New HUD defense — Alphonso Jackson lied

May 10, 2006

Yesterday, we learned that [tag]Housing and Urban Development[/tag] Secretary [tag]Alphonso Jackson[/tag] recently spoke at a public forum and explained that he denied funding to a qualified minority contractor because the contractor said he didn’t like [tag]Bush[/tag]. In fact, Jackson went into considerable detail about the incident, explaining that the contractor worked in the advertising industry, and was selected because he was on the General Services Administration list and gave HUD officials “a heck of a proposal.”

Asked for more details, HUD spokesperson [tag]Dustee Tucker[/tag], who attended Jackson’s speech, said the agency didn’t have a record of the contract because “it was not awarded per what the secretary said.” Tucker added, “It was probably all verbal at that point.”

By the end of the day, however, Tucker had come up with a different story: [tag]Jackson[/tag] made the whole thing up.

Dustee Tucker, a spokeswoman for Jackson, told the Dallas Business Journal Tuesday that Jackson’s comments at his April 28 speech were purely “[tag]anecdotal[/tag].”

“He was merely trying to explain to the audience how people in D.C., will say critical things about the secretary, will unfairly characterize the [tag]president[/tag] and then turn around and ask you for money,” Tucker said. “He did not actually meet with someone and turn down a contract. He’s not part of the contracting process.”

Hmm. First, this may be the only time in recent memory that a cabinet press secretary used the “he’s lying” argument as a defense. Second, I don’t think Dustee Tucker knows what “anecdotal” means. Third, for a conversation that never actually occurred, Jackson sure did go into a lot of detail, without bothering to mention that he was making the whole thing up. And fourth, Tucker’s second response (the story is bogus) doesn’t exactly work with her first response (the story is real, but the contract was merely “verbal”).

This one’s not over yet. Sen. Frank [tag]Lautenberg[/tag] (D-N.J.) has called for Jackson to resign and will contact the HUD inspector general’s office this morning to demand an investigation. Sen. Joe [tag]Lieberman[/tag] (D-Conn.) wants an investigation, too. In the House, Reps. [tag]Henry Waxman[/tag] (D-Calif.) and [tag]Barney Frank[/tag] (D-Mass.) believe Jackson may have broken the law and have demanded that Jackson release all the documents related to the advertising contract discussed in his April 28 speech.

And just as an aside, there can only be so many DC-based, minority-owned advertising firms that applied for a [tag]HUD[/tag] [tag]contract[/tag] over the last year. Maybe some intrepid reporter can start working the phones?

I wonder what prompted the contractor to state “I do not like your president” or whatever he says. Doesn’t seem like something one would offer up on the verge of getting a big contract, no?

  • a tpm reader thought that maybe the prospective contractor was being asked for a ‘contribution.’

    crazy idea, i know.

  • I thought the same thing. I was reading Josh Marshall this morning, and one of his readers wrote in to say that it sounds exactly like what someone would say if asked for a donation to support the President and his agenda. Speculation, but sounds reasonable to me. Things that make you go, “Hm.”

  • interesting. political donations as the last step in the approval process. thanks for the info.

  • At some level, does it even matter whether he lied? I mean, the guy bragged about breaking the law in a fairly serious way. Even if the whole contract story is bogus, the fact that he thinks this is an OK way of doing business is more than enough to show him the door.

  • “…but in Iraq, HUD contracts are on the rise. And NOT ONE bad thing ever said about the president!”

  • Sounds like the standard shake down. Fits with the modus operandi of the Bush Crime Family, though on a rather petty level. Wonder if Jackson will be part of the Regal Moron’s ongoing change in window dressing in view of the November elections.

  • A friend of mine used to work with Jackson years ago when he was with the St. Louis Housing Authority. I don’t believe she had a high opinion of his integrity.

    My guess is he’d been working things this slimy way for so long that it didn’t occur to him that someone would object.

  • The thing that made all of Jackson’s B.S. ring untrue it that, supposedly the “contractor” was fishing for this contract for 10 years.

    From the Dallas Biz Journal article: “He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’

    So some guy that’s had the patience and dedication to a goal for 10 years is going to volunteer that he’s got issue’s with Shruby when the deal finally approaches a positive end? What would 10 years of dealing with the system teach you if not how to play the game? And this is what he learned?

    Jackson sounds like a leechy, ass kissing sycophant who wanted to build up his ShrubCo allegiance cred by presenting himself to his peers as a badass gatekeeper for the guarding of the purity of whoever is allowed to benefit from decisions made in his ideologically overheated little world. He’s proud that he is out there, making the world safe for other leechy, ass kissing sycophants just like himself. Where’s his gold star? How many Brownie Points for ridding the world of a non-believing contractor?

    The whole episode rings totally false.

  • I do think the contactor was asked to “show respect” for the Boss. And Jackson’s telling of this story to minority contractors was certainly a message. I wonder how many contributed to the GOP after the speech?

    The worrying thing about this is – like in the Armstrong Williams case – that only the fourth-rate crooks get caught for being too crass and stupid. What about the upper class of crooks?

  • Georgia10 at kos has a good post up on Jackson. Here is the money quote,

    Jackson wants us to believe his confession was concocted, but denying federal contracts based on support of the President doesn’t seem that out of character for him. After all, Jackson is a Bush Pioneer. He is a man who had no problem aggressively campaigning for the President while on the taxpayer dime.

    And maybe I would be able to accept HUD’s illogical denial of the story if the agency had not lied to protect Jackson in the past. In 2002, HUD employee Richard W. Mallory was fired by Jackson for trying to expose the misuse of $1.8 million of federal funds by the San Fransico Housing Authority. Mallory, by the way, replaced another fired whistleblower.

    Despite Georgia10’s take ,at the moment, I’m in the “something doesn’t ring true” school on this. My guess is that he was telling a “morality tale” with the intended moral:If HUD awards you a contract you had better toe the line.

  • So what we have here is either (1) a cabinet-level member of the administration who lies to an audience as a not-so subtle form of intimidation, (2) a cabinet-level member of this administration who boasts to an audience of his blatant criminal activity, or (3) a healthy combination of both—proving once again that Kid George likes to surround himself with people who are both inherently evil AND dumber than driftwood….

  • Should be easy to find this contractor, if true:

    Jackson: “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list”

    Call HUD, and request the GSA list of firms. Filter for DC advertising companies, call each one.

  • Georgia10 at kos said: “Jackson wants us to believe his confession was concocted, but denying federal contracts based on support of the President doesn’t seem that out of character for him. After all, Jackson is a Bush Pioneer. He is a man who had no problem aggressively campaigning for the President while on the taxpayer dime.”

    Sounds like what probably happened was that after this contractor was selected, Jackson hit him up for a contribution so he could keep his high profile Pioneering for Bush. Probably everyone else just figured this was a cost of doing business but this guy objected, so no contract. It seems quite plausible. Just as no Dem lobbyists could be hired on K street. These criminals have all the angles covered as money-collecting enterprises and it’s so every day for them that they talk about it like there’s nothing wrong with it. It brings me back to the archtypal and true quote from Cheney “It’s our due.” “Win” the election, loot the spoils.

  • I know you like INSIGHT articles, Steve, so here’s a rather salient one from back in 2003. Pull quote:

    Insiders tell INSIGHT that investigative-staff morale has plummeted at HUD in the face of growing allegations of wrongdoing involving senior officials in the internal-affairs office. According to an internal memorandum obtained by INSIGHT, in just 21 months at least 56 agents, nearly 25 percent of the total investigative workforce, voluntarily have left the IG’s employment, an attrition rate critics say is 10 times the average.

    In place of senior and seasoned investigators, critics complain, a group of retired Secret Service officials, many unskilled in the kind of white-collar fraud investigations required at HUD, have been appointed to what one IG watcher complained is a growing “good-old-boy” network reflecting senior management’s background in the presidential-protection service.

  • Second, I don’t think Dustee Tucker knows what “anecdotal” means.

    This is what you get when you hire people who think they’re pretty damn smart, but are not actually as smart as that. Likely this woman has heard through the years people criticize evidence as being less valid because of its “anecdotal” nature. Instead of understanding what they were saying — i.e. that because it is taken from a narrow sample and thus may not be generally representative — she made the assumption that it meant the evidence was flat out made up. As we all know, though, when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of u and mption.

    Washington is full of such people. Politicians and appointees (and, by extension, the rest of us) would all be a lot better off if they could tell the difference between folks who are good and folks who are just good at selling themselves. The problem is that because many politicians and appointees fit the latter category, they may not even know that a difference exists.

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