Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Todd Tiahrt and Pete Visclosky
Following the Department of Justice’s November 2008 raid of the Washington lobbying firm, the PMA Group, the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigated accusations that several lawmakers accepted campaign contributions in exchange for funneling federal dollars to specific projects. The OCE concluded that at least two of the seven House members under suspicion, Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas) and Peter Visclosky (D-Indiana), deserved further investigation by the House ethics committee—but that committee did little to probe the allegations.
In late February, the ethics committee concluded that no House members colluded with the PMA Group. The committee, however, reached this conclusion without interviewing any of the elected representatives or companies allegedly involved, in particular Boeing, according to Roll Call. The political news publication reported the committee “did virtually no additional investigation beyond the draft reports” produced by the OCE.
Among the other members of Congress who received contributions from PMA were John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), who died February 8, Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), Bill Young (R-Florida), Mike Capuano (D-Massachusetts), Bill Pascrell (D-New Jersey), Mike Doyle (D-Pennsylvania), Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Chet Edwards (D-Texas), Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania, Jerry Lewis (R-California), Anders Crenshaw (R-Florida) and Jack Kingston (R-Georgia).
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Ethics Panel Probed Lightly Into PMA (by Paul Singer, Roll Call)
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