DC Ethics Watchdog Group Names Florida Congressman Once Again in its Second Annual List of Congressional Rapscallions!
By Brad Friedman on 9/20/2006, 10:44am PT  

For the second year in a row, DC ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington (CREW) --- the folks who filed successful ethics charges in the House against former Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay --- have issued their "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" report.

And once again our old friend, the corrupt Florida congressman Tom Feeney, is right up there near the top! Congratulations, Tom!

What may be most impressive is that Feeney, amongst other bad seeds like the disgraced Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, is neither in jail or even under indictment! Yet! No easy feat for someone as sleazy as Mr. Feeney! You'd have to be the craziest man in America to think you could get away with it! But (so far) Feeney has!

The indifference to the Rule of Law and our American Values and Constitution doesn't stop with Tom himself though! Just take a look at what Feeney's own chief of staff, Jason Roe, and his wife Patty are up to --- apparently with Feeney's help --- according to this report last week from Harper's!

The CREW list, which includes both Republicans and Democrats (though mostly Republicans), singles out Feeney for his years-long record of corruption, obfuscation, ethics violations and broken rules in accepting lobbyist and foreign-agent paid travel, holidays and more!

While we know that Feeney has already been accused by computer programmer Clint Curtis of asking him to create vote-rigging software back in 2000 and other skullduggery (Curtis has given sworn video-taped congressional testimony and has passed a lie-detector test in regard to those charges,) CREW continues to track some of Feeney's greatest Congressional Corruption Hits, from golf in Scotland with Abramoff to trips bought and paid for by foreign-agents. Take a look...

Rep. Feeney traveled to Scotland --- apparently to play golf --- from August 9-14, 2003. Rep. Feeney initially claimed that the cost of the trip was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, but the Center denied paying for the trip and it appears that Jack Abramoff was the person who actually footed the bill. Rep. Feeney violated House rules prohibiting Members from accepting travel paid for by lobbyists and for taking trips that are primarily recreational.

Rep. Feeney visited South Korea on a trip sponsored by the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council (KORUSEC), despite the fact that the organization is registered with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Rep. Feeney violated the provision prohibiting members from accepting travel expenses from agents of a foreign principal.

Rep. Feeney and his wife traveled from Orlando, Florida to West Palm Beach, Florida to speak at "Restoration Weekend" from November 13-November 16, 2003. According to the travel disclosure form Rep. Feeney originally submitted to the House Clerk’s office, this trip, which cost $1,430, was paid for by a registered lobbying firm, also prohibited by House rules.

In his 2003 and 2004 financial disclosure forms, Rep. Feeney failed to disclose that he was the co-owner of a rental property in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Rep. Feeney violated the rule requiring members to disclose all rental property.

CREW has more details [PDF] on Feeney's serial rule-breaking. And, in the meantime, Curtis is now running against the dirty Feeney for his FL-24th congressional district seat in the U.S. House. Feel free to support him if you're so inclined! With all of that dirty money flowing in to Feeney's coffers from the top-tier Republican slimesters (Feeney's raised $1.1 million so far for his smear campaign against Curtis), Curtis can use all the help you folks can muster!

For more info on The BRAD BLOG's continuing investigative series on
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
- A Quick Summary of the story so far.
- An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.
- Curtis is now running for U.S. Congress against Feeney.
To support or for more info, see: www.ClintCurtis.com
Share article...
                 

Article Categories: Florida, Tom Feeney, Clint Curtis