Posted on 08/02/2002 1:17:27 PM PDT by glorygirl
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senior House Democrat is seeking an investigation into contact between the Justice Department and a longtime friend and adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft who signed up Oklahoma City bombing survivors for an effort to win them government payments in exchange for some of the proceeds.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, asked Friday for a review by the Justice Department's inspector general, who performs internal investigations. In a letter to the attorney general, Conyers said he is concerned that Ashcroft's friend "attempted to use his close relationship with you and your staff to profit from Oklahoma City bombing victims."
The Ashcroft friend, St. Louis attorney Charles Polk, recruited about 120 survivors and victims' relatives for the lobbying campaign, which fell apart last month amid lawsuits and an ethics complaint involving the organizers, according to court documents and interviews.
The goal was to win a share of the hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for families of Sept. 11 victims.
Polk is well known among Missouri Republicans and was at Ashcroft's side in early 2001 during his contentious Senate confirmation hearing.
Justice officials acknowledged Thursday that Polk has had occasional contact with senior Justice officials, including Ashcroft, adviser David Israelite and Sept. 11 fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg. But officials were unaware he was soliciting business from Oklahoma City victims, or had a financial stake, Justice spokeswoman Barbara Comstock said.
"No one in the attorney general's office, including the attorney general himself, had any idea that Charles Polk was working on any legal matters related to Oklahoma City victims or that Polk had a financial interest in connection with Oklahoma City," Comstock said.
Conyers asked Ashcroft to respond in writing to whether he or his staff encouraged Polk to seek compensation for the Oklahoma survivors or indicated agreement with his aims, discussed payments for Oklahoma survivors with Polk or discussed Polk's financial interest in Oklahoma survivors. Conyers also wants to know when Polk contacted Feinberg and what they discussed.
Polk said in a statement released by his attorney that he worked as a lobbyist in an attempt to win compensation for the Oklahoma victims but never discussed it with Ashcroft and cleared all his actions in advance with lawyers.
"We operated under the assumption that we were in compliance with all applicable laws," Polk's statement said.
Some who worked with Polk say the St. Louis attorney suggested to them that Ashcroft's department supported the idea of extending the compensation Congress set up for Sept. 11 victims to the Oklahoma City families.
"He did say the Department of Justice felt there was probably an injustice and it would probably administratively happen, but it wasn't for certain," said Kathleen Treanor, an Oklahoma City woman who lost her 4-year-old child and in-laws in the explosion on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people. She joined the effort to sign up victims for the campaign.
Polk managed to get some of the Oklahoma victims a private audience with Feinberg, the lawyer Ashcroft picked to administer the Sept. 11 compensation fund, which is expected to pay out as much as $1.8 million to each of the families who lost loved ones in the suicide attacks.
"I told them I'd be glad to process their claims if Congress decided to expand the program," Feinberg said. "But I told them it was entirely up to Congress."
Victims who wanted to sign onto the venture, which also included a second lawyer and an Illinois businessman, were asked to sign forms.
The initial form called for paying "27.5 percent, plus expenses, of any amounts recovered," according to court records. The proposed fee was later adjusted to as little as 10 percent when it appeared there would be no need for litigation to win compensation for Oklahoma families, organizers said.
One Oklahoma victim, Roy Sells, said he was reluctant to hand over a percentage of compensation he might receive, "but it seemed like, at that time, no one else was doing anything as far as the Oklahoma City victims were concerned."
"I'm discouraged that they were that kind of money-hungry, get-rich-quick type deal," Sells said.
James Helenthal, a publisher of an Illinois shopping newspaper who partnered with Polk on the campaign but later had a falling out with him, alleges in a lawsuit that Polk told him in March that Ashcroft had encouraged the venture to help Oklahomans.
"Mr. Polk told Mr. Helenthal that he ... had gotten the nod from key government officials on this, that they wanted him to get this deal and all he really needed to was go out there and sign them up," the suit alleges.
The suit was filed last week in St. Louis County after an earlier suit was thrown out in Illinois. Helenthal alleges he is owed hundreds of thousand of dollars he invested in the venture. Polk also has sued Helenthal.
Polk called Helenthal's allegations a "transparent attempt to create political pressure on me."
"I never met with or talked to Attorney General Ashcroft regarding anything to do with Oklahoma City," he said.
Justice officials said Polk talks occasionally to Ashcroft's staff on matters such as preparing for appearances on TV news show and that it was possible he made some inquiries about the compensation fund.
In Helenthal's lawsuit, he alleges Polk suggested that Israelite, a key Ashcroft aide at Justice, told him "that it looked better and better for the OKC victims to be added to the legislation," assuring them of compensation.
Israelite disputes that he made such a statement, Comstock said, but recalls Polk "did generally speak about his views that Oklahoma City should be eligible for the victims' fund." She said Israelite was unaware of Polk's representation or financial arrangement.
While Ashcroft's department administers the Sept. 11 victims' fund, it cannot expand the money to Oklahoma City victims without congressional approval. Lawmakers are considering the idea.
Helenthal and Polk formed a venture called Fairness for OKC and wrote an agreement to split up any proceeds they won -- 55 percent to Polk, 45 percent to Helenthal, according to documents in the Helenthal lawsuit.
A third partner was brought into the venture, St. Louis attorney Douglas Dowd, who has connections to prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt.
Dowd was to handle any litigation, Polk would handle lobbying in Washington and Helenthal was to handle marketing, according to Treanor and Polk's attorney.
Polk said he and Helenthal relied on Dowd's "expertise as an attorney to make sure all legal matters were appropriately handled."
But Dowd's attorney, Maurice Graham, said Thursday his client never approved "the bulk of" the contracts Oklahoma City victims were asked to sign and that Dowd recently filed an ethics complaint against Polk in Missouri.
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Associated Press writers John Solomon in Washington and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.
Hey, Conyers, you were one of the few who initially berated Janet Reno for Waco. You were right then, as many of us have had to recognize since then. What made you back down so fast and continue to back the government line over Waco ever since?
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
But... Was he lying?
LOL, only if his strings were in motion.
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