Murtha Moved Earmark Between Brothers’ Clients & Hoyer To Be Forced to Disclose PMA Probe
Uh Oh! Could this be the moment of reckoning for the Democrats? Jack Murtha and Steny Hoyer may both be in the lime light in the coming days.
The Democrat Culture of Corruption Continues:
First, it was discovered that Murtha moved an earmark over $8 million between his brothers’ clients. Nepotism and corruption much? That’s sure to stimulate the economy and doesn’t remind me at all of what dictators did when given money. No dictator I read about would ever take money and give it to his family members or their businesses to line their pockets rather than provide for the betterment of his/her constituents/sarc.
In early 2005, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) apparently added language to a tsunami relief bill shifting $8.2 million from a former client of his brother’s lobbying firm to a new client of the same firm.
That earmark is now tangled up in a federal indictment alleging that some of the money was skimmed by contractors and a Defense Department employee for their personal use.
Murtha’s spokesman said that no one in his office has any recollection of the transaction, and the House Appropriations Committee was unable to provide any information about how the language appeared in the tsunami relief bill.
Of course they knew nothing about it – seems like this is the norm coming from Washington, D.C. these days – I don’t think they know much of anything, in fact scratch that, they don’t know anything.
But sources familiar with the appropriations process agreed it was impossible that a provision removing earmarks from one company in Murtha’s district and transferring the money to another company in his district could have been added to the bill without Murtha’s involvement, since he was at the time the ranking member on the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the language.
The provision appears in the House committee report of a March 2005 bill providing billions of dollars worth of military spending and aid to the Asian countries that were devastated by the December 2004 tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people.
The bill included a “technical corrections” section, which transferred $8.2 million to “other procurement, Air Force” for a project called the “mobile common data link gateway.” This project — later called the “ground mobile gateway” — was an effort to build a unified battlefield communications platform for the Air Force by a Pennsylvania company called Coherent Systems.
Read roll call for the fully story and timeline of this corruption…
Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is also being pressured into complying with the federal probe into PMA and their long ties with top/senior Democrat officials. One of which was the aforementioned Murtha who probably has the most ties – I think this may be Murtha’s last stand!
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) plans to offer as early as Wednesday afternoon a privileged resolution to force the ethics committee to disclose whether it is investigating senior Democratic appropriators’ ties to the PMA Group, Democratic sources say.
Hoyer’s move follows eight attempts by Republican anti-earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) to jump-start a probe — and aims to pre-empt Flake’s ninth stab at the issue, which was due for a vote on Thursday. It marks a sharp break from Democratic leaders’ previous approach to the burgeoning controversy involving the now-defunct lobbying firm, which amounted to them trying to keep their ranks in line opposing the Flake resolutions.
In late winter, when Flake began his assault, Hoyer argued in leadership meetings that Democrats should embrace the resolution to neutralize it.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back, contending that such a move would open lawmakers up to ethics witch-hunts down the line. Since then, Democrats have slowly peeled off to support Flake: While only 17 broke ranks on his first attempt, 29 supported his latest, offered just before the Memorial Day recess.
The move comes just after Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) acknowledged his offices and some staff had been subpoenaed as part of a federal probe into PMA. Other Democratic appropriators, including Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), have long ties to PMA and its clients.
Hoyer squared off against Murtha in 2006 for the Majority Leader post, beating him by an overwhelming margin.
Jeff Flake has been proposing an ethics panel for a couple of years and has been blocked by the Democrat majority in the House and it’s understandable as to why – they are guilty! Most of the ethics violations are within the Democrat Party, that’s not to say that some Republicans may be found guilty of some violations, but as of now the culture of corruption lies within the majority party.
The House Rejects Request for Pelosi/CIA Probe
I really wouldn’t have expected anything less from the liberal House. This is probably the most progressive House we have had in a long time and it unfortunately gives Pelosi a lot of leeway to get away with impeachable offenses like throwing an entire intelligence agency under the bus and accusing them of lying.
House Republican Leader John Boehner on Thursday demanded that a bipartisan congressional panel investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used against a terrorism suspect.
“We have no choice,” Boehner told reporters, arguing that Pelosi’s remarks were having a chilling effect on the intelligence community.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced a resolution on Boehner’s behalf calling for the probe.
Even though Democrats want to argue that this is a partisan investigation, what would they call their little truth commission of the Bush administration? I also would like to know, as an independent thinker, who is telling the truth here, the CIA or Nancy Pelosi? I think it’s important for the American public to get the facts, but the House voted against the probeand stated that Nancy Pelosi already requested the declassification of her notes/files which would corroborate her claims.
House Democrats have defeated a Republican push to investigate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether waterboarding had been used against terrorism suspects.
The House voted 252-172 to block the measure that would have created a bipartisan congressional panel.
If Nancy really did request that information, will she publish her request that she sent to the CIA like Dick Cheney did? Remember how the media and the leftist bloggers questioned Cheney’s honesty when he said he made a request to the CIA?
Hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites – how many times can it be said – it’s getting really old and tiresome.
Leon Panetta Speaking Out Against Pelosi
I will be taking bets later… Make a guess for Pelosi stepping down this year…
The sharks are circling and the Democrats sense it. Steny Hoyer wants to be speaker and other Democrats don’t want to be associated with this woman or her statements. Even lefty Leon Panetta is backing the CIA and speaking to his employees to reassure them that they acted appropriately and nobody lied or misled congress.
CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s criticisms.
His message: We didn’t mislead Congress; stay focused on your job.
Panetta’s note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here’s the key graph:
“Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.”
The full Panetta memo is here.
The Wheels On The Bus Go Bump, Bump, Bump
Democrats may have begun to eat their own.
Steny Hoyer, Democrat representative of Maryland and current House Majority leader has been purported to have a long held grudge against Pelosi ever since she became speaker. It appears as if many Democrats are letting Pelosi hang herself and slowly backing away from her and her statements regarding the CIA made earlier today.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, panned the recent criticism of Pelosi as a “distraction” during a verbal tangle with Republican Whip Eric Cantor on the House floor.
But when asked directly whether he shares Pelosi’s belief that the CIA misled Congress, he backed off.
“I have no idea of that. I don’t have a belief of that nature because I have no basis on which to base such a belief,” Hoyer said. “And I certainly hope that’s not the case. And I don’t draw that conclusion.”
Other members of Congress are also not backing up Pelosi’s claims. Senator Lieberman was interviewd on NBC today and supported the CIA over Nancy Pelosi’s “misleading” statements.
Time to break out the popcorn… it was only a matter of time – I’m sure this won’t be the last either!
