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Congressman Edwards has some explaining to do
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Congressman Edwards has some explaining to do
Ethics violations, FBI raids, record earmarks expenses, back-door lobbyist deals… It sounds like the plot to a great political action novel, or something that we regularly hear from the likes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
But what has originated as an epic Washington D.C. thriller became an all-too-real backdoor political game with ties right here in Central Texas and our own congressman, Chet Edwards.
It started in 1989 with the conception of the lobbying firm PMA Group. Under the direction of Paul Magliocchetti, a former aid for U.S. Rep John Murtha (D- PA), PMA Group lobbied congressmen to secure earmark funds for several defense contracting companies through defense appropriations bills.
Magliocchetti’s position as Murtha’s aid on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which aligns and distributes House funds spent on national defense, provided Magliocchetti close contact with defense firms which would later become clients of PMA Group.
Magliocchetti and others at the PMA Group routinely lobbied Congress – specifically the committees and subcommittees that delved out appropriations – on behalf of clients seeking those funds.
Paul Magliocchetti’s influence resulted in his clients receiving billions of taxpayer dollars earmarked in various pieces of legislation.
In 2006 alone, PMA Group raked in over $16 million in income while securing nearly $100 million in earmarks for their clients. Since its conception in 1989, the PMA Group quickly rose to become one of K Street’s top 10 most powerful lobbyist groups with an exclusive client list consisting of defense companies such as Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and L-3.
The PMA Group’s reign of lobbying supremacy came to a sudden halt earlier in 2009 after the group disbanded following a November 2008 FBI raid and became the target of ethics violation investigations.
In a scandal reminiscent of Jack Abramoff, it seemed that Paul Maglicchetti’s method of showering lawmakers with gifts potentially in exchange for earmark funds had caught the eye of the FBI and has spurred a late investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
Mr. Magliocchetti’s taste for the high life eventually led to the downfall of his powerful lobbying firm. He would routinely stroll into some of D.C.’s finest establishments, and bolster the mood of attending lawmakers with rounds of the restaurants’ finest wines and choicest dishes.
It is reported in the New York Times that just days after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Magliocchetti wined and dined a crowd of boisterous lawmakers in a private room at the Capital Grille, where one lawmaker apparently led sing-a-longs to popular Beatles and Sinatra tunes. Magliocchetti, of course, picked up the tab.
This was far from a single isolated event. The head chef and owner of the Alpine, a popular D.C. area Italian restaurant, remembered Mr. Magliocchetti’s frequent visits to dote upon lawmakers as “Every day, a different thing.”
With great regularity, Magliocchetti treated lawmakers to such lavish meals, but that hardly scrapes the surface of corruption emanating from the PMA Group scandal.
The initial focus of the FBI investigation was PMA’s use of straw campaign contributors. Reportedly, the PMA Group used, among other people, a wine sommelier and a golf club executive to funnel money to lawmakers who were responsible for millions in earmark dollars for PMA clients. Each reportedly contributed large sums of money to lawmakers close to Magliocchetti. These illegal donations amount to a felony punishable by a minimum sentence of five years in a federal prison.
So who are all of these lawmakers?
Currently in the early stages of the investigation, the FBI has focused on the three top donation recipients of PMA.
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), was the single highest recipient of PMA donations and the single largest contributor to PMA’s earmarks. He is followed by Reps. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) and Jim Moran (D-VA).
Not far down the list from them, however, is Waco’s own Chet Edwards, who received close to $64,000 in donations from the PMA Group PAC and PMA employees. That ranks Congressman Edwards 12th highest on the PMA donors list consisting of 514 lawmakers.
If the donation list is expanded to include donations from clients of the PMA Group in addition to the donations from the PMA Group PAC and employees, Congressman Edwards has raked in nearly $378,000 since 1998. That ranks Congressman Edwards 11th on the list of top donations recipients.
This is not surprising considering that Edwards is a champion at bringing home the bacon, so to speak, ranking him 6th out of the 435 representatives on a list of top earmark recipients. Included in Congressman Edwards earmark largesse are over $6 million in fiscal year 2008 for PMA Group Clients which donated handsomely to his campaign.
Since Congressman Edwards’ $378,000 in donations largely came from private companies, albeit clients of PMA group, the focus is primarily on the money he received directly from PMA Group and its employees and the potential ethics violations that have garnered the attention of federal investigators.
The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics ranks the PMA Group PAC and PMA Group employees as the leading contributors to at least 40 Democrats, including Rep. Chet Edwards.
The money in Edwards’ campaign coffers not only came directly from Paul Magliocchetti, but the list includes PMA employees Julie Giagardina, Rebecca Kingery-Derosa, Richard Efford, and Richard Kaelin.
The list goes on to include a man named Jon Walker. According to OpenSecret’s donations records, Jon Walker is listed as a partner EVAS Worldwide, an aircraft safety company in New Jersey. In 2005, 2006, and 2007 Walker donated a total $3,500 to Congressman Edwards.
The problem with that, according to the EVAS Worldwide president, is that Jon Walker was never a partner at EVAS Worldwide. He has no idea who Jon Walker, a supposed partner in his business, is.
FEC records, however, confirm that Jon Walker, at the time, was an employee and partner at the PMA Group, although he transacted PMA business from his home in Florida and never registered as a lobbyist.
The list doesn’t stop there, however. Remember that wine sommelier that Paul Magliocchetti allegedly used to illegally funnel donation money to lawmakers? His name is John Pugliese, and over the course of the last two campaigns, he has donated $2,500 to Congressman Edwards.
Congressman Edwards was not alone in securing earmarks for clients of the defunct PMA Group. The list includes over 100 names, including 54 Democrats and 50 Republicans, who secured over $300 million in federal funds for various PMA clients in fiscal Year 2008.
Congressman Edwards’ $6 million that he earmarked for PMA clients ranked him 17th out of the total 104 and 8th out of the 52 congressmen who acted on their own in securing those earmarks.
The Investigation
The investigation is centering on Paul Magliocchetti and former employees of the PMA Group as well as the three Democratic congressmen seen as ring leaders in the defense appropriations committee, John Murtha, Peter Visclosky, and Jim Moran.
It appears, however, that the corruption runs far deeper than just that small circle. Since 1998, the PMA Group and their clients have donated over $40 million to lawmakers who worked to acquire earmarks. That list includes over 500 lawmakers. Additionally, the list of lawmakers who have secured earmarks for PMA far exceeds the 104 just in the House who secured the funds in 2008.
However, the investigation has been halted by members of the House. Back in February, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) sponsored a proposal that would force the House Ethics Committee to launch a formal investigation into the deep ties between the PMA Group and House members. By a mostly partisan vote of 226-182, the proposal to open investigation into those ties failed, including Congressman Edwards’ vote to close the matter.
All of this came after the November 2008 FBI raid of PMA headquarters. Even after the raid, PMA managed to secure $8.8 million in federal earmarks for their clients in the $410 billion omnibus legislation passed earlier this year.
Since then, the PMA Group has entirely disbanded. Several former employees have joined with or started their own lobbying firms on K Street. Paul Magliocchetti has returned to Florida, and with his wife, has shifted his focus to his Italian restaurant.
The investigation, at this point, appears to be stalled and largely hampered by Democrats in the House, most of whom voted, in 2007, for the very ethics legislation they are questioned of violating.
In any regard, the questions out number the solutions, and the system itself remains wide open for further abuses by lobbyists and lawmakers intent of filling their coffers.
Until this matter is resolved, Congress has a lot of explaining to do.
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