It’s quite a caucus

November 5, 2005

It’s safe to say Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) has reason to worry.

Rep. Robert W. Ney notified Congress yesterday that he had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury examining the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff, making the Ohio Republican the first lawmaker to receive such a demand in the expanding influence-peddling investigation.

The subpoena, delivered to Ney in recent days, seeks records and testimony from his office. His spokesman, Brian Walsh, said it is the first contact Ney has received from federal investigators looking at Abramoff, once one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists. Ney has denied any wrongdoing.

Ney’s denials not withstanding, the Ohio Republican appears to have a serious problem on his hands. There’s already evidence that Ney pressured a casino owner to sell a fleet of ships to benefit one of Abramoff’s clients, received one of those luxurious Scottish golf trips that Abramoff is famous for, promised to use his role on the House Administration Committee to help reopen a casino for an Abramoff client, and placed comments in the Congressional Record favorable to Abramoff’s purchase of a Florida gambling company. Ney claims Abramoff duped him. We’ll see how that defense works out.

I’d also like to take a note that if there’s ever been a less ethical group of lawmakers from the same party serving at the same time, I wouldn’t want to see them. The GOP House majority really is quite a caucus. Ney’s problems are getting worse, but let’s not forget DeLay, Cunningham, Pombo, Feeney, and Blunt, among others, all of whom are dealing with ethical and/or criminal questions of their own — and this is just the House caucus.

Matters may get a little worse for House Republicans in the coming months. A staffing problem that led the Ethics Committee to shut down its work has been resolved — meaning investigations into the transgressions of some of these lawmakers can finally begin.

The results of at least a few of these probes should be complete in about a year … just in time for the midterm elections.

Try to imagine the Congressional Republicans’ January retreat. Should be hell on wheels. “Retreat” may be what they’ll be doing — in more ways than they plan to…

  • There must be part of the process that we’re not seeing. Like after a Republican wins office and takes the oath, he or she must be hustled off to watch “Goodfella’s” and “The Godfather” so they can be properly oriented to their new job.

    It’s not a caucus, it’s a racket.

  • I like Abramoff gving Indian money to an Israeli sniper school. At the McCain hearing Abramoff’s money person said the sniper money was dispersed in an emotional response to to some depredation foisted on Israeli children by Palestinian terrorists.
    The look on McCain’s face was worth the price of admission. One wonders if Abramoff wanted to ENROLL the Israeli childen directly in the sniper school or just build for the future.

  • Tsk, tsk.

    Ney, Alito, Cheney, DeLay, Bush, et alia rob widows and orphans to benefit Scaife and other haves and have mores from ideological conviction, not because they have been at all influenced by receipt of a golf vacation, use of a yacht, mutual fund ownership, or even the odd $7 million surge in stock option value. And, let us avert our eyes from whatever book advances, Newt Gingrich may have received for books no one read, or the joys of serving on a board of directors for Conrad Black.

    Spinning out a narrative of corruption to describe the pro-business politics of conservative Republicans, like Ney, Alito, Cheney, Bush, DeLay is the “criminalization of conservative politics”.

    Now, if this were some man-of-the-people Democrat doing favors for his rich and greedy friends, betraying his liberal or populist principles, well, then characterizing the Democrat as corrupt would be fair and just. And, sending a Democrat to jail is only right, but its OK if you are a Republican. Ney has never advocated for anything except the interests of business, and here he was acting in the interests of business, as explained to him by people he trusted.

    It is simply unfair to assert an appearance of impropriety, based on a few modest material benefits, which would be below the notice of a Statesman of High Moral Character, like Ney. Influenced by a golf vacation? It is slander to suggest that Ney is a cheap whore, on that basis, just as it is a slander to suggest that Alito would be influenced by his ownership of a half million dollar investment in the Vanguard funds and outrageous that Cheney’s years of public service at a salary of a mere $180,000 per annum would be impugned by reference to the $7 million he earned last year from the corporation he has been handing out no-bid contracts to.

  • When you listed corrupt GOP Congresspersons, you omitted a few names. Since he is a big cheese, you have to list Denny Hastert. At one time in his life, he was a good guy, but methinks he got too close to Darth.

  • I do think you’re overly optimistic about the timing of the reports being released. Don’t you figure those guys will move heaven and earth to postpone them coming out until AFTER the midterms?

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