Yet another Republican Congressman about to go down
Josh Marshall is reporting on Congressman John Doolittle,
another corrupt Republican who may be fated to join Duke Cunningham in the
pokey. He may be bringing his wife in with
him.
The Doolittles are, or were, running a transparent scam that goes like this. Doolittle's wife started a "consulting company". Her husband hired her as a fundraiser, paying her 15% of any contributions she obtained. She had no experience in the field, and she was the only employee of a company that lacked both website and phone number. The same fellow who bribed Duke Cunningham funnelled $144,000 of contributions through her company:
Acting as her husband's campaign consultant, Julie Doolittle charged his campaign and his Superior California Political Action Committee a 15 percent commission on any contribution she helped bring in.
ns and Administration – Doolittle is well-positioned to help contractors gain funding through congressional earmarks. Between 2002 and 2005, Wilkes and his associates and lobbyists gave Doolittle's campaign and political action committee $118,000, more than they gave any other politician, including Cunningham.
Calculations based on federal and state campaign records suggest that Doolittle's wife received at least $14,400 of that money in commissions. Meanwhile, Doolittle helped Wilkes get at least $37 million in government contracts.
It gets better. Despite the fact that her company was so hard to find, Mrs. Doolittle managed to pick up some other clients:
A search by The San Diego Union-Tribune yielded only three other clients of Julie Doolittle's firm:
One was Greenberg Traurig, the lobbying firm that employed Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax-evasion charges. The second was Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures. The third was the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, founded by Ed Buckham, one-time chief of staff for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
The Korean group, which lobbied for improved U.S.-Korean relations, was based at the headquarters of Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group, which dissolved in January because of negative publicity over its ties to Abramoff. Wilkes also was an Alexander Strategy client.
Robinson said Julie Doolittle had other clients. But he refused to provide their names “out of respect for the privacy of the clients.”
Funny how the same names keep popping up, isn't it? What's really amazing about all this is how transparent the whole thing is. These people were sure they had a permanent grip on power and that all they had to do was put a fig leaf over the bribery and they would get away with it. And, if not for the fact that Duke forgot about the fig leaf, they probably would have. As it is, there is still a better than even chance that the Justice Department will find a way to rein in the Public Integrity Division, which is doing yeoman's work on these cases.
The Democrats were in control of Congress for forty years, and they never, ever came close to being this systemically corrupt. As far as the Republicans in Washington are concerned, the government is just an ATM machine.
The Doolittles are, or were, running a transparent scam that goes like this. Doolittle's wife started a "consulting company". Her husband hired her as a fundraiser, paying her 15% of any contributions she obtained. She had no experience in the field, and she was the only employee of a company that lacked both website and phone number. The same fellow who bribed Duke Cunningham funnelled $144,000 of contributions through her company:
Acting as her husband's campaign consultant, Julie Doolittle charged his campaign and his Superior California Political Action Committee a 15 percent commission on any contribution she helped bring in.
ns and Administration – Doolittle is well-positioned to help contractors gain funding through congressional earmarks. Between 2002 and 2005, Wilkes and his associates and lobbyists gave Doolittle's campaign and political action committee $118,000, more than they gave any other politician, including Cunningham.
Calculations based on federal and state campaign records suggest that Doolittle's wife received at least $14,400 of that money in commissions. Meanwhile, Doolittle helped Wilkes get at least $37 million in government contracts.
It gets better. Despite the fact that her company was so hard to find, Mrs. Doolittle managed to pick up some other clients:
A search by The San Diego Union-Tribune yielded only three other clients of Julie Doolittle's firm:
One was Greenberg Traurig, the lobbying firm that employed Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax-evasion charges. The second was Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures. The third was the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, founded by Ed Buckham, one-time chief of staff for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
The Korean group, which lobbied for improved U.S.-Korean relations, was based at the headquarters of Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group, which dissolved in January because of negative publicity over its ties to Abramoff. Wilkes also was an Alexander Strategy client.
Robinson said Julie Doolittle had other clients. But he refused to provide their names “out of respect for the privacy of the clients.”
Funny how the same names keep popping up, isn't it? What's really amazing about all this is how transparent the whole thing is. These people were sure they had a permanent grip on power and that all they had to do was put a fig leaf over the bribery and they would get away with it. And, if not for the fact that Duke forgot about the fig leaf, they probably would have. As it is, there is still a better than even chance that the Justice Department will find a way to rein in the Public Integrity Division, which is doing yeoman's work on these cases.
The Democrats were in control of Congress for forty years, and they never, ever came close to being this systemically corrupt. As far as the Republicans in Washington are concerned, the government is just an ATM machine.
Posted: Sunday - March 19, 2006 at 07:17 PM
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Published On: Apr 17, 2007 07:20 PM
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