There is a whole slew of news coming in regarding John Doolittle. It’s been, shall we say, a very, very bad news cycle for the Doolittles. First, the one that’s getting most of the attention is from the WaPo, and it’s a doozy: (H/t to Kos)
In the past two years, campaign and political action committees controlled by Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) paid ever-larger commissions to his wife’s one-person company and spent tens of thousands of dollars on gifts at stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co. and a Ritz-Carlton day spa.
The use of such committees, especially “leadership” PACs, for purposes other than electing politicians to Congress is a common and growing phenomenon, but campaign finance watchdogs say Doolittle has taken it to new heights.
Doolittle’s wife, Julie, a professional fundraiser, has collected 15 percent of all contributions to Doolittle’s leadership PAC and additional commissions on contributions to his campaign committee — a total of nearly $140,000 since 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records.(WaPo 7/11/06)
Follow me to the flip for more on the Corrupt Spouses Doolittle.
So, not only have the Doolittles been fond of giving her a cut of his political donations, but they claim, by virtue of her getting a cut of all of the Leadership PAC’s donations, that Julie Doolittle raised ALL of the PAC’s donations. ALL:
Still, campaign finance experts and congressional watchdogs deem highly unusual Doolittle’s efforts, particularly the arrangement with his wife. Doolittle spokeswoman Laura Blackann said in an e-mail that Julie Doolittle receives her 15 percent commission only on money she is “directly involved in raising.”
That would mean Julie Doolittle has raised every dollar that has gone to the Superior California Fund since 2003, according to FEC reports compiled by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. During the 2004 campaign cycle, Sierra Dominion received payments from the leadership PAC of $68,630, exactly 15 percent of the $457,533 the PAC raised. So far in this campaign cycle, Sierra Dominion has taken in $69,896, again exactly 15 percent of the $465,973 raised.
Yet Doolittle’s leadership PAC lists payments for fundraising consultations not connected to Sierra Dominion — one to Brian Jensen, a Doolittle staff member at the time of the payment, and another to a firm called Enburg Consulting of Washington, which received $3,000 in March.
Doolittle aides said Julie Doolittle was entitled to 15 percent of all money the PAC brought in because those donations were raised at events she helped organize. All told, Julie Doolittle’s firm — run out of the couple’s home in Oakton with no phone listing or Web site and no other known employee — has received commissions totaling $169,146 since its founding in March 2001, according to FEC records and Taxpayers for Common Sense. (WaPo 7/11/06)
Oh, and another big user of the Leadership PAC slush funds? Yeah, you guessed it, Richard Pombo, Doolittle’s brother in corruption. Pombo’s Leadership PAC, the oh-so well named RichPAC, which has had its share of scandals as well.
But that’s not all of Julie’s problems coming down the pike today. No-sir-ee, Julie’s got some good ol’ fashioned Abramoff dirt heading her way. It seems Tony Rudy, is being SUPER co-operative with prosecutors.
Tony Rudy, the former senior aide to ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) who went on to become a well-heeled K Street lobbyist before pleading guilty to conspiracy, will avoid sentencing for at least three more months as he continues to cooperate with the government’s investigation of Jack Abramoff’s influence-peddling network.
Rudy’s Nixon Peabody legal team and lawyers from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section filed a joint motion last week asking Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle to hold off on sentencing Rudy, who faces a maximum of five years in prison for his March plea to one count of mail and wire fraud. Huvelle agreed late Thursday to postpone a status conference in the case — scheduled for this morning — until Oct. 2 “in order to allow Mr. Rudy’s cooperation to continue uninterrupted,” as the joint motion states. (The Hill 7/11/06)
What does all that have to do with Julie Doolittle? Well, plenty. TPM Muckraker reported last week that payments were made to Julie Doolittle even after her supposed fund-raiser for the Capital Athletic Foundation was cancelled, and just days before two-shoes John Doolittle wrote a letter to the Dept. of Interior indicating that he was very keen to see an Indian casino in Iowa re-opened.
Let’s zoom back to July of 2003, when Julie Doolittle suddenly appears on the payroll again. Why then? She hadn’t received any payments from Abramoff for four months.
The timing happens to nearly coincide with a favor. Two weeks earlier, Doolittle had written a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of an Abramoff client, the Sac & Fox in Iowa. For some reason, Doolittle, a California Republican and an anti-gambling Mormon, took a vital interest in this Iowan tribe’s casino. It had been shuttered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Doolittle wanted it reopened.
Oh, and a couple months later, in October, while his wife was still on Abramoff’s payroll, Doolittle again went to bat for one of Abramoff’s clients, this one in Massachusetts. Doolittle’s former staffer Kevin Ring, who worked for Abramoff and was his liaison with Doolittle, worked on both of these accounts.
And in the meantime, Doolittle was periodically hosting events at Signatures, which apparently only cost him about $100 a pop.(TPM Muckraker 7/3/06)
At this point, it looks like Rudy might end up being a witness in the Doolittle felony corruption case. At this point, all the Feds have to do is tie a few loose ends, and they will have bagged themselves another member of the Corrupt California Republican Congressional Delegation.