Jack Abramoff

With a record in Washington as long and troublesome as Roy Blunt's, it's a challenge for anyone to keep track of all the stories and scandals. Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, the K Street Project, special favors for Philip Morris....Blunt and his consultants hope you forget them all.

Remembering that bit of wisdom from George Santayana, we've begun to pull together key reports, articles and columns written about Blunt, Inc. into one place.  Check it out. 

Roy Blunt's recent "Jobs for Missouri's Future" Bus Tour is a bore compared to his far more lavish Washington tours. In the "K Street Jobs Tour," Roy and his lobbying buddies make regular stops at their favorite venues along the Potomac, including top restaurants, spas, sporting events, and resorts.

Intrepid Fired Up! tipsters have obtained exclusive access to the tour itinerary and have concocted a virtual tour for your viewing pleasure disgust. Before you get started on this virtual tour, let's stop for a historic review to enhance your understanding of congressional/corporate homology. Discover how Roy Blunt became a leading K Street acolyte and a star pupil of Tom DeLay's, learning the art of deal-making, back-slapping, and go-along-to-get-along politics that have served him so well for the last 14 years.

View Roy Blunt's "K Street Jobs Tour" in a larger map Read More »

Four years ago today, Republicans in the House of Representatives chose a new Majority Leader to replace indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX).  Rep. Roy Blunt, DeLay's hand-picked lieutenant, was expected to fill the slot, and Blunt had publicly predicted an outright win in the three man race. 

Blunt won a plurality of the votes in the first ballot against Reps. John Boehner (R-OH) and John Shadegg (R-AZ) -- but came 6 votes shy of receiving a majority.  Shadegg came in third, and dropped out for the second ballot.  His support swung to Boehner, and Blunt was defeated on the second go-round by a 122-109 vote. 

The rejection of Blunt's bid to be Majority Leader was a clear repudiation of the Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff legacy, to which Blunt was and is inextricably linked. 

The St. Louis Democratic Party launched a new website today at www.BluntAndAbramoff.com looking at the connections between Rep. Roy Blunt and uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff. 

In its initial form, the site focuses on the meetings Blunt and his aides had with Team Abramoff, Blunt's exclusive "friend of the owner" status at Abramoff's DC restaurant, the campaign money Blunt received from Abramoff and Blunt's many connections to Tom DeLay.

Justice Department lawyers wrapped up their case today against former John Ashcroft aide and Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring.

The case, which went to the jury this afternoon after four hours of closing arguments and three weeks of trial, explored relationships between Justice Department officials and Team Abramoff...

Four years ago today, the Associated Press published a comprehensive breakdown of the collaboration between Roy Blunt and Tom DeLay to move campaign cash between "secretive" committees. 

Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt — now occupying DeLay's former post as House Majority Leader — through a series of donations that benefited both men’s causes.

When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay’s private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay’s wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt’s son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also came into the picture.

The Anti Corruption Republican blog has an unsettling dispatch from the ongoing trial of Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, charged with illegally influencing federal officials with expensive meals, drinks and tickets to concerts and sporting events.

On the stand last week, former Abramoff deputy Todd Boulanger admitted that he had quite the nickname for Trevor Blackann, a former staffer for both Kit Bond and Roy Blunt: "FedEx." 

"FedEx" -- as in he delivers, and fast.

Four years ago today, House Speaker Dennis Hastert named Roy Blunt to take over Tom DeLay's duties as Majority Leader after DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws.

Blunt was one of DeLay's "staunchest defenders," and even promised to seek guidance from DeLay while he was under indictment. From a 2005 AP story about Blunt's ascendance and closeness to DeLay:

[Blunt] has been among DeLay's most visible defenders since the beginning of a probe into possible campaign fundraising violations. Blunt has contributed $5,000 to DeLay's legal defense fund and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, a children's charity.

He continued that support Wednesday after DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws. Blunt vowed that DeLay would not stop exerting influence in the House leadership.

Three years ago yesterday, Roy Blunt was named to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington's (CREW) list of "The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress."  CREW's list, which contained members of both parties, was released to highlight "the egregious, unethical and possibly illegal activities of the most tainted members of Congress."

CREW's 2006 report touched on several points, including Blunt's secret insertion of a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefited Philip Morris at the expense of competitors, his work for a last-minute provision into a $79 billion emergency Iraq spending appropriations bill benefiting UPS and FedEx, and his ties to Jack Abramoff.

The federal investigation of Jack Abramoff and his associates is still very much alive. So alive, in fact, that the government is still pursuing information from "numerous public officials."

In court documents filed last week as part of the prosecution of Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, the government has made known some very interesting details:

The government will interview numerous public officials over the coming months as a result of other prosecutions arising from the Abramoff investigation. As the trial team obtains reports memorializing those interviews, they will be added to the trial team’s database and searched and produced as described above.

With Roy Blunt's many, many connections to the Abramoff scandal -- and the "other prosecutions" including for Blunt aide Trevor Blackann -- it's just preposterous to think that Blunt has not been or will not be interviewed.

Blunt must tell the public if he has been interviewed as part of the ongoing investigation, and if not, he should pledge to make it known immediately when he is interviewed.

Roy Blunt (R-K Street) has claimed repeatedly in the past few days that his many years of service in Washington have been as "transparent as possible."  To support his assertion, Blunt points to the fact that people can look at his voting record online. Of course, this is a remarkably unimpressive feat, as his votes are already published online by the Library of Congress.

More importantly, however, we should all remember that Blunt's service has been anything but transparent. One of the most obvious examples of his actual pattern of behavior was Blunt's work with Tom Delay to create secretive legal entities for the purpose of evading public scrutiny:

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 6, 2005

DELAY AND BLUNT SWAPPED DONATIONS BETWEEN SECRETIVE GROUPS

Reps. Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt, the deputy who succeeded him as House majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own pet causes.

Read More »

Emboldened by recent events and internal polling showing overwhelming public support  for the work of George W. Bush, Matt Blunt, Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican way for running government into the ground, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Another Era) will kick off his US Senate campaign tomorrow morning at Harris-Stowe State University.

Clearly, the masses have been clamoring for a Blunt candidacy.  Blunt's core constituency of Washington insiders is already excited about his prospects. Last week, for example, Republicans cheered when Jim Talent chose not to run:

Blunt...is D.C. personified. Not only does he have more K Street ties than Mark Shale and Jack Henry combined, he's married to a lobbyist. His son is one. His links to that world, and by extension former Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, and by extension (again) disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, are ingredients for a Democratic campaign feast.

Those connections are a big reason why Blunt's fellow Republicans rejected the Missourian as majority leader in 2006, ultimately denying him his dream of becoming House speaker.

Blunt is the father of former Gov. Matt Blunt who remained popular among Republicans, but struggled at the end of his term with independents and Democrats. The Blunt name is golden no longer.

GOP Columnist Ryan Cooper beat the same drum this week:

Former Sen. Jim Talent would have been a better choice, but he announced last week that he wouldn't run. Blunt's biggest mistake was his support for the $700 billion bank bailout, an albatross that [Sarah] Steelman will hang around his neck. Outside of southwest Missouri, the only Blunt known statewide is his son Matt, an unpopular one-term governor. Roy will have to distance himself from Matt's support of embryonic stem cell research and shed his congressional image.

It seems that the hand-wringing has begun in Republican circles about the prospects of a Roy Blunt Senate run. From Steve Kraske:

Not only does [Blunt] have more K Street ties than Mark Shale and Jack Henry combined, he's married to a lobbyist. His son is one. His links to that world, and by extension former Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, and by extension (again) disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, are ingredients for a Democratic campaign feast.

Those connections are a big reason why Blunt's fellow Republicans rejected the Missourian as majority leader in 2006, ultimately denying him his dream of becoming House speaker.

Blunt is the father of former Gov. Matt Blunt who remained popular among Republicans, but struggled at the end of his term with independents and Democrats. The Blunt name is golden no longer.

Of course, Blunt's ties to Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff are far from casual, but the point is well taken.

David Catanese notes this morning that Todd Boulanger, a close associate of Jack Abramoff, Roy Blunt and Kit Bond, has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

From the Washington Post:­

Prosecutors say Boulanger, while working for Abramoff, plied government officials with gifts, including sporting and concert tickets, meals and all-expense paid trips, in exchange for political favors...

Blunt says he will run for Bond's seat.

 Word is he already has fundraising commitments from Jack Abramoff.