.... do you see how you are paying almost three times the price for gas
that you were before Bush lied the U.S. into war? All of that money
is going into the pockets of the Trillionaires of the Bush Crime
Family... AFTER THE IMPEACHMENT STRIDENT EFFORTS MUST BE MADE TO EMPTRY
THERE POCKETS SO THAT A DICTATOR IS NEVER INSTALLED IN THE WHITEHOUSE
AGAIN.... make the Bush Crime Family pay the full cost of the war they
lied the world into.
From The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/24/06:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060624-9999-1n24cozy.html
Contractor adds layer to Rep. Lewis' sphere
By Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON --
When defense contractor Nicholas Karangelen launched a political action
committee directed by the stepdaughter of the chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, he added another dimension to a tight circle
of Capitol Hill relationships that is under federal investigation.
The relationships revolve around Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who
leads the Appropriations Committee and has extraordinarily close ties
to lobbyists Letitia White and Bill Lowery.
White worked for Lewis for 21 years before joining Lowery's lobbying
firm in 2003.
Lowery, a former San Diego congressman who sat on the Appropriations
Committee, is one of Lewis' closest friends and his principal
fundraiser.
Companies that hire the two lobbyists, including Karangelen's
Virginia-based Trident Systems Inc., follow a pattern that has become
common Capitol Hill practice in recent years.
They make substantial investments in lobbying fees and campaign
contributions to key legislators, then wait for their projects to be
tucked into bills in line-items known as earmarks.
Trident's projects involve software programs that Karangelen's
engineers develop for military use.
In Karangelen's case, the contractor-lobbyist-legislator connection has
taken on several more layers of financial ties and political
connections.
White became Trident's lobbyist in February 2003, a month after she
left Lewis' office, where she had helped Lewis shape the earmarking of
the Pentagon's budget.
In April, $8.4 million in earmarks for a Trident project were inserted
into an emergency spending bill to fund the war in Iraq.
The project used digital maps and laptop computers to improve troops'
ability to monitor changing battlefield conditions.
Just eight months later, Karangelen and White bought a $1 million
Capitol Hill townhouse together.
The house eventually became the address for a political action
committee they launched to encourage congressional support for small
businesses like Trident that seek Pentagon contracts.
They chose Lewis' stepdaughter, former Las Vegas wedding planner Julia
Willis-Leon, to be director of the Small Biz Tech Pac.
The PAC has paid Willis-Leon $42,000 of the $115,000 it has raised.
Meanwhile, it has directed just $15,600 to political campaigns.
The PAC's biggest contributors have been Letitia White and her husband,
who also lobbies on behalf of defense contractors.
They contributed $15,000, while Karangelen kicked in $10,000, and other
White clients added $11,500.
According to Trident's former chief financial officer, Karangelen has
yet another financial tie with White:
He has arranged to pay her a bonus based on the company's
profitability.
The former executive spoke on the condition that her name not be used,
saying publicity would complicate her job search given the controversy
swirling around the company.
Keith Ashdown, who tracks earmarks for the watchdog group Taxpayers for
Common Sense, said that between 2002 and 2006 Trident received at least
$23.6 million in defense-related earmarks inserted into appropriations
bills that Lewis supervised.
FBI agents have been investigating the personal and financial ties
among Lewis, Lowery and White.
Also included in the probe is Jeffrey Shockey, who worked for Lewis in
the 1990s, became a lobbyist with Lowery in 1999 and then returned to
work for Lewis last year at the Appropriations Committee.
The scrutiny has become so intense that last week the firm -- Copeland,
Lowery, Jacquez, Denton and White -- announced that it is breaking up.
The three Republican partners, including White, Lowery and longtime
Lowery ally Jean Denton, will form one firm, and Democrats James
Copeland and Lynn Jacquez will form another.
Karangelen and White did not respond to phone calls and e-mails seeking
comment.
A spokesman for the lobbying firm defended its work as typical of
Washington advocacy in an era of explosive growth in earmarking.
"Our work is consistent with the laws, rules and regulations that
govern federal lobbying, Capitol Hill lobbying and campaign finance,"
Patrick Dorton said last week, before the breakup announcement.
Lewis, who managed the earmark-rich Pentagon budget from 1999 until he
took the helm of the Appropriations Committee in January 2005, has
vehemently denied wrongdoing.
Speaking mostly through his press officer, Lewis defends earmarking as
essential to the work of Congress in managing the nation's budget.
And he says he's proud of every road, flood control project, visitor
center and swimming pool his earmarks have bought for government
agencies in his district, which covers most of San Bernardino County.
Many of those agencies, including the county government and Murrieta,
Loma Linda and Victorville, pay hefty fees to White and Lowery's firm.
Several entities have received grand jury subpoenas for records
relating to the firm's work on their behalf.
In a December interview with Copley News Service, Lewis, 71, praised
White, 48, as a talented lobbyist and called her a part of "the Lewis
family," the group of staffers and insiders with whom he has developed
lasting friendships during his 28 years in Congress.
During White's two decades with Lewis, she rose from receptionist to
principal gatekeeper for the earmark requests that poured in from
contractors, their lobbyists and congressional allies.
By the time White joined Lowery's firm in 2003, Lowery was established
as one of the highest-paid lobbyists who specialize in earmarks.
Testifying in his divorce case, Lowery said he earned "just under $2
million" in 2003 from a long client list of defense contractors,
universities, hospitals and government agencies, most of them in
Southern California.
Lowery built a network of his firm's partners and their defense
contractor clients who since 2000 have raised $480,000 for Lewis'
political action committee.
Lewis, who routinely waltzes to re-election in his Inland Empire
district, hasn't needed the money for his own campaigns.
But in 2004, when party leaders made fundraising talent a prime
qualification for committee chairmanships, Lewis contributed $650,000
in "excess funds" to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Much of the money was directed to the campaigns of vulnerable
Republican incumbents, helping the party protect the House majority it
has held since the 1994 election.
It also helped Lewis win the Appropriations Committee chairmanship over
rivals who raised far less for the NRCC.
Fundraising partnerships between politicians and lobbyists have
traditionally been shrugged off as business as usual on Capitol Hill.
But after the scandals involving former Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham
and Tom DeLay, they are drawing more scrutiny.
"It's a fine line between a contribution and a bribe," said Larry
Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.
"But it's a line that keeps you out of jail."
Jump in contributions
Karangelen founded Trident in 1985, but the company grew slowly until
2003, when he became one of White's first lobbying clients and began
donating heavily to political campaigns.
In the 2000-02 election cycle, he donated just $15,500, according to
records kept by the Center for Responsive Politics.
But in just the past two years, he has contributed $104,000.
The biggest individual recipient was Jerry Lewis, who received $72,000
from Karangelen and Karangelen's wife.
Meanwhile, federal contracts helped Trident recover handsomely from a
sales slump it suffered in 2002, according to its former chief
financial officer.
Trident "has gone from 11 million (in contracts and sales) in 2002 to
30 million last year" the former Trident executive said.
Nearly 90 percent of the company's revenue comes from federal
contracts, she said.
The former executive said she and two other company officials were
fired after they questioned the company's financial relationship with
Letitia White.
The other two, former chief operating officer Gary Grosicki and former
corporate attorney Brian Dinning, declined to be interviewed.
Some of Trident's growth came through earmarks inserted into
appropriations bills Lewis oversaw.
A particularly important source of cash has been the federal Small
Business Innovation Research Program, which Karangelen's PAC supports.
The program funnels about a billion dollars each year to companies with
fewer than 500 employees.
As Trident's business has grown, so have its lobbying expenses.
In 2003, it paid $80,000 in fees to White's firm, according to lobbying
disclosure forms.
Last year the figure jumped to $160,000.
A similar path
Karangelen's company appears to be following a path to riches that has
been followed by other companies that hire White and Lowery to be their
advocates in Congress.
After accumulating tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon contracts,
they become attractive acquisition targets for defense industry giants.
One such company was San Diego-based Orincon, another software
engineering company whose customers have included the Navy and several
intelligence agencies.
Orincon grew slowly after it was founded three decades ago by former
UCSD professor Daniel Alspach.
But in the late 1990s, after it signed on with Lowery's firm, the
privately held company's growth curve turned sharply upward.
Early each year, as the defense appropriations subcommittee was
assembling the annual Pentagon spending bill, Alspach and Lowery would
visit Lewis' office, meeting with Letitia White and sometimes with
Lewis himself, according to records examined by Copley News Service.
The ability to arrange such meetings is a hallmark of high-powered
lobbying firms, which profit handsomely from their ability to market
their insider contacts.
Lowery and White's firm boasted of its connections in a 2002 entry on
the company's Web site.
"When you need to negotiate the complexities of government policy and
elicit attention of pivotal representatives, an advocate with
exceptional credentials and expertise can provide crucial assistance,"
stated the pitch to prospective clients.
The firm dismantled the Web site last summer, shortly after the
Cunningham scandal broke.
Orincon paid $720,000 for the firm's services between 1998 and 2003.
Lowery was given a seat on Orincon's board of directors.
Alspach and his Orincon colleagues also invested heavily in political
contributions to Lewis -- at least $102,000 between 1998 and 2003 --
and provided first-class hospitality for the congressman and his staff.
In April 1999, White, Lewis and Lowery traveled at Orincon's expense to
San Diego to visit the company's headquarters.
They stayed two nights at La Valencia, one of La Jolla's most
prestigious resort hotels.
Lewis' eighth-floor, oceanfront suite cost $700 a night.
White reported that lodging for her and her husband cost a total of
$1,000.
Orincon's sales, heavily dependent on federal contracts, zoomed from
$10 million in the mid-1990s to $52 million in 2003, the year Lockheed
bought the company.
Terms of the sale were never announced.
But Lowery received part of the proceeds as owner of several thousand
shares of Orincon's closely held stock.
When Alspach went on to start a venture capital company, Homeland
Venture Partners, he named Lowery to its advisory board.
Orincon's defense industry work has been praised by the Pentagon, and
even the most outspoken critics of earmarks acknowledge that sometimes
they fund worthy projects.
"There are some perfectly fine earmarks," said Winslow Wheeler, a
former defense appropriations aide to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.
But Wheeler says the process is riddled with opportunities for abuse
and insider dealing, especially since the earmarked proposals seldom
receive careful congressional scrutiny before they are embedded in law.
"The fundamental problem is that nobody knows if it is a good idea or a
bad idea," Wheeler said.
"And that is not an accident. Congress doesn't want to know."
______________________________________________________________
Republicans doing what they do best.
Harry
(see all of Harry Hope's excellent posts as they break, put this link
in your browser, use it, this is a search on google groups, on the
author Harry Hope sorted by date... nothing fancy):
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&start=0&scoring=d&enc_author=-nIhFBQAAACtBOUGAhN9cSve8yYdFJBuOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A&
.
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