Flashback: AP Exposes How Blunt and DeLay "Swapped Donations Between Secretive Groups"
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.
And who was lurking in the shadows as the money was moved around? Who else?
Much of the money — including one donation to Blunt from an Abramoff client accused of running a “sweatshop” garment factory in the Northern Mariana Islands — changed hands in the spring of 2000, a period of keen interest to federal prosecutors...
Both DeLay and Blunt and their aides also met with Abramoff’s lobbying team several times in 2000 and 2001 on the Marianas issues, according to law firm billing records obtained by AP under an open records request. DeLay was instrumental in blocking legislation opposed by some of Abramoff’s clients.
[Lawrence Noble, the Federal Election Commission’s chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred,] said investigators should examine whether the pattern of disguising the original source of money might have been an effort to hide the leaders’ simultaneous financial and legislative dealings with Abramoff and his clients.
“You see Abramoff involved and see the meetings that were held and one gets the sense Abramoff is helping this along in order to get access and push his clients’ interest,” he said. “And at the same time, you see Delay and Blunt trying to hide the root of their funding.
“All of these transactions may have strings attached to them. ... I think you would want to look, if you aren’t already looking, at the question of a quid pro quo,” Noble said.
Accordingly, Blunt was fined by the Missouri Ethics Commission for "improperly concealing" his fundraising.
Blunt’s group, a nonfederal wing of his Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, eventually registered its activities in Missouri but paid a $3,000 fine for improperly concealing its fundraising in 1999 and spring 2000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.
Both groups — DeLay’s and Blunt’s — were simultaneously paying [Jim] Ellis, the longtime DeLay fundraiser who was indicted along with his boss in Texas in the alleged money laundering scheme.
The DeLay group began transferring money to Blunt’s group in two checks totaling $150,000 in the spring of 2000, well before Republicans actually met in Philadelphia for the convention. The transfers accounted for most of money Blunt’s group received during that period.
The AP also outlined how the wheeling between the Delay and Blunt committees worked:
March 2000: ARMPAC, a political action committee formed by Rep. DeLay, contributes $50,000 to the Rely on Your Own Beliefs (ROYB) Fund, started by Rep. Blunt. See the document
April 2000: Rep. Blunt's ROYB Fund donates $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, a charity formed by DeLay in 1986 to help abused and neglected children. See the document
Also in April, Rep. Blunt's ROYB Fund pays $40,000 to The Alexander Strategy Group, a consulting firm which not only is run by a former DeLay chief of staff, but which also employ's DeLay's wife, Christine DeLay. See the document
May 2000: DeLay's ARMPAC convention fund contributes $100,000 to Blunt's ROYB fund.See the document
June 2000: Blunt's ROYB Fund contributes $100,000 to the Missouri Republican Party, where Blunt's son, Matt Blunt, is running for secretary of state. See the document
Fall 2000: DeLay's ARMPAC donates $50,000 to the Missouri Republican Party. See the document
Fall 2000: The Missouri Republican Party contributes $50,000 to ARMPAC. See the document
When the FEC's top lawyer -- a man who's probably seen every sort of shady maneuver under the sun -- says...
You see Abramoff involved and see the meetings that were held and one gets the sense Abramoff is helping this along in order to get access and push his clients’ interest,...And at the same time, you see Delay and Blunt trying to hide the root of their funding.
...we should sit up and take notice.
Image credit: MSNBC
