When it comes to scandals at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Reagan-era controversies would appear to take the cake. As Joe Conason explained not too long ago, Reagan’s HUD scandal included “politically connected Republicans criminally exploit[ing] the same housing assistance programs they routinely denounced as ‘wasteful.'” The controversy ultimately led Reagan’s HUD Secretary, Sam Pierce, to seek Fifth Amendment protections when Congress asked him to explain what had transpired. (Pierce was the first cabinet secretary to plead the Fifth since the Teapot Dome scandal.)
As it turns out, Bush’s HUD scandals aren’t generating nearly the same amount of attention, but the controversies are nearly as serious.
Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a developer at a substantial discount, then retaliated against the housing authority when it refused to do so, a recent court filing alleges.
The authority’s director, Carl Greene, contends in a court affidavit that Jackson called Philadelphia’s mayor in 2006 to demand the transfer to the developer, Kenny Gamble, a former soul-music songwriter who is a business friend of Jackson’s. Jackson’s aides followed up with “menacing” threats about the property and other housing programs in at least a dozen letters and phone calls over an 11-month period, Greene said in an interview.
Greene and his colleagues have alleged in the court filing that Philadelphia is now paying a severe price for disobeying a Bush Cabinet official. The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently vowed to strip the city’s housing authority of its ability to spend some federal funds, a move that the authority said could raise rents for most of its 84,000 low-income tenants and force the layoffs of 250 people. […]
“The secretary was determined that we turn over this land to this specific developer,” Greene said in an interview. “I refused. . . . He didn’t have the ability to remove me. So he resorted to these extraordinary measures to extract what he wanted.”
Mark Kleiman notes that Bush and Jackson have effectively turned the Department of Housing and Urban Development into “an extortion racket,” which, under the circumstances, sounds about right.
If only this was the first HUD scandal under Bush.
We also learned last fall about Alphonso Jackson’s penchant for letting politics dictate the grant process. In September, an initial news report indicated that HUD’s inspector general found that Jackson “urged top aides to take contractors’ politics into account when handing out grants and deals,” but did not find any “direct evidence” that favoritism actually occurred.
ThinkProgress has obtained the executive summary.
* “During the investigation, Secretary JACKSON’s Chief of Staff, as well as the HUD Deputy Secretary testified that, in a senior staff meeting, JACKSON had advised senior staff, to the effect, that when considering discretionary contracts, they should be considering supporters of the President, language consistent with the remarks made by JACKSON in Dallas, Texas, on April 28, 2006.”
* “Investigation did disclose some problematic instances involving HUD contacts and cooperative agreement grants, in particular, the cooperative agreement award issued to Abt Associates…was blocked for a significant period of time due to Secretary JACKSON’s involvement and opposition to Abt. Secretary JACKSON’s Chief of Staff testified that one factor in JACKSON’s opposition to Abt was Abt’s political affiliation.”
* “Secretary JACKSON’s Chief of Staff also identified other instances of Secretary JACKSON intervening with contractors whom he did not like. Reviews of political contributions indicated these contractors had Democratic political affiliations.”
Given this, resignation shouldn’t even be open to debate. And yet, it managed to get worse as a federal grand jury investigated whether Jackson lied to investigators when he told them that he doesn’t “touch contracts.”
Evidence is mounting that Jackson did indeed touch contracts — in particular, contracts for his friends and, the National Journal reports today, companies that owe him large sums of money. […]
[In November], a senior HUD official abruptly resigned from his post, effective January 4th. The official, Orlando Cabrera, gave no other explanation than that he was leaving to “spend time with my wife and kids.”
Today’s Journal gives a good idea of why he might have left:
Orlando Cabrera, the outgoing assistant secretary for public and Indian housing, was among those questioned. When contacted by National Journal, Cabrera acknowledged that investigators had interviewed him. “I have been questioned as a witness,” he said, “and I have been told that I am not a target of the investigation.” Cabrera and Jackson are not on speaking terms. HUD insiders say that the secretary was angry with Cabrera for speaking to investigators and considers him “a snitch.”
The Journal focuses on one key contract in particular. In 2006, Jackson elbowed Cabrera aside and installed his deputy as the point man for a huge contract with the Housing Authority of New Orleans. The $127 million contract eventually went to a team that included an Atlanta company, Columbia Residentialm, which has “significant financial ties to Jackson: It owes him between $250,000 and $500,000 ‘for past services,’ according to the HUD secretary’s public financial disclosure reports.”
I know Congress’ attention is elsewhere, and Bush administration officials getting involved in apparent criminal conduct no longer seems all that unusual, but the sooner Jackson is forced from his post, the better it will be for addressing the Republicans’ culture of corruption.