Posted on 01/08/2006 6:01:21 AM PST by balch3
WASHINGTON — In a case that echoes the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, two Northern California Republican congressmen used their official positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a wealthy Texas businessman who provided them with political contributions.
Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.
The investigation was ultimately dropped.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ping to self for later reading.
I think it just confirms that Tom Delay's resignation is not going to end the attacks. If anything, it encourages them. Spinelessness in the face of these assaults gets us nowhere.
I disagree. If it's a smear, by all means stand by them. But if it turns out they did something wrong, let's get rid of them. Get rid of the sleaze in Washington, no matter which party. Turning a blind eye to it just makes us look bad in the long run.
"The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees." When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo — both considered proteges of DeLay — used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency's confidential records on the case, including details of the evidence FDIC investigators had compiled on Hurwitz.
"Then, in 2001, the two congressmen inserted many of the sensitive documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz's lawyers, a move that FDIC officials said damaged the government's ability to pursue the banker."
This Hurwitz matter, on the face of it, is troubling. I can't say DeLay is clean unless this gets cleared up. Let the chips fall. And we should never forget to treat the rats in kind, like we should have been from the beginning.
No fun being the bearer of bad tidings. But without it, we don't know how to take the next, correct step, whichever it will be. I hope DeLay is completely vindicated.
Ready for a related article that mentions Hurwitz and DeLay? Not sure how relevant this is, but here goes:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/4/11/222100.shtml
Monday, April 11, 2005 10:19 p.m. EDT
DeLay Fundraising Plied Special Interests
"...A Sept. 9, 2002, TRMPAC trip listed donation-seeking visits for fundraiser Susan Lilly and a state GOP representative, Beverly Woolley.
"In an interview, Lilly said of the notations next to the names of prospective donors, "These were my personal notes. It was just my personal knowledge of what a person likes or dislikes. They were notes I took at the meeting," she said.
"37 other states have it," she wrote next to Charles Hurwitz, the racetrack owner seeking video gambling whose company made a TRMPAC donation soon after the meeting..."
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