I’m a little behind on this one, but Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) appears to be well on track to be Congress’ next Duke Cunningham. Josh Marshall has been on covering this for the past several days, and with good cause; it’s quite a story.
A week before former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to prison, he stressed to the court that a number of other lawmakers also helped arrange federal funding for the defense contractors who bribed him.
None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name — Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay — has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions.
And at least one of the lawmakers, Doolittle, received a direct monetary benefit from those contributions through commissions paid to his wife, Julie.
Atrios summarized the story by saying, “Funneling campaign dollars into your wife’s bank account just doesn’t sound right.” Unfortunately, this is a pretty accurate description of what’s happened. I’d only add to it that some of the campaign dollars were legally dubious contributions from a corrupt defense contractor who was trying to bribe lawmakers.
Also keep in mind, Doolittle has been playing and fast loose on Capitol Hill for a while now, also having been caught up in the Abramoff affair in a big way.
But it’s this controversy that’s could end Doolittle’s career fairly quickly.
Rep. John Doolittle’s (R-CA) wife, acting as his fundraiser, was getting a 15% cut of contributions coming into his campaign. That sounds sketchy to us, but you never know in D.C., so we asked around to people who do know. The verdict: it sounds as bad to experts as it does to you. And a strong case can be made that Doolittle broke the law.
Neither Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 nor Naomi Seligman of CREW could think of another example of a lawmaker’s wife or other family member getting a cut of contributions, and it’s not hard to figure why: because it sets off all sorts of warning bells. It is against the law for lawmakers to convert campaign money to personal use. And that’s just what was going on here.
It’s quite a Republican House caucus, isn’t it? I’ve lost count of how many GOP members of the House have been caught up in ethical and/or legal scandals, but off the top of my head there’s DeLay, Cunningham, Ney, Pombo, Doolittle, Feeney, Blunt, and of course, Harris. I’m probably missing a few, and that’s not even touching on the Senate….