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The appointment of John Deutch to an advisory panel on spy satellites violates President Obama’s pledge to hold everyone in his administration to the highest ethical standards. Deutch, who headed the CIA from May 1995 to December 1996, agreed in writing in January 2001 to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. Just after that, President Clinton pardoned him and 175 others as Clinton was leaving office. Deutch’s infraction was thus more serious than Tim Geithner’s or Tom Daschle’s failure to pay income taxes. “Deutch essentially walked away from what is one of...

News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent-free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro, D-Conn. — and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel's previously undisclosed ethics problems. One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro's husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel's days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Emanuel is a multimillionaire, but lived for the last five years for free in the tony Capitol Hill townhouse...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration and the new Congress are quickly handing over to Republicans the same "culture of corruption" issue that Democrats used so effectively against the GOP before coming to power.

The Obama administration and the new Congress are quickly handing over to Republicans the same "culture of corruption" issue that Democrats used so effectively against the GOP before coming to power. The political mess for the Democratic Party, however, isn't Burris' conduct alone; it's the pattern that has developed so quickly over the past few months.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration and the new Congress are quickly handing over to Republicans the same "culture of corruption" issue that Democrats used so effectively against the GOP before coming to power. Freshman Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., is only the latest embarrassment. Senate Democrats accepted Burris because they believed what he told them: He was clean. Burris now admits he tried to raise money for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who authorities say sought to sell President Barack Obama's former Senate seat. "The story seems to be changing day by day," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday. The...

Now Rahm Emanuel is accused? "NEWS broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent- free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) - and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel's previously undisclosed ethics problems. ..... Emanuel never declared the substantial gift of free rent on any of his financial-disclosure forms. He and De Lauro claim that it was just allowable "hospitality" between colleagues. Hospitality - for five years? Some experts suggest that it was also taxable income: Over...

Give Barack Obama credit. Barely a month on the job and already he’s increased tax revenues by hundreds of thousands of dollars. He nominated Timothy (Tiny Tim) Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury and Geithner immediately discovered he’d forgotten to pay $48,000 in back taxes. So he paid them. Then he chose Tom Daschle as his Secretary of Health and Human Services and Daschle quickly coughed up $140 K in back taxes. Too late. He had to withdraw his candidacy; just after the president’s candidate for chief government performance officer withdrew hers because of tax problems. She paid up...

Senate clears ex-lobbyist as Pentagon No. 2 Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:06pm EST Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+] By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved William Lynn, a former Raytheon Co lobbyist, to be deputy secretary of defense after he received a special White House waiver from strict new rules meant to close a "revolving door" between government and big business. Lynn, the Pentagon's chief financial officer from November 1997 to January 2001 under former President Bill Clinton, was confirmed by a vote of 93 to 4 on Wednesday. Raytheon is...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to confirm William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, endorsing President Barack Obama's decision to waive ethics regulations by putting a former defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon. Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Charles Grassley of Iowa expressed reservations before the Senate voted 93-4 to approve the nomination. McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was disappointed Obama would backtrack on his promise to keep lobbyists out of the federal government. On his first day in office, Obama issued an executive...

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." —President Obama, Feb. 4Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill. And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the...

In Chicago, Barack Obama’s M.O. was to talk the talk of a reformer and walk the walk of an old-school machine politician. When he got called on it, he did what machine politicians do: He waxed eloquent about his commitment to transparency even as he stonewalled, obfuscated, and lied. That is how convicted fraudster Tony Rezko was transformed, before our very eyes, from a guy Obama barely knew to a contributor who may have helped Obama’s political campaigns, then to a bundler who’d actually raised more than $250,000 (some five times the amount claimed in Obama’s initial admission), to a...

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules. FOR THE RECORD: An article reporting that Mark Gitenstein is the lead candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations said his nomination would require a waiver from the Obama administration's ethics rules. The article should say it may require a waiver; as the article later states, a Justice Department...

You never get a second chance to make a first post-inaugural impression. Less than three weeks into his first 100 days, Barack Obama has left an indelible mark on his nascent presidency: the mark of incompetence and hubris. Despite the administration's much-touted wealth of bright minds and high bars, the transition has been a complete disaster. n a double whammy on Tuesday, tax troubles and ethical clouds forced the withdrawal of not one but two high-profile Obama nominees. These come on the heels of former Commerce Secretary-nominee Bill Richardson's withdrawal due to a pay-for-play probe in New Mexico and Treasury...

Now that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination for health secretary because of his failure to pay taxes, and Nancy Killefer, who was appointed chief performance officer and deputy OMB director, has also withdrawn because of non-payment of taxes, it is time for Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to do exactly the same. Geithner never answered the question put to him by senators Kyl and Bunning: Would he have paid his back taxes if he were not nominated to run the Treasury? His issue has never been resolved. He will never have the full trust of the country. Consider this: Daschle...

Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Surely this isn't what Obama meant when he vowed change By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — These first days aren't going the way that President Barack Obama hoped when he promised to change the way Washington operates. He remains popular, with broad support from the American people, but the taint of politics as usual is challenging the aura of something new. Three of his top nominees have been caught with tax problems, two them departing abruptly Tuesday. Two more were former lobbyists named to high positions despite Obama's ban on lobbyists in...

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much for sitting down with us today. Explain what happened today, Tom Daschle, you've let one of the most important domestic issues, which is health care, get caught up in what looks to many Americans like politics as usual. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think what happened was that Tom made an assessment that having made a mistake on his taxes that he took responsibility for, and indicated was a mistake, made the assessment that he was going to be too much of a distraction in trying to lead what...

LOL!

The Times of India claimed that Barack Obama had appointed seventeen lobbyists to high government positions in the first 14 days of his administration. Politico provided a list of twelve of these last week, a handy reference with which we can start building our lists of “exceptions” to the Obama Administration Ethics Policy: Here are former lobbyists Obama has tapped for top jobs: Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm [now confirmed].Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last...

During almost two years on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to slay the demons of Washington, bar lobbyists from his administration and usher in what he would later call in his Inaugural Address a "new era of responsibility." What he did not talk much about were the asterisks. The exceptions that went unmentioned now include a pair of cabinet nominees who did not pay all of their taxes. Then there is the lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon. And there are the others brought into government from...

Robert "Pinata" Gibbs was beaten like an old rug again today at the latest Obama presser. I am actually beginning to feel sorry for this rumpled sad sack who continues to bring a nerf bat to a gun fight. Among today's gems was a new explanation of how Obama could already have seventeen lobbyists working for his administration (revealed by Indian and British newspapers since American papers won't) after looking America in the eye during the campaign and giving us his solemn pledge that no lobbyist's feet would ever touch the floor in his White House. If I understood Gibbs,...