Posted on 01/08/2006 2:50:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two Republican congressman from Northern California used their positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a Texas businessman who had given them political contributions, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo, along with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, fought an investigation by federal banking regulators of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, according to government documents and copies of letters between the congressmen and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials obtained by The Times.
The FDIC was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his alleged role in the collapse of the United Savings Association of Texas, which cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.
Hurwitz had a controlling interest in the savings and loan company, but the investigation was dropped after the Republican leaders voiced their opinions, the newspaper reported.
In 1999, DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC criticizing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees."
When investigators persisted, Doolittle and Pombo allegedly used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency's confidential records on the case, the Times reported. Those records included details of evidence federal investigators had compiled on Hurwitz.
In 2001, the congressmen inserted many of those documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz's lawyers.
Federal officials said their case was damaged, and in 2002 dropped it.
Doolittle and Pombo have publicly defended Hurwitz, saying the inquiry was unfair.
Hurwitz's lawyer said Friday that investigators had been overzealous. This summer, a judge in Texas agreed and awarded Hurwitz attorney fees and other costs in a civil suit he filed.
"They sought to humiliate him," U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, said in the ruling. The government is appealing the decision.
Hurwitz has been a prolific campaign donor since the early 1990s.
Some of his contributions have been made with money from his Houston-based flagship company, Maxxam Inc., through subsidiaries such as Kaiser Aluminum, and through a company political action committee, Maxxam Inc. Federal PAC.
In the last three federal elections cycles, those entities have given about $443,000 in political contributions, mostly to conservative politicians, including President Bush, for whom Hurwitz pledged to raise $100,000 in the 2000 campaign, documents show.
Starting in the 2000, the businessman and his committees have distributed at least $30,000 to DeLay and his federal causes, including $5,000 for his current legal defense fund in the Texas money-laundering case.
Hurwitz also contributed $1,000 to Pombo for his 1996 re-election campaign. And through the Maxxam PAC, Hurwitz gave Doolittle $5,000 for his 2002 re-election campaign and then followed up with $2,000 more for his 2004 race, documents show.
ap sourced this from the la times, btw.
...fry 'em; or let 'em twist slowly in the wind...
That may sound like the boogie man, but where is the crime? Inuendo is not the moral equivilent of crime.
The democrats are making a playing a very stupid game by going after Republicans on these donations and lobbyists issues. The Republicans are going to hit them hard on these issues as well. Soros and his cronies, the homosexual lobby, and the environmentalist lobby, the abortion lobby, are going to be far more damaging than Abramoff.
What? No reference to a Texas oil services co.
My dog has fur and my cat has fur therefore my dog is a cat.
Who is it in congress supressing the Barrett Report?
People do forget the gigantic number of conservative groups that were audited under Clinton. Forgive me for being a little skeptical here.
I expect the gristmill of justice to grind exceedingly slow before we see the full web of accusations, offenses, and charges possibly criminal.
We can only infer from what we see so far that there is no exclusitivity of questionable and likely condemnable acts being done by folks on BoOTH sides of the aisle.
Keep in mind, it is an election year, so expect the left to wail away, even as they hide their own from the same "fair and impartial" coverage and treatment of the issues at hand.
I think it's more of a filler article,, keeps the newspumps primed over the weekend, just present some what sound like ominous allegations titled to titillate the cranially impaired, ie; anyone who would vote for Kerry or Gore. lol
and folks wonder why the la times and most newsrags are losing circulation and money? tsk tsk
most of them folks can't read. lol
uh... yeah, that's a good idea... but fry who? The investigators who abused their government positions to go after someone for his support of conservative politicians? Or Mr. Hurwitz for having the audacity to own controlling interest in a business that failed?
Businesses do fail you know... and it's typically not a crime so much as shame when you lose your own investment capital in the process.
I don't know enough about this particular case to know if there has been a crime and if there was, I would not be surprised to learn that it was not Mr. Hurwitz, Mr. Delay nor these Northern California congress critters who committed the crime... could well be a case of democratic appointees or their lackey's going after someone to discredit him and remove a source of revenue supporting conservative opponents...
Hey thats funny! Republicans are going to hit them hard on issues! Do you write for Leno?
I am expected to take seriously a "hit piece" written by an illiterate moonbat?
This is as far as I got...
Slap!!! This whole thing was inspired by the Sierra Club et al to strip money from Huriwitz for the Headwaters buyout of Pacific Lumber Co.
$1,000 bucks to Pombo...big whoop de doo. I've probably given that much to Pombo
Keating 2?
Really? We didn't when they lied about the intel. We didn't when Rockafeller leaked how leaked how to go after judges. We didn't when Reid & Lehey leaked classified information. We didn't when Kerry outed a CIA official. we didn't go after the Democraps for thier hypocracy on the same crimes that DeLay lost his job over! ...Shall I go on?
The first three points that you mentioned will have little effect on the electorate and it will be wasting energy to pursue it. Leave it to the Radio talk shows to consume such points. On the issue of Delay, I do not think he committed any crimes so you need to retract what you wrote. However, we will find very damaging things to use against the democrats corruption, but we shall do it closer to elections time to have a real impact. Remember the name "Soros".
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