Signs indicate things are getting worse, and quickly, for one of Congress’ most corrupt members, Rep. Tom Feeney, a once-powerful Florida Republican whose extensive career of documented lies, political favors, and routine partisan smear-mongering The BRAD BLOG has covered in great detail over the last two and a half years.
Yesterday, Feeney was fingered as “Representative #3” in recent court filings related to the guilty plea of Republican Congressional Aide Mark Zachares, who admitted receiving some $40,000 in cash and gifts from Jack Abramoff. A day earlier, it was revealed that the FBI had recently interviewed Feeney and requested documents related to his 2003 golf junket to St. Andrews, Scotland with Zachares and the disgraced GOP lobbyist.
Today, court documents reveal that the cost of the 2003 trip was closer to $20,000 per person instead of the $5,643 Feeney claimed when he “paid back” that amount in January of this year, after the House Ethics Committee found him to be in violation of House Rules prohibiting lobbyist-paid travel.
Further news reports indicate much more trouble may be ahead for the beleaguered Congressman, as Abramoff is said to be chattering away to federal investigators — “so much he doesn’t have time to eat,” according to one news report — in hopes of reducing a prison sentence he’s currently facing in relation to conspiracy fraud charges to which he’s already plead guilty in Florida.
But if that weren’t indication enough that Feeney may be in big trouble, it’s also now being reported this morning that his former Chief of Staff, Jason Roe — who, along with his wife, Patricia, has also been the target of corruption allegations — abruptly resigned from his new position as Deputy Campaign Manager for Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Amusingly, the reason he cited for the resignation was “familial obligations.”
Those “familial obligations” might include the fact that Patricia reportedly received some $50,000 from the Feeney campaign for fundraising duties, before becoming Chief of Staff for Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) — whose wife’s office was raided last week by Federal investigators leading to his resignation this week from all Congressional Committees.
Further, in what TMP’s Josh Marshall aptly described last night as “a classic scandal harmonic convergence,” the case against Renzi, which included federal wiretaps prior to last year’s November election, also has direct implications in the the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal.
And all of the “familial” wives are involved as well.
Following all of this? You may need to take notes. We’ll try to make it easy for you…
The St. Petersburg Times reports today that court filings indicate the cost of the trip to St. Andrews was purposely concealed and then low-balled in official disclosure filings:
Feeney, 48, an Orlando-area Republican who has been contacted by the FBI as part of the Abramoff investigation, reported precisely the same details in his travel report on the Scotland trip.
Feeney has insisted he didn’t know Abramoff covered the cost of the trip, which is a violation of House rules.
In the years prior to Feeney’s trip to St. Andrews with Abramoff, Congressmen Bob Ney (R-OH) and Tom DeLay (R-TX) had gone on similar trips with the once-powerful, now-imprisoned GOP lobbyist. Ney has plead guilty to bribery charges in the matter and is serving time in federal prison while DeLay is under indictment in another matter, and still reportedly under investigation in the Abramoff matter. Only Feeney had escaped public and media scrutiny for his trip, as The BRAD BLOG reported in a near-vacuum almost a year ago.
Now that the matter is finally coming to media attention, Feeney’s spokesperson, Pepper Pennington (yes, that’s really her name), gave an amusing quote to the Times in refusing to give further comment, other than to say, “Rep. Feeney is anxious to discuss this matter at the appropriate time.”
We’re sure he is.
But he may wish to do so sooner, rather than later, as virtually everyone else seems to be desperately trying to reduce their prison sentences right now. McClatchy’s Greg Gordon is reporting today (via TPMMuckraker’s coverage of the latest Feeney news) that:
…
Feeney is among those who might be nervous over the ex-lobbyist’s chatter, said the knowledgeable lawyer.
And to make matters worse, The Hill coverage today makes the stakes for Zachares’ cooperation crystal clear:
He is the 11th person to plead guilty in the wide-ranging investigation into Abramoff’s conspiracy to bribe public officials.
The judge also said that the DoJ had decided not to prosecute Zachares’s wife, Cynthia, after she agreed in a Feb. 23 interview to cooperate fully with authorities.”
St. Petersburg Times posts the charges, the basis for Zachares’ plea, and his plea agreement [all in PDF format].
Zachares and wife cooperating, Abramoff already singing, Renzi nearing resignation from Congress as he and his wife may now face charges, Roe and his wife now newly under the gun…We might well suggest that Feeney ought to be more than just “nervous” at this point.
UPDATE FROM DES 3:24pm PT: The specific wording from court documents suggests Feeney’s understatement wasn’t a mistake, but rather collusion, according to AP [emphasis added]:
The AP story quoted above has now been archived. Here is WaPo coverage of the same story.
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 eventually ended up running for U.S. Congress against Feeney in 2006.
For more info, see: www.ClintCurtis.com
Roe too? Oh Noe.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Darn it–I’m lousy at note-taking. Let’s see if I have this straight…..
Feeney is the guy who hired Clint Curtis to write the election theft program that may have been used in Florida 2000. Curtis ran against Feeney in a recent election, lost, and is contesting the election (It must feel very strange to wonder if the computer program that stole an election from you, is the one you wrote).
It is very rare for election contests to change the results of an election. One thing that can is if the winning candidate goes to jail. But in that case I don’t think that the runner-up gets to hold office–I think the governor gets to appoint somebody, right?
Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. I have to admit that I find it extremely confusing. But if Clint Curtis was hired by Feeney to write a program to demonstrate how an election using voting machines could be undetectably rigged, suspected that the program may have been used in the actual theft of an election, later ran against the guy who hired him and lost because the program he wrote, or one similar to it, was used to steal the election he ran in, and, even if the guy goes to jail, Clint still won’t get to hold office, all I can say is that no matter how much I admire his courage, I’m very glad that I’m not Clint Curtis. Now that his life has turned into a Kafka novel, he’s got to be even more confused than I am. 😉
(Brad ain’t the only dude who can write long sentences. And speaking of long sentences, Feeney deserves one.)
Mark S asked:
No. My understanding is that the seat stays vacant until a Special Election is held.
You’re thinking about Senatorial seats which go vacant (for whatever reason), in which case the Gov. does appoint someone to fill the remainder of the term.
As to the rest, Curtis life turned Kafkaesque long ago, I’m afraid. But he seems to be handling every step of it amazingly well.
And yes, long sentences for me, you, and the other kind for Feeney would be just fine 🙂
…Though I should add that what’s always interested me about Feeney was not necessarily his own personal corruption (which is now legion) but his very close ties to the Bushes.
If he comes under the gun, will he start singing? Because the next ones up from him are both Jeb and George.
Just FYI…
FYI to all:
Curtis DOES NOT claim that the vote-rigging prototype program he created at Feeney’s request was intended to be used, or actually used, in the 2000 election.
Nor does he claim that his prototype program was ever used in any election, including his own against Feeney in Nov. 2006.
Curtis has made clear, here and elsewhere, that it was a “proof-of-concept” program, not written for any specific hardware, software, or voting system, but solely to demonstrate that it could be done at all.
Please make a note of it, and clear up these misconceptions whenever you see them!
Also, MarkS #2, even though an election challenge almost never results in overturning the election or a re-vote, one good thing it does offer is discovery.
Just like Green Party Presidential Candidate for 2004, David Cobb, who was pretty darn sure he didn’t have a snowball’s chance, but his presence on the ballot gave him standing to challenge. We know a lot more about the ’04 election in Ohio thanks to the efforts of Cobb, et al.
Same thing goes for Curtis in 2006 — if you don’t run, you don’t have standing in court to drill down into what really happened.
Since Curtis has not claimed that his prototype program was ever actually used in any election (see comment above), it makes sense to run anyway, even if you suspect there will be criminal interference and dirty tricks. Especially when you believe that you and your neighbors don’t have an honest person to represent them.
You make a good point about the Kafka-esque turn Curtis’ life has taken after that first fateful encounter with Feeney. If either of them had to live that day over again, I wonder…
Curtis strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn’t take anything lying down. As strange as his life has been since Feeney dropped that turd in the middle of it, he fights back, and he doesn’t give up.
Off topic??Ah..
I’m curious to know if the dominoes start to fall, who fills the void??? I mean there is nothing I would like more than to see Bush & Co. on a Guantanamo Bay postcard, but I think the Dems are the same as the Repubs. I mean it’s like you go to the grocery store for 20 years and have only 2 brands of food to choose from the whole time. Soon what you eat really doesn’t matter…until brand R starts putting DU in your kibble. Now you know brand R is bad…but does that make brand D good??
Are there any top level Dems talking publicly about peak oil?? Are there any top level Dems talking about the point of no return…that’s where we don’t have enough oil left to convert to another form of energy, energy for things like sustaining an economy (something like…it takes two barrels of oil to run the machines to extract one barrel from the ground–>or as I like to think of it…Global Starvation). Do any Dems, or more importantly, do the Dems as a whole foster an economic view that incorporates the laws of thermodynamics and the entropic principle.
“According to these views, a country’s performance is gauged not by its absolute level of income or consumption, but rather by how far it is from homeostatic steady state. Countries closer to their homeostatic steady state are predicted to grow slower than those farther away, even though they might have lower levels of consumption.”
Curtis claims to have collected sufficient affidavits from voters to directly contradict the count in precincts of the 13th district which seems like it would be pretty damning stuff, but I haven’t heard or seen anything about it since.
Has anyone heard anything recent regarding them?
I hope Feeney can sing. What a nice song that might be.
If putting lots of frosting on round cakes in a high production work area, it is always best to use a lazy-susan to speed up the works.
That way the job doesn’t get ahead of ya – as you express artistic flare for the finished product and savor the end results.
The lose ends of all your hard work are coming to fruition, what an attractive gift bow for bu$$hCo.
(The CMSM had to be browbeaten to jump on board the reality train – shame on them – three cheers for little you ! The mini-media taught the big money propagandists a lesson in the marketability of the truth. Democracy is the better by your efforts. THX for doing what you do – it very badly needed be done.)
#7 Off the Grid,
I don’t buy the whole peak oil argument. There’s really no evidence that I have seen that can prove it one way OR the other that that Bell Chart that is floating around is fact. In fact, I have heard the opposite, where old oil wells that dried up, now have oil again. Which taken even farther, one might question the term “Fossil Fuel” altogether. Who say’s oil is created by dinosaurs? And if it was, how come it is so far under the ground. Sorry, I don’t buy it.
The fact remains that Americans are addicted to oil like a junkie with a syringe. And that it’s bad for people to breath the exhaust, I won’t argue that.
I think the question is better asked, what happened to the “water powered car” (hydrogen) of the 1970’s? And why isn’t that being mass produced? The funny thing is I actually saw that. I can verify that, I SAW that. I’ve seen others since then too (in Davis Or Sacramento I forget now.) But each time the story conveniently disappears. What do the peak oil folks have to say about that? Just wondering, not attacking ya.
by the way I wasn’t talking about hydrogen in a canister, I was talking about it being created before it goes in the intake manifold.
Oh and since we are off topic, might as well plug this:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journ..._the_blog.html
I’ll let the serious searchers find out what I mean.
Since Feeney is all up close to the bushies and is a fanatical protege of DeLay, we can reasonably assume that some strings were pulled and buttons pushed on his behalf in the attorneyGate episode.
I think we know where 5-8 million emails and about half of weird Al Gonzales’ memory has gone:
(Raw Story, emphasis added). This gives new meaning to “DeLay a probe” doesn’t it? Sounds like a video game.
The pattern is clear.
Send “messages” to all US Attorney’s who are working on investigations that are turning neoCons into neoConvicts.
Tell them to slow down until after the election on republican congress members, but speed up investigations of any democrats who could be challenged with the “voter fraud” canard.
It must have looked like a mafia conference when Thor Hearne, Karl Rove, Al Gonzales, Jack Abramoff, Feeney, DeLay, Libby, and the rest of the neoConnivers got together to pervert justice and convert the DOJ into the Department of Just Us.
The republicans are making a grave mistake to back up these guys with their votes on just about every bad policy issue. The House and Senate voting has been down partisan party lines for the greater part. Very few republicans will exit the Cheney/Bush propaganda.
The people, however, are watching and waiting.
November is on the way and there will be climate change. The nation is going thru political global warming and they will be plenty hot in November 2008.
Fried neoCon is going to be served up for all to see.
I have only one problem with Clint: he claims that he was asked to write the program to flip votes and he agreed because he thought it was part of a strategy to prevent “Democrat” fraud in South Florida. Now I’d like to know how creating a vote-flipping program could possibly help stop the Democrats from cheating. I have to wonder if he’s really one of the brightest bulbs at the lamp shop; perhaps Feeney Feeney Bo Beeney is an EXTREMELY persuasive guy. Just wondering…
He could have looked into the software and said, “Sure! It can definitely be done! Even I could do it,” or something like that. I have no problem with that, but if Feeney says, “Well, then write a program for me,” I find it hard to believe that Clint could have been so naive as to do it without sensing that something was fishy. I mean, qwe’re talking about Feeney here! But what do I know? I’m just sitting here on the Group W bench…
#11
The Hydrogen Economy is a good place to start. I don’t think hydrogen is the whole solution, and the book doesn’t clearly offer a good/plausible solution. The first half of the book documents oil discovery peaking in the 70’s, present global reserves(above and below ground), it talks about the amount of water needed to process tar sand/oil shale into gas (I hear lots about that oil shale under Colorado…idiots) and it I think the best part is it looks at our economy as a thermodynamic system(closed loop). Basically as soon as it takes 1.00000000000001 barrels of oil to extract 1 barrel of oil our little global economy(thanks to entropy) will go into decline and without an alternative source of energy, we go the way of the Mayans, but with global warming too, at least the Mayans had a jungle to return to.
One might note the entire Mayan civilization collapsed within a 100 years…these people invented the concept of 0, built 300ft. tall pyramids in Mexico and Guatemala at the time Europe was in the Dark Ages…they most likely over populated their cities and over farmed their land, which was jungle that had been stripped to make fields(no jungle, no nutrients for the soil).
Peak oil is obvious. Why are we in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Liberation). Why did it take gas half as long to go from $2 to $3, than is did to from $1 to $2 (peak oil causes prices to rise exponentially, until the point of no return) . …it’s like looking at the horizon, you know the earth is round and only a idiot would think its not.
… czaragorn said…
“Now I’d like to know how creating a vote-flipping program could possibly help stop the Democrats from cheating.”
Demonstration programs are created as just that: demonstration. Proof of concept. Demonstration viruses and exploits are created all the time to show that a given attack vector is indeed exploitable. Tghis literally happens all the time in software security research.
Then the prototype malware is used to research defenses against that type of malware… and that’s apparently where things went very wrong for Curt.
And in addition: remember that by his own admission Curtis was laboring under the delusion of “Rampant (Democratic) Voter Fraud!”
Example:
Is it possible to insert pictures of catgirls on the moon in Brad Blog? A demonstration program:
rats! foiled again!
Maybe Feeney used the software Clint wrote to defeat Clint in the last election 😉 … seriously, Clint has never indicated that the software was for the 2000 election as I recall.
Dredd, that’s theoretically ossible but Curtis has avoided going that route entirely.
His team is relying strictly on…
“Here are the numbers. Here are the facts. Obviously something went wrong. Let’s look into it.”
… which is probably why he has been as successful as he has been in bringing this before Congress.
Because of the controversy generated over e-vote tampering congresstypes don’t want it brought up to them until there’s a true “smoking gun” event that everyone can agree on.
That’s not quite the best way to handle it since it involves their elections, but thats politics.
Thus Jennings speaks only of obvious malfunctions and Curtis just shows us numbers that anyone can see don’t add up.