An Unexamined Scandal

Hayworth is a classic backbencher low level Congressional grifter who wants to take his skills of selling out his constituents to lobbyists, corporations and special interests from the House to the Senate. At one time, he was under investigation by the DOJ for his involvement in the Abramoff Scandal but the Feds decided to stop chasing him after he lost his House seat in 2006. This was not a surprise as the Bush DOJ did everything they could to slow-walk the Abramoff investigation and it was a ploy that kept most co-conspirators like Hayworth safe from any legal jeopardy (Republican do tend to take care of each other–especially when a scandal is involved).

Hayworth went into debt to defend himself from possible charges related to the Abramoff scandal and he set-up the Freedom In Truth Trust to get others to help him retire this debt before he officially announced his run against McCain. Naturally, many of Jack’s other pals contributed to JD’s defense fund. I found Hayworth’s defense on the site to be laughable. Documents released so far in the Abramoff scandal prove him to be a liar. For example, JD says:

Here are the simple facts:

1. Abramoff contributed a grand total of $2,250 dollars to my political efforts. ($250 in 1996, $1,000 in 1998, and $1,000 to our leadership political action committee, TEAMPAC, in 1999.)
2. I never met with Abramoff concerning any legislation.
3. He never came to my office.
4. He never lobbied me directly on any issue.

The record proves him to be a liar on points 1 and 4. Point 2 is certainly a lie if you include a phone call as a “meeting”. There are numerous records citing direct discussions between Abramoff and Hayworth. It is unclear if these meetings/discussions took place in Hayworth’s “office”, so point 3 could technically be true, but only if you exclude meetings between Hayworth’s staff and Abramoff’s staff.

There are missing donations as well. In some records, it is clear that Jack is directing specific clients to give Hayworth money. In others it is clear that Jack is using the PAC from his lobbying firm to send Hayworth money after meetings/discussions with Jack about a specific issue before Congress.

The relationship between Hayworth and Abramoff goes back to the beginning of Jack’s superstar lobbyist career in 1996. One quick example. In the fall of 1996 Abramoff was trying to get Congress to kill Legislation that would give the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (a US Territory in the Western Pacific) a Delegate to the US Congress. Jack and his sweatshop owning pals did not want the corrupt Governor they controlled from the Territory to have competition in Washington. In August of 1996 Jack and his sweatshop pals went to the GOP National Convention to meet and greet folks. In September Jack made a number of calls to Congressmen on the Resources Committee to lobby for defeating the effort. On 9-18-96 Jack directly lobbied Hayworth. A donation was made. The effort was defeated (Hayworth voted with Jack). And on 11-21-96 Jack made a “thank you” call to JD.

The Abramoff related records release to date show that this pattern was repeated (with Hayworth and many, many others), and that as time went by the way Abramoff moved money to a given Congressman or Senator was laundered with greater and greater sophistication to hide the connection to Jack and his clients (this was why some folks thought what Abramoff and his pals in Congress were doing was a scandal).

Only a small fraction of the millions of pages of emails, billing records and other evidence linking Abramoff to his co-conspirators has been released. Most of these documents are under wraps and that lets many of Jack’s old Congressional grifter buddies run for office again in 2010. In an ironic twist, a grifter like Hayworth can thank John McCain for the fact that he is out of jail and able to scam gullible voters once again. You see, John McCain had the goods on Hayworth but did not have the courage to put Country over Party or the integrity to let duty trump his ambitions.

In 2004 as the Abramoff scandal broke John McCain launched an investigation of the scandal from position as Chairman of the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee. In that investigation McCain collected ALL of Abramoff’s emails, billing records and the same for many of Jack’s other associates. For McCain it was personal, back in the 2000 Election it was Abramoff and his pals Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed who led the effort to smear McCain in South Carolina. At first, McCain went after these guys with gusto and during a November 17, 2004 Hearing on the scandal, John McCain made a promise:

I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told.

It turns out that McCain did not have the courage to keep that promise. Before that same hearing was over, McCain started to backtrack as it became clear just how big and deep the scandal was and how much harm exposing the details of the scandal would do to McCain’s Party. By March 10, 2005, Roll Call was reporting that McCain met with his colleagues and promised them protection from their crimes:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assured his colleagues that his expanding investigation into the activities of a former GOP lobbyist and a half-dozen of his tribal casino clients is not directed at revealing ethically questionable actions by Members of Congress.

He made his self-directed impotence and casual regard for justice clear in a December 2005 interview with Terry Gross on NPR (emphasis added):

Sen. McCAIN: We’re going to write a report, and there may be additional information we may have to look at, but we’ve pretty well wrapped it up. [snip]

We’ll be making legislative recommendations and other things. But it’s not the job of the Indian Affairs Committee to investigate members of Congress. That’s the Ethics Committee and other committees to do that.

And then he really explained his cowardice to Tim Russert in another 2005 interview:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you said you’re going to follow the money, but are you also going to investigate which legislators may have taken money and used that to influence legislation, to write into law what you’re suggesting…

SEN. McCAIN: Tim…

MR. RUSSERT:…the behavior of senators, your colleagues? Are you going to investigate them?

SEN. McCAIN: The–I will not, because I’m a chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. This was brought to our–this whole thing started–was brought to us–attention by some disgruntled tribal council members in a small tribe in Louisiana, and we took it as far as we thought was our responsibility, which is where the money ends up. I’m not as–we are responsible for Indian affairs. We have an Ethics Committee. We have a government–we have other committees of Congress, but we also have a very active media. And believe me…

MR. RUSSERT: Does the Ethics Committee work?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t think…

MR. RUSSERT: In all honesty?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t think the ethics committees are working very well. The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by anyone here…

MR. RUSSERT: Duke Cunningham, the congressman from California.

SEN. McCAIN:…in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that some legislators have committed a crime?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I don’t want to–everyone deserves the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. I’m not a judge and jury.

MR. RUSSERT: But there’s strong evidence to suggest that.

SEN. McCAIN: There’s strong evidence that there was significant wrongdoing, but I’m not a judge or jury.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think some legislators may be indicted?

SEN. McCAIN: All I know is what I read in the media. We stopped in the Indian Affairs Committee with where the money went, and that was our–the extent of our responsibilities.

At one point McCain had Grover Norquist in his sights. He was on the verge of issuing a subpoena for Grover’s financial records and urging the Senate Finance Committee to investigate the front groups like Americans for Tax Reform that Abramoff used to launder money. Then McCain dropped it, made peace with Grover, got Norquist’s support for his run for the White House and helped to bury the evidence linking Norquist to Abramoff. The Senate Finance investigation released a report that left more question unanswered than answered and that seemed like it stopped half-way through the process.

McCain’s investigation of the Abramoff scandal collected over 750,000 pages of documents. He has sent these documents to the National Archives where they will sit under seal for the next twenty years–it is a great way to sweep the largest Congressional scandal in decades under the rug. Still, it looks like he has kept a copy of these documents for other uses as McCain told the conservative National Review in an interview published yesterday (emphasis added):

“When the tea partiers take a close look at Mr. Hayworth’s record and see all of his earmarks and all of his ties to Jack Abramoff, they’ll find a record that demands scrutiny,” McCain says. “We have the letters and legislative records to prove it. And we will.”

Too bad McCain didn’t keep his promise to “not stop until the complete truth is told” that he made back in 2004. If he had then Hayworth, Norquist, Reed and a host of other grifters would be in jail and/or discredited. Instead, McCain let his cowardice and ambition conceal crimes that he knew they had committed. McCain actively hid evidence of corruption from the American people, but it looks like he kept a copy of that evidence readily at hand just in case he ever needed it. This is most likely why Norquist is still supporting McCain–John has the goods on him. And now, McCain is suggesting that he’ll dig into these hidden documents to release selective attacks on JD Hayworth. While this should make for an entertaining GOP primary in Arizona, it is just more evidence of John McCain’s failure to place justice and the needs of his Country before his ambition and his fear of exposing the corruption in his own Party. If McCain had a courageous bone in his body he would release all the documents and let the chips fall where they may. He doesn’t and so the bulk of these documents will be kept hidden for another twenty years.

Both the Grifter and the Coward should lose this election. I hope the Democrats recruit a decent candidate for this race.

Cheers

dengre