting such a trip from a gaming tribe.

"How about getting National Center for Public Policy Research to sponsor the trip?" Abramoff suggested. "Works for me," replied a lobbying colleague.

E-mails suggest Ridenour was well aware that Abramoff viewed her organization as a convenient pass-through.

In September 2002, Abramoff suggested to one of his associates placing $500,000 in client funds with the national center because the group "can direct money at our discretion, anywhere if you know what I mean."

The same morning Abramoff messaged Ridenour: "I might have $500K for you to run through NCPPR. Is this still something you want to do?" Ridenour was enthusiastic: "Yes, we would love to do it."

I'm no lawyer, but it looks to me as if Ridenour willingly allowed her organization to be a conduit for Abramoff's bidding.

When I peruse the list of attendees of the 2000 trip, many of the names are familiar. Abramoff, Buckham, and later, Tony Rudy, the lobbyists. Tom DeLay, the Congressman. Amy Ridenour, the public policy organization manager who nominally funded the trip. All familiar.

But who is this Susan Hirschmann? Susan Hirschmann is a former Chief of Staff for Tom DeLay. The Legal Times ran a flattering piece on her last year. Here's what I found interesting:

Already under indictment in Texas, DeLay is drawing scrutiny from federal investigators looking into campaign finance irregularities, along with lobbying improprieties connected to his office through ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his friend and former political ally. DeLay’s recent decision to leave Congress is reverberating far beyond those directly involved in the ongoing probes. Already, dozens of lobbyists, government officials, and corporations have lawyered up in anticipation of being drawn into the expanding scandal. But, so far at least, Hirschmann, 42, and her lobbying practice at Williams & Jensen seem to have stayed clear of serious trouble.

Yet Hirschmann was closely involved with many of those under investigation. As chief of staff, she was the Texas lawmaker’s right-hand woman from 1997 to 2002, the key period when the alleged travel and lobbying violations occurred. Two of her former subordinates, Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon, have already pleaded guilty in connection with the probe, and another former DeLay aide, Edwin Buckham, has also drawn attention from federal investigators.

Hirschmann isn’t talking. In fact, the lobbyist, who has always preferred to work behind the scenes, won’t say if she is cooperating with investigators or even if she has hired a lawyer, as many of her former colleagues have done. Despite her close ties to DeLay, Hirschmann has not been accused of any ethics violations or of breaking any federal laws and is not believed to be a target of the ongoing inquiry, according to dozens of lawyers and former House staffers who were interviewed for this article.

But with speculation that DeLay may be one of the ultimate targets of the federal lobbying probe, Hirschmann may yet play a central role in the investigation. “Given her position and close contact with DeLay, to the extent prosecutors want to build a case against DeLay, she will be important,” says Peter Henning, a former prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and now a law professor at Wayne State University.

Given that Susan Hirschmann accepted a Scotland trip similar to trips that have landed others in serious legal jeopardy, how has Hirschmann stayed out of the spotlight? No one talks about her. Why haven't we learned that investigators are looking at Hirschmann along with the other federal employees who accepted these junket-trips?

Remember that the Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors were offering immunity in exchange for testimony to former aides to Tom DeLay. This is rank speculation, but I suspect we'll learn that Susan Hirschmann has been granted immunity and is cooperating with prosecutors. Rank speculation. Remember, I qualified it.

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Update
May 6, 2007

I have conflicting information regarding whether Amy Ridenour went on this particular Scotland junket. Ms. Ridenour undoubtedly admits funding the trip through NCPPR, but it is not clear to me that she accompanied Abramoff, DeLay and the others on this specific trip. Ms. Ridenour did, however, go on an earlier Russian junket with DeLay.

As a result of my uncertainty, I have struck through the references which indicate Ms. Ridenour travelled on the May/June 2000 Scotland junket.

The Washington Post tells us that Tom DeLay's PAC, ARMPAC, has finally ceased operations. My recently emerging theme is to tie everything back to Ed Buckham, and I was prepared to do that again, but the WaPo beats me to the punch:

ARMPAC also helped precipitate DeLay's fall. In the late 1990s, the PAC was run out of a Capitol Hill townhouse that housed a lobbying firm and a questionable non-profit, both of which were run by lobbyist Edwin Buckham, a former chief of staff to DeLay. For several years Buckham's firm employed DeLay's wife, paying her more than $100,000 for what has been widely considered undefined work.

Several years later, the FBI and Justice Department began investigating DeLay's connections to now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. To date, the investigation has yielded guilty pleas by Abramoff, two former aides to DeLay, ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), two former Ney aides and a former Interior Department official, among others. Abramoff's and Buckham's clients became major donors to ARMPAC in the late 1990s as well as to non-profits run by the two lobbyists, sometimes with fund-raising help from DeLay.

I'm curious how much ARMPAC's donor list overlaps with the clients of Abramoff and Buckham. Unfortunately, I'm not curious enough to go digging for that information.

And just how did DeLay help Buckham with his fundraising efforts? That's news to me, I think.