HOME | BIO | MUSIC | JOURNEYS BY DJ | STUDIO BLOG | POLITICAL BLOG | BOOKING INFO | CONTACT

A political committee founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may have improperly spent unregulated "soft money" on get-out-the-vote and fundraising activities, the Federal Election Commission says. A DeLay attorney said Thursday the money has been reimbursed.

Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee "potentially" spent about $203,000 in soft money from its nonfederal account to pay for the political activities and administrative expenses, the FEC found in an audit.

ARMPAC has federal and nonfederal accounts that shared certain expenses. The federal account could contain only money subject to federal contribution limits and from individuals and PACs, or hard money. The nonfederal account was not subject to federal regulation and could accept soft money, which can include contributions from corporations and labor unions.

The FEC audit also found that DeLay's committee failed to report more than $300,000 in debts owed to 25 vendors and reported its finances erroneously. DeLay attorney Don McGahn said debts were paid but not in the time prescribed by the FEC. The expenses included eight fundraising events, two each held at Four Streams Golf Club in Beallsville, Md., and a resort in Humacao, Puerto Rico, and others in Orlando, Fla., California, New York and Hackberry Creek Country Club in Irving, Texas

Investigators said that sale eventually led to the murder of the flamboyant owner, Gus Boulis.

Local 10 News has learned that two very powerful men are named in the federal indictment: Jack Abramoff, who is a hugely successful and well-connected lobbyist in Washington, and Adam Kidan, who was the public name behind the partnership that bought the Suncruz empire from the late Boulis. Abramoff and Kidan were partners in the deal.

Local 10 News has learned that the indictment focuses on the sale itself and alleges that Kidan and Abramoff agreed to put up $23 million for the deal in order to get a loan of $60 million from a lending company. But investigators said the money from Kidan and Abramoff never existed and constitutes fraud.

Months after the contentious sale was finalized, Gus Boulis was killed, gunned down gang-land style in his car. No arrest was ever made but investigators believe that a series of Suncruz checks to a Miami Beach man named Tony Ferarri financed the hit, Local 10 News reporter Rad Berky said.

Abramoff and Kidan are charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. Each count carries a penalty up to five years in prison and a 250-thousand dollar fine.

Kidan's attorney in Florida says his client would surrender voluntarily to federal authorities in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.

James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator.

At the time, Tobin was the RNC's New England regional director, before moving to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Tobin's indictment accuses him of specifically calling the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in the scheme.
"The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters ... of their federally secured right to vote," states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.

Since charges were first filed in December, the RNC has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from the high-powered Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly. The firm's other clients include Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.

The GOP's filings with the FEC list the payments to Williams & Connolly without specifying they were for Tobin's defense. Political parties have wide latitude on how they spend their money, including on lawyers.

Republican Party officials said they don't ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin's defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.

"Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC," a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing."

The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.
Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a "zero-tolerance policy" for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.

"The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position," Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.

Rumors have been floating around the Ohio Statehouse for two weeks that Taft and his attorneys have already been in plea bargain discussions with prosecutors. While nothing has surfaced to confirm that, last Thursday Taft released some information about 27 of at least 60 events or activities that the governor failed to disclose on mandatory financial statements submitted to the Ethics Commission.

Whether Rove shaded the truth with Bush two years ago is a potential political problem. The president so far has stood by Rove's side, even raising the bar for dismissing subordinates. Two years ago, Bush pledged to fire any leakers, but now he says he would fire anyone who committed a crime.

If Rove didn't tell Bush the truth, that theoretically could be a legal problem for the presidential aide under the federal false statement statute.

Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning said the false statement law covers statements made to all members of the executive branch, including the president acting in his official capacity. In contrast, a typical false statement case involves lying to investigators or writing false information on a form to the government.