As far as corruption and criminal investigations go, Republicans haven’t had a good month.
* FBI agents raided Rep. John Doolittle’s (R-Calif.) home, forcing him to step down from his seat on the House Appropriations Committee.
* FBI agents also raided Rep. Rick Renzi’s (R-Ariz.) family business, forcing him to resign his committee assignments.
* FBI officials have been leaning on Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) for additional information about his connections with Jack Abramoff.
* Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is facing a Senate Ethics Committee inquiry, stemming from his efforts to push a federal prosecutor to bring a baseless charge against Democratic state officials in his home state.
* The FBI is investigating Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) for a series of land deals.
* A former aide to Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gifts from Abramoff.
* The Justice Department investigation into former Rep. (and current Nevada governor) Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) has intensified.
This is all from just the last few weeks. “Everybody’s kind of a little bit numb,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “There’s this, ‘What else can happen now?‘ feeling going around here.”
The GOP Machine almost certainly wants Americans to believe the party has left its corruption problems in the past — it’s so 2006 — but these problems just don’t seem to be fading away. Indeed, they’re getting worse, with congressional staffers striking deals with prosecutors.
They’re all important, but at this point, the Renzi scandal may be the one to watch.
As Josh Marshall explained, there’s a great connection to the prosecutor purge scandal that the other investigations lack.
Purged US Attorney Paul Charlton was talking to House investigators this afternoon when he made an important revelation. Weeks before election day 2006, word leaked to the press in Arizona that Charlton’s office was investigating Renzi. Renzi’s top aide Brian Murray then called Charlton’s office and asked Charlton’s spokesman, Wyn Hornbuckle.
Unlike what happened with David Iglesias, Charlton’s chief investigator did report the contact to the Department of Justice, as DOJ regs dictate.
Now, here’s the key: after all Congress’s document and information requests to DOJ, the Justice Department had not revealed the Renzi-Charlton contact. For some reason, they’ve held that back. The AP sources that to a House Judiciary Committee official and I’ve also confirmed with House Judiciary investigators that the DOJ failed to give this information to congressional investigators….
[B]asically what we have here is a classic scandal harmonic convergence — new nuggets about the Renzi scandal and the revelation that another of the US Attorney firings may be tied to an investigation of a Republican lawmaker. At a minimum, the DOJ has concealed critical information about the story.
And one other detail to add to the mix. Remember that two weeks after his dismissal, Charlton emailed his superiors at the Department of Justice asking how to handle questions over whether his firing was tied to his investigation of Rep. Renzi (R-AZ).
This week, Renzi asked the NRCC to drop his name from the Republicans’ top campaign program to protect vulnerable incumbents, “a clear sign that he is considering a resignation from Congress.”
The “culture of corruption” crisis for the GOP was not just a one-cycle problem.