October Surprise 101

Check out this AP story on the history of the October Surprise, including an interview with John Kerry's take on the Osama bin Laden video which sank his presidential campaign.

The Return of Abscam

A few weeks ago, I facetiously suggested that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies open up a field office on Capitol Hill because of all the investigations going on. They might not do that, but the Feds gave a huge hint that they've still got work to do.

FBI willing to go undercover in Congress if necessary
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The new chief of the FBI's Criminal Division, which is swamped with public corruption cases, says the bureau is ramping up its ability to catch crooked politicians and might run an undercover sting on Congress.

Assistant FBI Director James Burrus called the bureau's public corruption program "a sleeping giant that we've awoken," and predicted the nation will see continued emphasis in that area "for many, many, many years to come."

So much evidence of wrongdoing is surfacing in the nation's capital that Burrus recently committed to adding a fourth 15- to 20-member public corruption squad to the FBI's Washington field office.

In the past year, former Republican Reps. Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney have pleaded guilty to corruption charges. FBI agents are investigating about a dozen other members of Congress, including as many as three senators. The Justice Department also is expected to begin seeking indictments soon after a massive FBI investigation of the Alaska Legislature.

If conditions warrant, Burrus said, he wouldn't balk at urging an undercover sting like the famed Abscam operation in the late 1970s in which a U.S. senator and six House members agreed on camera to take bribes from FBI agents posing as Arab sheikhs.

"We look for those opportunities a lot," Burrus said, using words rarely heard at the bureau over the last quarter century. "I would do it on Capitol Hill. I would do it in any state legislature. ... If we could do an undercover operation, and it would get me better evidence, I'd do it in a second."

George Allen is Screwed

By now, I'm sure you've all seen or heard about this incident involving George Allen, his supporters, and liberal blogger Mike Stark.



I'm suspecting this tape has been leading local newscasts in Virginia for the past few days. The video has gotten national airplay on cable news when discussing the final days of the Allen-Webb Senate race.

This image, of campaign supporters getting into a physical altercation with a political opponent, is the worst nightmare for a candidate or political strategist. The last thing they want voters to read or hear about in the days before the election are the words "police," "investigation," and "criminal charges" in connection with their campaign.

The race was already tight enough as it is, and Allen is being very careful with what he says and who he talks to in the aftermath of the Macaca incident and all of the other mistakes that have made what should have been a shoo-in re-election campaign into a toss-up.

This is one hell of an October surprise, one that the Webb campaign couldn't have planned any better themselves. If they had the time and money, I'm pretty sure this footage would be used in a political ad for the final days of the race, although it might not even be necessary given the amount of media coverage of the incident. If Allen loses next week, this incident might have been the final nail in the coffin for Virginia voters, even if it didn't involve Allen himself.

Something is Rotten in the State of New Jersey

Another October surprise, this one possibly bigger in impact than the one in the Florida governor's race because if it becomes an issue in the Kean-Menendez race, it could affect which party controls the Senate next year.

Menendez added to corruption lawsuit
Friday, October 27, 2006

By OSHRAT CARMIEL
STAFF WRITER

Complete coverage: Election 2006

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has been added as a defendant in an ongoing lawsuit being brought against Hudson County by a Union City psychiatrist.

The revised federal suit, filed Wednesday by psychiatrist Oscar Sandoval, says that Menendez, as a congressman in the late 1990s, spearheaded a coordinated campaign by Hudson County officials to squeeze political donations and favors from Sandoval, a county contractor.

Sandoval is a controversial figure who was ensnared in a Hudson County corruption investigation that led to the conviction of former County Executive Robert Janiszewski in 2003.

Political pressure

The suit accuses Menendez and his political allies of pressuring Sandoval to give political contributions as a condition of keeping his psychiatric services contracts with Hudson County -- and a condition of getting new ones. The pressure came after they learned that the psychiatrist was an FBI informant in the Janiszewski corruption probe, the suit says.

The lawsuit also hitches Bergen County to the tangled ordeal. It claims that Menendez was playing a behind-the-scenes role in 1999 in awarding a contract to provide psychiatric services to the Bergen County Jail. The psychiatrist who made the proposal, however, did not get a contract.

The legal accusations come in the final sprint of an acrimonious -- and close -- U.S. Senate race between Menendez and Republican Tom Kean Jr., who has made Menendez's ethics the central issue in his campaign.

The Ghost of Jim McGreevey

An October surprise in the Florida governor's race, perhaps?

Crist Denies Trysts
GOP frontrunner: I have never had sex with a man
By Bob Norman

A young rising star in the Republican Party has boasted to witnesses of his sexual relationship with Charlie Crist, the frontrunner in the Florida governor's race who has repeatedly denied that he is gay.

The GOP staffer, 21-year-old Jason Wetherington, told friends at separate social functions in August that he had sex with Crist, according to two credible and independent sources who heard Wetherington make the claim first-hand.

Wetherington, who recently worked as a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris and currently works for state representative Ellyn Bodganoff's reelection campaign, also named a man whom he said is Crist's long-term partner, a convicted thief named Bruce Carlton Jordan who also recently worked for Harris in her long-shot Senate bid.

Jordan made headlines recently when the Miami Herald learned that the felon was working as Harris's travel aide. The newspaper noted that Jordan, 42, was reported to be close friends with Charlie Crist, whom he convinced to attend an annual Florida Funeral Directors Association meeting in 2003.

Jordan was charged in 2003 with stealing thousands of dollars from two organizations for whom he worked, including the Tallahassee-based Florida Funeral Directors Association, where he served as executive director. He completed a 60-day jail sentence in February and will be on probation until the year 2011, according to state records.

When the Herald questioned Crist about Jordan this past August, the frontrunner in the governor's race told the newspaper that he doesn't remember the man. "I don't know who Bruce Jordan is," he said at the time. "It doesn't mean I haven't met him. I don't know who you are speaking about."

I asked Crist during a phone interview on Monday morning if he had ever had sex with Jordan.

"No," he said. "I don't recall the name."

I've seen no poll evidence indicating Crist is losing support in the Florida governor's race over this. However, the fact that Crist is even being forced to deny it isn't good for him politically. If the allegations are true, then in post-Mark Foley Florida it might become an issue. Not only that, but the man believed to be his partner is a convicted felon and he's denying [not very convincingly I think, if you read further into the article] any ties to him.

Another Lawmaker With an Investigation Problem

Only in an election season as wacky as this one [a quasi-sex scandal, a nuclear test, multiple FBI investigations, and an administration reversal on Iraq policy and rhetoric] would this not be getting more play in the media.

So many investigations, so little time... At the rate they're going, the FBI, Justice Department, and every other law enforcement agency in the country might as well open a Capitol Hill field office.

WASHINGTON - A land deal involving Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona, a law enforcement official in Washington said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while the inquiry is ongoing, said the investigation has been under way for a few months and is still in its very early stages.

The official did not specify what land deal was under investigation.

A spokesman for the Arizona U.S. attorney, Paul Charlton, said he could not confirm or deny an investigation was under way.

Renzi also declined to comment, referring questions to his lawyer, former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. The lawyer late Tuesday said Renzi was not aware of any investigation and had not been contacted by the U.S. attorney's office.

At least one transaction involving Renzi has raised questions in Arizona recently.

Records and officials involved in the October 2005 deal say Renzi helped promote the sale of land that netted a former business partner $4.5 million.

Under the Microscope

According to Time magazine, Jane Harman is the most recent lawmaker to have an FBI problem.

Did a Democratic member of Congress improperly enlist the support of a major pro-Israel lobbying group to try to win a top committee assignment? That's the question at the heart of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors, who are examining whether Rep. Jane Harman of California and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) may have violated the law in a scheme to get Harman reappointed as the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, according to knowledgeable sources in and out of the U.S. government.

The sources tell TIME that the investigation by Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has simmered out of sight since about the middle of last year, is examining whether Harman and AIPAC arranged for wealthy supporters to lobby House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Harman's behalf.

Regardless of the validity of the allegations, this should provide the GOP ammunition to offset attacks by Democrats on ethics and investigation issues during the final stretch of the election season.

Under the Microscope

Over the weekend, it was revealed that Curt Weldon is the latest Republican congressman to have an FBI problem.

Federal agents raided the homes of Rep. Curt Weldon's daughter and one of his closest political supporters yesterday as part of an investigation into whether the veteran Republican congressman used his influence to benefit himself and his daughter's lobbying firm, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The investigation focuses on actions the Pennsylvania congressman took that may have aided clients of the business created by his daughter, Karen Weldon, and longtime Pennsylvania political ally Charles Sexton, according to three of the sources.

A grand jury, impaneled in Washington in May, has obtained evidence gathered over at least four months through wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers and has scrutinized whether Weldon received anything of value, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.

The investigation focuses on Weldon's support of the Russian-managed Itera International Energy Corp., one of the world's largest oil and gas firms, while that company paid fees to Solutions North America, the company that Karen Weldon and Sexton operate.

Weldon, who has been a proponent of some pretty far-out theories (i.e. Able Danger, and his proposed WMD hunt in the Iraqi desert), has a new one: that a Democratic conspiracy consisting of Melanie Sloan [who according to Weldon is a former aide to Democratic Congressman John Conyers and Senator Charles Schumer and wants them to win so she can get a job on Capitol Hill] from CREW [who asked the FBI to investigate Weldon's dealings in 2004], the DCCC, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, Bill Clinton, fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy [who gave money to Weldon's Democratic challenger Joe Sestak], and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger [who also gave money to Sestak] are all out to get him. This is beginning to sound like something out of a Dan Brown novel.

Watch the full video of Weldon's comments [from The Spin/The Daily Pennsylvanian]:

Off With Their Heads!

From ABC's The Blotter:

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABC questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18.

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

Looks like former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards' famous quote about "The only way I can lose is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy," was correct in Foley's case, even if he wasn't actually caught with the live boy.

Update: Foley has submitted his letter of resignation to the Speaker of the House.

The New Republic thinks they've found Mark Foley's page on MySpace.

The Blotter has also posted some sexually explicit AOL Instant Messagenger chat transcripts from Foley and from their account, it was these transcripts that were the smoking gun that triggered Foley's resignation. According to ABC, Foley could potentially be prosecuted and imprisoned for some laws that he helped pass as a member of Congress, and as chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children.

Uh Oh...

A couple of days ago, I mentioned the explosive allegation first reported by Salon.com that Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) stuffed a severed deer's head in the mailbox of a house in an African American neighborhood. Again, I will note in fairness to Allen that he denied the allegations during an interview he gave to the Associated Press.

Looks like the alleged Godfather stunt is now being checked in the historical archives:

I spoke to a deputy in the Louisa County Sheriff's Office late yesterday afternoon. They are looking though old records for any report of a deer's head stuffed into a black family's mailbox. This is an active investigation again- I have the cell phone number of deputy working on the case.

More bad news for Senator Allen on the same allegation - the New Republic's Ryan Lizza has found a second, on the record source who heard about the incident from one of the men who was there when it happened.

A former college classmate of George Allen and Ken Shelton, the North Carolina radiologist who says Allen regularly used the N-word in the 1970s and once stuck the head of a deer in the mailbox of a black family, has come forward to corroborate one of Shelton's accusations.

"I'm not out to get George Allen," says George Beam, a 53 year-old technical manager in the nuclear industry, who lives in Forest, Virginia and who spoke to The New Republic this morning. "I just think Kenny Shelton is a fine, upstanding person, and I know he is telling the truth."

Beam was roommates with Billy Lanahan, now deceased, who along with Allen and Shelton, was the third member of the now infamous hunting party. According to Beam, Lanahan later told him the bizarre story of the three men stuffing the deer head into a mailbox. He says Lanahan did not tell him that the prank had any racial overtones.

"Some time drinking a beer at U Heights," Beam says, referring to the campus housing complex where Beam, Lanahan, and Allen all lived, "Lanahan told me they went hunting and killed a deer. All I know is they cut off a deer head and stuck it in someone's mailbox. ... He didn't say it was racial -- just said they stuck it in a mailbox as a prank."

For Allen's sake, I hope this winds up being a wild goose chase, because if it is confirmed that this incident did happen, 1) his credibility will be shot, and 2) his political career will be over.

More Skeletons Coming Out of George Allen's Closet?

Drip, drip, drip...

The New York Times has another person on the record who remembers Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) making racist comments, this time in the early 1980's. This person is independent of the three former football teammates who spoke with Salon.com.

Separately, Professor Larry Sabato of UVA, who was a classmate of Allen's at UVA in the 70's and is considered one of the most renown political scientists and observers in the country, told Chris Matthews that he didn't believe Allen's denials.



The key part of the interview:

MATTHEWS: What about the charges that he actually used bad language that some of us are familiar with in this country, in fact most Americans are, the bad language about people from another background?
SABATO: Well, I can't say how frequently he did it, but I don't believe him when he denies ever having done it. [Matthews begins talking over him] That is just not true.
MATTHEWS: That in this country, for that generation, is a very hard test. The accusation here I believe is that he was distinctive in what is being called racial hatred, that he regularly used an awful word, the N-word, with some sort of attitude. Is that true?
SABATO: Well, I'm simply going to say that I'm going to stay with I know is the case, and the fact is that he did use the N-word, whether he's denying it now or not. He did use it. It was the 70's, you're right, it was a harsh term. It was an obscenity as far as I'm concerned.
...
MATTHEWS: But you say he used the N-word?
SABATO: That is correct.

Whether this is based on direct first-hand insight or rumors and hearsay from the time, Sabato's words probably carry more weight on this race and Senator Allen than most people because of his longstanding ties to the state and his understanding of Virginia and national politics.

Now, in fairness to Allen, only three of his former teammates have said he used racist language, and the graduate student who talked to the New York Times. He also denied the allegations in the Salon.com article in an interview with the Associated Press:

"The story and his comments and assertions in there are completely false," Allen said during an interview with AP reporters and editors. "I don't remember ever using that word and it is absolutely false that that was ever part of my vocabulary."

The bottom line: it is now a media open season on George Allen's past comments or views on race. If there is any truth to this or any more people who come forward to the news media on the record, Allen will be in very serious trouble with about 5 weeks to go before Election Day.

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You

Salon.com is reporting that three of Senator George Allen's (R-Virginia) college football teammates remember him making racist comments. One is quoted on the record, the other two were on background.

The whole piece is well written and well-sourced in terms of Allen's former teammates, who have positive, negative, or indifferent memories of when they knew him as a football player at UVA. Allen's senate office and re-election campaign did not return calls for comment.

The most damning and shocking allegation in the piece:

Shelton [Allen's former teammate who went on the record with his allegations] said he also remembers a disturbing deer hunting trip with Allen on land that was owned by the family of Billy Lanahan, a wide receiver on the team. After they had killed a deer, Shelton said he remembers Allen asking Lanahan where the local black residents lived. Shelton said Allen then drove the three of them to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. "He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox," Shelton said.

If there is any truth to any of these allegations, Allen's political ambitions for the White House are toast. He may not even survive his re-election bid for the Senate. First there was the controversy over his "macaca" comments to a Webb volunteer, then there was the "controversy" over how he reacted to a reporter's poorly phrased question about his Jewish heritage, and now this. He probably could have survived any of those individually without serious damage to his political career, but take all three together and I think he may want to update his resume once November comes around.