Hillary Clinton will give back $850,000 in bundled funds raised, apparently illegally, by Norman Hsu.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign said Monday it will return $850,000 in donations raised by Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who is under federal investigation for allegedly violating election laws. Clinton, D-N.Y., previously had planned only to give to charity $23,000 she received from Hsu for her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac.

The FBI is investigating whether Hsu paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates, a law enforcement official said Monday.

“In light of recent events and allegations that Mr. Norman Hsu engaged in an illegal investment scheme, we have decided out of an abundance of caution to return the money he raised for our campaign,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a statement Monday night. “An estimated 260 donors this week will receive refunds totaling approximately $850,000 from the campaign.”

Wolfson said the Clinton campaign also will vigorously review its fundraisers, including thorough criminal background checks, in the future. “In any instances where a source of a bundler’s income is in question, the campaign will take affirmative steps to verify its origin,” he said.

The amount that the campaign identified as raised by Hsu would make him one of her top fundraisers. During the first six months of this year, her presidential campaign raised $52 million from individual contributors, second to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who raised $58.5 million.

Since 2004, Hsu has donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates, and raised hundreds of thousands of additional dollars. He was regarded as a top party fundraiser until recent reports surfaced that he was wanted on a warrant in California in connection with a 1991 grand theft charge.

Federal authorities are looking into whether Hsu leaned on investors to contribute to political candidates after paying them big earnings from a shady business venture he was running, the law enforcement official said. Such a scam — using conduit contributors known as straw donors — is a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which limits how much money individuals can give to candidates and political committees. The FBI may be looking at other potential charges as well, according to the law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

This is the first time I’ve mentioned this scandal which has simply failed to pique my interest until now. I’m rather sure Hsu is a crook but have no reason to think Clinton or other Democratic candidates who took his money were involved in any wrongdoing or knew about the schemes. My hunch is that candidates don’t look gift horses in the mouth very often.

That the campaign will now start conducting criminal background checks on big donors is amusing. It’s a good PR move, I suppose, but rather silly. How many cases like this have their been?

Jeralyn Merritt hopes the checks will indeed be limited to big time bundlers. “For the individual donor, I think it’s important they be allowed to donate to political campaigns, up to the allowed $2,300.00, without fear of a background check.” Out of sheer practicality, I’m sure that will the case. I don’t know the logistics of running criminal checks from outside the auspices of a law enforcement agency but I’d imagine it’s rather expensive and time consuming. (I am, however, amused at the notion that donating money to political campaigns will reduce recidivism.)

Flip Pidot has a clever comparison of the fundraising activities of Hsu and Jack Abramoff. Let’s be clear, though: The scandal in Abramoff’s case was that several political figures, including a White House staffer and two Congressmen, were involved in his crimes and that bribery took place. So far, the politicians to whom Hsu donated appear to be clean.

Does all this, as Gaius suggests, point to a wider “culture of corruption”? We’ll see, I suppose. The incentives to raise large piles of cash are strong and the penalties for wrongdoing are usually small and after-the-fact.

Roger L. Simon wonders if this might not signal the end of the era of big money politics.

McCain-Feingold solved nothing. One of things about the Thompson campaign is that he has been doing well without a lot of money (ahead in today’s Rasmussen). If that keeps up, maybe he will prove that you can run without such a ton of cash…. of course, he’s an actor and all but… with the current insatiable media, almost anyone credible gets a huge amount of attention. Maybe the ability to buy endless ads doesn’t amount to so much anymore. People tune them out. I know I do.

An intriguing concept but I’m a little dubious. Like Roger, I tune ads out. Still, ads must work in the aggregate or else Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, and Nike — who are run by some pretty savvy people — would quit running them. And Fred Thompson has been the beneficiary of a lot of free media, partly owing to his non-political celebrity and partly because of the shrewdness of his long tease of a pre-campaign. I’m not sure how easily that could be replicated by other candidates.

Meanwhile, Ben Smith questions the timing.

Can you think of a better evening to get bad news out? It’s the eve of 9/11 and the midst of the Petraeus circus, not to mention the week of Rosh Hashannah. Anybody else got some bad news they want to dump?

This ain’t her first rodeo. Still, this news was prominently mentioned on NPR and the big papers, so it’s not as if this is going to be buried. No candidate wants to be associated with criminals. Again, though, there’s no reason to think she’s done anything wrong here.

The editors at the Washington Examiner wonder how it is that politicians who come to office with little money leave it as millionaires. They intimate that it’s good old fashioned bribery, although the examples they give are far afield and rather inconclusive.

They rightly note that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s “worries about paying off a $10 million legal bill at the end of Bill’s two terms as chief executive have become a distant memory thanks to his lucrative speaking fees.” They don’t mention her own bestselling autobiography, the advance for which was paid just before she joined the Senate and would have been precluded from accepting it owing to ethics rules. Still, while there may be an argument to be made that it’s unseemly to use the presidency as a launching point for a career as an incredibly well paid public speaker, it doesn’t speak to the thesis; Clinton only got rich after he left office and there’s no indication that his lavish fees are quid pro quo for favors he performed as president. For that matter, while it may be the case that “the potential conflicts of interest boggle the imagination” if Hillary is elected president and Bill has a major public policy voice (and, for that matter, those conflicts exist now, given that Hillary is a powerful Senator) every nickel they both earn is public record; the voters therefore have the information necessary to make that judgment.

And, to borrow from the “but Bill Clinton did it, too” meme, I’d point out that Ronald Reagan was probably the first ex-president to seriously cash in on the lecture circuit.

The other examples are marky.

Consider the case of Sen. Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican whose total assets are valued at between $1.75 million and $2.77 million, according to his latest disclosure form. Lott’s lot has changed since 2001, when Time magazine said he had not “accumulated any significant wealth” during his career.

Since then, he has become famous for championing earmarks, including the biggest one ever, the $700 million “Railroad to Nowhere” last year. Lott’s son was a lobbyist for a Kentucky firm well-positioned to benefit from the project that, though defeated last year, could reappear in a different guise.

The juxtaposition of Lott’s asset holdings and his support of earmarks is troubling and speaks to real problems with the way public monies are allocated. Yet, the insinuation that Lott is somehow personally profiting from those earmarks ought be substantiated by something other than the post hoc ergo propter hoc assumption. Without checking into his financial records, I don’t know how he suddenly became so wealthy. My guess, however, living as I do in the DC Metro area, is that Lott owns a home in the area and its value skyrocketed.

Then there is former House Speaker Denny Hastert, whose net worth when he entered Congress in 1987 reportedly was $170,000. After getting earmarks in 2005 worth more than $200 million for a highway project a couple of miles from real estate he bought the year before, Hastert and a partner realized a profit of $1.8 million by selling to a developer.

I’d have to know more about this sequence of events to render a judgment here. Again, though, whether Hastert did anything improper, the fact that he can use his office to direct monies to specific projects in his district leads to this kind of speculation.

The recent 16-count indictment of Louisiana Democrat Rep. William Jefferson and the continuing probe of the earmark fandangos of Rep. Allan Molohan, D-W.Va., show this is a bipartisan problem.

Well, no, it shows that two Congressmen are likely taking bribes. The antecedent “this” does not fit Lott and Hastert’s cases, at least not with the information provided, let alone Clinton’s.

With more than 32,000 earmark requests pending with the House Appropriations Committee after only five months of the current Congress, it is no surprise that people are putting two and two together and getting four. It seems the ticket is to gain federal office, take advantage of the perks and the deals that can be made because of the position and the opportunities it creates, then watch as the bank account swells.

The Teapot Dome and Credit Mobilier scandals show that using public office for personal gain is not a new story. But at nearly $6,000 a minute for a former president’s speech and earmarks worth hundreds of millions becoming the congressional norm, it could easily be a much bigger story than ever before.

Again, I’d like more evidence that lobbyist money is making it to Congressmen’s private bank accounts. There’s no doubt, though, that millions are pouring into campaign coffers.

A piece in yesterday’s Washington Post Magazine gives a devastating account of how freshmen members hit the ground running for their re-election campaign. New Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making no secret of using massive amounts of earmarks to ensure that these freshman have plenty of pork to pave their way to re-election:

The House Democratic leadership has begun bolstering the stature of [Rep. Joe] Courtney [D, CT] and other new Democratic members: showing them off at events with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including them as co-sponsors of major pieces of legislation and praising their performance at news conferences. Politics is about nothing if not self-interest and the maintenance of power, and in the past, the self-interest of senior members dictated that House freshmen subserviently wait in line behind them for everything — particularly powerful committee assignments and prime speaking time on the House floor. Not now. During the opening weeks, Courtney and other Democratic freshmen received speaking assignments on the floor during the Democrats’ much-touted “100 Hour Agenda” — a mix of bills addressing high-profile domestic issues such as the minimum wage, Medicare prescription drugs and loan rates on college tuition.

Some older Democratic bulls complained privately that they were being overlooked in favor of the freshmen. Pelosi reminded them that they wouldn’t have their new power in the House but for the many newcomers, whom she calls “Majority Makers.” In a favor seldom bestowed on freshmen in other eras, Courtney and many other new members have received their choice of key committees. Courtney won spots on the Education and Labor Committee and, potentially even more important for him, the influential Armed Services Committee. That body annually examines an important budgetary issue for Courtney: the building of nuclear-powered, attack submarines, which accounts for the jobs of more than 6,000 of his constituents.

The real crime is that all this is perfectly legal. It’s corruption of the highest order, in that it’s institutionalized. None of this is illegal, nor does it indicate that Members are lining their pockets. My guess is that that’s rare, indeed. But hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being siphoned off for dubious projects that are de facto campaign contributions to incumbents.

My guess is that much more pay-for-play action is taking place at the local level. Barbara Hollingsworth’s piece, also in today’s Examiner, about the $5.14 billion (and counting) program aimed at “extending Metrorail through Tysons Corner to Dulles International Airport” that “has become the most expensive transit project in the nation, as well as the largest public works project in Virginia history” is much more persuasive on that score than the op-ed.

The great irony is that the Framers put most of the power at the state and local level on the assumption that people would watch their local leaders much more closely than the folks far away in D.C. That may have been true even half a century ago; it’s not now.

Curt Weldon joins the growing ranks of Republican congressional leaders under investigation for influence peddling.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, according to sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry.

The FBI, which opened an investigation in recent months, has formally referred the matter to the department’s Public Integrity Section for additional scrutiny. At issue are Weldon’s efforts between 2002 and 2004 to aid two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers with ties to strongman Slobodan Milosevic, a federal law enforcement official said. The Russian companies and a Serbian foundation run by the brothers’ family each hired a firm co-owned by Weldon’s daughter, Karen, for fees totaling nearly $1 million a year, public records show.

Whether Weldon ultimately did anything illegal here, it certainly looks bad. It’s odd enough for him to be helping Russian companies drum up business, let alone for that business to “coincidentally” benefit his daughter’s firm.

Politicians have families and we can’t draw such a wide buffer zone around the former as to prevent the latter from making a living. Surely, though, such direct benefits can and should be excluded.

Tom DeLay might be back in Congress after all, if a bizarre judicial ruling stands.

Could Tom DeLay be headed back to the House?

A source close to the ex-Congressman tells TIME that DeLay is planning an aggressive campaign to retake the House seat he quit in June if an appeals court lets stand a ruling by a federal judge last week that his name must stay on November’s ballot—even though he has moved to Virginia. “If it isn’t overturned, Katy bar the door!” says a G.O.P. official. “Guess he’ll have to fire up the engines on the campaign and let ‘er rip.”

It would be quite amusing. I can’t imagine the ruling won’t be overturned on appeal, though.

UPDATE: Rick Hasen disagrees and cites precedent.

The leading case on the conflict between state law and the Qualifications Clause is Schaefer v. Townsend, 215 F.3d 1031 (9th Cir. 2000), in which the Ninth Circuit held that “California’s requirement that candidates to the House of Representatives reside within the state before election violates the Constitution by handicapping the class of nonresident candidates who otherwise satisfy the Qualifications Clause.” (See also the Lowenstein and Hasen casebook at 581, briefly discussing Schaefer.) The case has a discussion of the Framers’ intent in drafting the “when elected” language of the Qualifications Clause, a discussion cited by the district court in the DeLay case.

It strikes me as quite bizarre that a candidate who has withdrawn from a House race on grounds that he is moving out of the state, has in fact moved to another state hundreds of miles away, and declared that he has no intention of residing in the state in question by election day would nonetheless be deemed a “potential inhabitant” and thus declared–against his will, mind you–eligible.

The scandal of the day is that Harry Reid, Nevada’s senior senator, took free boxing tickets worth thousands of dollars from his state’s boxing association while boxing legislation was pending before the Senate.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) accepted free ringside tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission to three professional boxing matches while that state agency was trying to influence him on federal regulation of boxing. Reid took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada’s agency feared might usurp its authority.

He defended the gifts, saying that they would never influence his position on the bill and he was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. “Anyone from Nevada would say I’m glad he is there taking care of the state’s number one businesses,” he said. “I love the fights anyways, so it wasn’t like being punished,” added the senator, a former boxer and boxing judge.

Senate ethics rules generally allow lawmakers to accept gifts from federal, state or local governments, but specifically warn against taking such gifts — particularly on multiple occasions — when they might be connected to efforts to influence official actions. “Senators and Senate staff should be wary of accepting any gift where it appears that the gift is motivated by a desire to reward, influence, or elicit favorable official action,” the Senate ethics manual states. It cites the 1990s example of an Oregon lawmaker who took gifts for personal use from a South Carolina state university and its president while that school was trying to influence his official actions. “Repeatedly taking gifts which the Gifts Rule otherwise permits to be accepted may, nonetheless, reflect discredit upon the institution, and should be avoided,” the manual states.

Several ethics experts said Reid should have paid for the tickets, which were close to the ring and worth between several hundred and several thousand dollars each, to avoid the appearance he was being influenced by gifts. Two senators who joined Reid for fights with the complimentary tickets took markedly differently steps. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) insisted on paying $1,400 for the tickets he shared with Reid for a 2004 championship fight. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) accepted free tickets to another fight with Reid but already had recused himself from Reid’s federal boxing legislation because his father was an executive for a Las Vegas hotel that hosts fights.

[...]

Reid had separate meetings in June 2003 in his Senate offices with two Abramoff tribal clients and Edward Ayoob, a former staff member who went to work with Abramoff. The meetings occurred over a five-day span in which Ayoob also threw a fundraiser for Reid at the firm where Ayoob and Abramoff worked that netted numerous donations from Abramoff’s partners, firm and clients.

[...]

A few months after the fundraiser, Reid did sponsor a spending bill that targeted $100,000 to another Abramoff tribe, the Chitimacha of Louisiana, to pay for a soil erosion study for which Ayoob was lobbying. Reid said he sponsored the provision because Louisiana lawmakers sent him a letter requesting it.

[...]

Reid also wrote at least four letters favorable to Abramoff’s tribal clients around the time Reid collected donations from those clients and Abramoff’s partners, the Associated Press reported recently. Reid has declined to return the donations, unlike other lawmakers, saying his letters were consistent with his beliefs.

That a Senator who represents the gambling capital of America needed to be bribed to support this legislation, let alone that a man of his position could be bought for such a low price, strikes me as absurd. Still, given the tenor of the times, Reid showed poor judgment in not following the lead of McCain and Ensign on this one.

Judging by the early blogosphere reaction, I’m nearly alone in this view.

Ed Morrissey thinks this is just a further example of corruption in Washington and observes, “as long as Democrats continue to screech at corrupt Republicans while excusing the likes of Reid, Kennedy, Jefferson, and Mollohan, then nothing will ever change.”

John Hawkins is amazed at Reid’s softpeddling “being given thousands of dollars worth of free tickets from a company that was hoping to influence his judgement in the Senate. If that isn’t illegal it ought to be, because it makes Reid look crooked.”

Reid’s defenders so far seem to be comprised entirely of Josh Marshall and his henchman Paul Kiel. The latter notes that “there is an exception for gifts from governmental agencies (like the Nevada Athletic Commission) in the Senate ethics rules.” Furthermore, while Reid voted with his benefactors, he voted against them on the key matter they were apparently seeking to influence:

Reid was advocating “the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada’s agency feared might usurp its authority.” Reid never changed his position. And this was a dramatically uncontroversial piece of legislation largely preoccupied with ensuring the safety of boxers by creating the United States Boxing Administration. It passed the Senate unanimously.

Of course, this could simply make Reid the Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Senate, taking bribes and then failing to pay off. But, again, taking some tickets from his own state’s athletic commission certainly strikes me as small potatoes. And I’m not exactly a big fan of Harry Reid, at least in his Minority Leader incarnation.

I’ll say.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert took to the podium, praised William Jefferson, and said a prayer attacking the FBI for violating the sanctity of the Congress, saying that the raid was not “God’s way” . . .

Oh wait. That was a different scandal and a different Speaker. It was Tennessee Senate Speaker John Wilder who embarrassed himself, his party, and his chamber by heaping scorn on the cops instead of the criminals–almost exactly one year ago today. Sorry. It was hard to tell them apart, since Hastert and Wilder are both amply demonstrating why they’re no longer worthy of retaining the power entrusted to them by the people.

[...]

But Democratic Congressman Jefferson took a bribe (allegedly). That’s easy to understand. Especially when the FBI has the New Orleans Democrat on tape counting the money. Each of the one thousand $100 bills! And then they found $90 thousand of that in his refrigerator. And he’s the same guy who right after Hurricane Katrina, commandeered a National Guard boat and some soldiers to help move crates out of his house–including one box that was described at the time as (wait for it) ”the size of a small refrigerator.”

This scandal was so easy for Republicans to exploit to their benefit that you’d be forgiven for thinking that William Jefferson was really a Karl Rove Republican plant.

So, even if ethics is irrelevant to you, if for nothing else, Dennis Hastert should be fired from his leadership position for sheer political stupidity.

ABC News’ Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross reported on his blog at 6:24 last evening:

Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government. Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes. The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government. The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.

The day Abramoff was indicted, Hastert denied any unlawful connection and said he would donate to charity any campaign contribution he had received from Abramoff and his clients. A spokesman for Speaker Hastert told ABC News, “We are not aware of this. The Speaker has a long history and a well-documented record of opposing Indian Reservation shopping for casino gaming purposes.”

This week, Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI for its raid on the office of another congressman under investigation, Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana.

Krista Cole, the Deputy Press Secretary for House Republican Caucus Vice Chairman Jack Kingston, sent out a mass email to OTB and untold others at 8:54 pm which stated, in its entirety:

Ron Bonjean, Communications Director for Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) issued the following statement regarding the ABC Nightly News story that aired this evening:

“The ABC News report is absolutely untrue. As confirmed by the Justice Department, ‘Speaker Hastert is not under investigation by the Justice Department.’ We are demanding a full retraction of the ABC News story. The Speaker’s earlier statement issued today accurately reflects the facts regarding this matter.”

This was followed by an AP report wherein DOJ officials denied the veracity of the story.

The Justice Department denied a news report Wednesday that it was investigating House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The statement by department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos came in response to a report by ABC News that Hastert was under investigation by the FBI to determine his role in a public corruption probe centered around convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

[...]

Asked if he was being investigated, Hastert said late Wednesday that he has not received any notice from the Justice Department that he was being investigated as part of the Jack Abramoff probe. “You’ll have to ask the Justice Department,” he told reporters, as he walked from his office to the House chamber. “Somebody leaked it out.” Pressed by reporters, Scolinos said: “Speaker Hastert is not under investigation by the Justice Department.” Hastert’s office later issued a statement calling the ABC report “absolutely untrue” and demanding a full retraction. ABC had no immediate comment.

Hastert was among nearly three dozen lawmakers who pressed the Interior Department to block a Louisiana Indian casino’s casino application. An Associated Press review of campaign reports, IRS records and congressional correspondence found that Hastert and the other lawmakers had collected large donations from Abramoff and his tribal clients. Between 2001 and 2004, Hastert collected more than $100,000 in donations from Abramoff’s firm and tribal clients. He also had used Abramoff’s restaurant to hold fundraisers.

In a 10:21 update, he contends,

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is “in the mix” in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress.

[...]

“You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully,” a senior official said.

Glenn Reynolds offers plenty of musing on this noting that, “Of course, if Hastert isn’t under investigation, we’re back to the question of why he’s waging an asinine crusade against the enforcement of laws against Congressional corruption.” Indeed.

Update: Dan Riehl notes that most of the Hastert-Abramoff story was reported back on January 4, citing a San Jose Mercury News reprint of a Chicago Tribune story.

Jeff Birnbaum has a fascinating piece in Washington Monthly arguing that campaign contributions are increasingly being treated as bribes by the Justice Department. He thinks this is a good thing.

So far, the scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has produced some vivid and memorable examples of modern Washington graft–skybox tickets, pricey restaurant meals, golf junkets to Scotland. Yet at the center of the scandal is something more prosaic, and potentially far more explosive: good old-fashioned campaign donations. Deep in the plea agreements won by Justice Department lawyers are admissions by the defendants–Abramoff and his cronies, ex-DeLay aides Tony C. Rudy and Michael Scanlon–that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe lawmakers. Even though these gifts were fully disclosed and within prescribed limits, the government said they were criminal, and the defendants agreed. This aspect of the case has received little attention. But it is sending shudders down K Street. If such prosecutions were to become commonplace, the paid persuaders of Washington and their big-money clients would be dealt a body blow. If prosecutors begin to assert as a matter of routine that lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions are a form of bribery, it could open up a whole new front on the decades-old (and largely ineffective) effort to break the nexus of money and politics in the capital.

“More than in the past, the Department of Justice seems to be trying very hard to tie campaign contributions to legislative acts by members of Congress and to draw the inference that there’s a criminal connection between the two,” says Robert K. Kelner, chairman of the election law and political law practice at Covington & Burling. “If they succeed then I think it will change the standard advice that lawyers will give their clients about political contributions and also change common practices on Capitol Hill.” Stanley Brand, a noted criminal defense attorney at the Brand Law Group in Washington, agrees. “The department is inching toward making campaign contributions the central thing of value when they charge a bribe,” says Brand. “I don’t know if they’ll get all the way there. But it would be an eight on the Richter scale for the campaign finance system if they do. Every PAC and interest group would have to ask itself if its donation is going to be grist for a prosecution.”

The earthquake would certainly upset Washington, but it would probably delight almost everyone else. For decades, opinion polls have shown that voters think their politicians are bought and sold by the rich and connected. But these same voters have also seen any number of campaign finance “reforms” put in place, only to watch the system become evermore driven by dollars. [emphasis added]

But the public is often, if not usually, wrong about such things. These are the same folks who believe that we could balance the budget if we just stopped giving all that foreign aid. Indeed, Birnbaum himself admits,

All contributions, of course, are not bribes. A politician who runs on an anti-abortion platform, takes contributions from anti-abortion supporters, and subsequently votes in line with those views, would never be subject to the bribery statute. “There’s a large segment of fundraising activity that is perfectly legal and appropriate,” notes Baran. “Candidates will always get money in legal amounts from people who support them. That’s not evidence that the public official has done anything in exchange for that money.”

The problem, of course, is differentiating this from more sketchy donations that stop short of the obvious bribery of quid pro quo transactions. There are no obvious public policy solutions to this, either, as campaign finance “reform” efforts not only squelch legitimate political speech but have proven time and again to be ineffective. And public financing of campaigns would make it even harder for challengers to be incumbents.

Birnbaum predicts that public interest groups will start to use DOJ filings as a major tool:

The Abramoff plea agreements are also sparking a reassessment among at least some public-interest groups about the best way to fight the “corrupting influence” of money in politics. For decades, such groups have poured their energies into trying to make the existing system of campaign-finance regulations and laws work better, to little avail. Now, groups like Melanie Sloan’s CREW are turning increasingly to the Justice Department rather than to Congress to find redress against abuses in the campaign-finance system. Instead of spending all its time filing complaints with congressional ethics committees (which rarely act) or pressing for new lobbying laws, CREW has also been writing letters to the Justice Department seeking investigations, for example, of Republican Reps. Pete Sessions (Texas) and Jerry Lewis (Calif.) for acting too closely in concert with their donors.

Taxpayer-financed witchhunts initiated by groups who can’t get their way in the legislative problem strikes me as a solution worse than the problem.

Florida Congresswoman and Senate candidate Katherine Harris is the latest politician linked to the Duke Cunningham scandal, according to an AP report.

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris said Thursday she did not knowingly do anything wrong in her associations with a defense contractor who prosecutors say illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign in 2004.

[...]

The donations were described in a plea agreement last Friday, when Mitchell Wade, the former president of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty to bribing U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for assistance in getting $150 million in Defense Department contracts for his company. He also admitted making illegal campaign contributions in the names of MZM employees and their spouses to Harris and Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va. Prosecutors said Harris got $32,000 from employees who were reimbursed by Wade. Harris said she recently donated the money to charity, and didn’t know the donations would be reimbursed.

In the plea agreement, Wade acknowledged dining with Harris at a Washington restaurant in 2005 to discuss a possible fundraiser for her and obtaining funding for a Navy counterintelligence program involving his company. She requested the funding, but Wade didn’t get it. “I requested a $10 million appropriation for the U.S Naval Criminal Investigative Services project because I thought it would bring new jobs to Sarasota,” said Harris, R-Fla. “I never requested funding for this project in exchange for any contributions, but rather to bring more high-skill, high-wage jobs to the region.”

I’m no fan of Harris but her explanation seems plausible enough.

As with the case of CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the association with this scandal merits investigation. But mere contact with lobbyists who later turn out to be corrupt is not in and of itself evidence of corruption.

The New York Times and Time magazine have caught the Bush Administration in a tall tale indeed. After having denied having records of President Bush ever meeting Jack Abramoff, both outlets have blown the doors off this one.

Time has a WEB EXCLUSIVE: First Photo of Bush and Abramoff

NYT has a somewhat better photo: Photograph Shows Lobbyist at Bush Meeting With Legislators

Folks, I’ve been closer to President Bush than that. If you asked him, he wouldn’t remember meeting me, either.

Update: Mike Krempasky weighs in. “They had to put a red circle around Abramoff? That’s it? Bahahaha.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid voted in ways helpful to Jack Abramoff after taking campaign contributions from him, AP reports.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator’s staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist’s team about legislation affecting other clients. The activities — detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press — are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff’s firm, lobbying partners and clients.

Reid’s office acknowledged Thursday having “routine contacts” with Abramoff’s lobbying partners and intervening on some government matters _ such as blocking some tribal casinos _ in ways Abramoff’s clients might have deemed helpful. But it said none of his actions were affected by donations or done for Abramoff. “All the actions that Senator Reid took were consistent with his long- held beliefs, such as not letting tribal casinos expand beyond reservations, and were taken to defend the interests of Nevada constituents,” spokesman Jim Manley said.

Reid, D-Nev., has led the Democratic Party’s attacks portraying Abramoff’s lobbying and fundraising as a Republican scandal. But Abramoff’s records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid’s office in 2001 alone. Most were to discuss Democratic legislation that would have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory and Abramoff client, but would have given the islands a temporary break on the wage rate, the billing records show.

Reid also intervened on government matters at least five times in ways helpful to Abramoff’s tribal clients, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action.

Ethics rules require senators to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in collecting contributions around the times they take official acts benefiting donors.

Abramoff’s firm also hired one of Reid’s top legislative aides as a lobbyist. The aide later helped throw a fundraiser for Reid at Abramoff’s firm that raised donations from several of his lobbying partners.

This story encapsulates all of the problems of lobbying in a nutshell. Reid took money from a lobbyist who wanted him to do X and subsequently, Reid did X. An open and shut case of corruption, no?

No. Scott Shield correctly notes, as I have in the past, that it would be quite natural for a senator from Nevada to vote as Reid did on gaming issues. Further, it appears that Reid actually did not vote with Abramoff on the Mariana matter that was the subject of most of the calls.

Reid, however, is not totally off the hook here. His name is being, perhaps unfairly, tarnished by the association with Abramoff in the same way that dozens of Republicans have been–under Reid’s leadership. Reid has, in effect, been snared in the guilt by association trap he helped set.

Shields laments, “For a variety of reasons, some of which I still don’t get, the old fashioned media wants very badly for this to be a bipartisan scandal.” While I agree that the K Street Project and other aspects of this scandal are almost exclusively a function of abuse of power by Tom DeLay and others, the overarching story here is bipartisan because it flows from the institutional arrangements of the Congress that have been in place for decades.

Members have written rules giving themselves a massive fundraising advantage over their potential challengers and those who want access to their calendars feel pressured to fork over the cash. My instinct is that very little true corruption is involved. Most of the money exchanged goes to help re-elect Members whose positions either naturally align with that of the lobbying interest, as in Reid and gambling, or to sway those who have no natural constituency interest one way or the other. Still, when there is a close judgment to be made, one can’t help but think that Members are more likely to side with the Jack Abramoff’s of the world.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid took money from Indian tribes connected to Jack Abramoff, according to a story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada began receiving campaign contributions from at least four American Indian tribes only after they hired Jack Abramoff, Republicans charged this week in an effort to tie the Senate Democratic leader to the disgraced lobbyist. On Thursday, Reid shrugged off questions about money he received from tribal clients of Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last month to three felonies after being accused of exchanging meals, travel and gifts for political favors.
“I’ve said that I received money from Indians in the past and will continue to do so,” Reid said. Asked what he would say about tribes who did not give him money until after hiring Abramoff, Reid said, “What I’ve said all along.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee this week revived a charge that Reid received more than $50,000 from four tribes with gaming interests between 2001 and 2004 after they hired Abramoff. The Nevadan had received no money from those tribes before then, Republicans said.

The donations included:

• $19,500 from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of California.

• $5,000 from the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.

• $7,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

• $19,000 from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan.

“Harry Reid’s ties to Jack Abramoff are too substantial for him to dismiss with Washington, D.C., denial and hypocritical accusations,” Republican spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

Reid has acknowledged receiving $61,000 from tribal clients and lobbying colleagues of Abramoff. He has said the money was legally raised, that he has done nothing improper and does not plan to refund the donations.

An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign watchdog group, shows that Indian gaming tribes as a general proposition increased their political donations substantially since the late 1990s, spreading money wider and deeper among members of Congress. In the 1998 election cycle, tribes donated $1.5 million. In the 2004 cycle donations had increased to $7.2 million, the center found.

This strikes me as a case of guilt by association. It is not particularly surprising that a Nevada senator would be on the receiving end of donations from gambling interests. That the donations increased after Abramoff came aboard is not particularly damning, either, given that Indian donations, period, increased then.

Story via email release from the RNC.

As has likely been apparent for quite some time, my preference in the race for House Majority Leader (in which, as Majority Whip Roy Blunt would hasten to point out, I don’t have a vote) would be, in order, John Shadegg, John Boehner, a random Republican Member, and Roy Blunt. Blunt is the candidate with the most ties to the corrupt Abramoff-DeLay machine and represents an arrogant bet that the Republicans do not need to change course. Shadegg is the other extreme, a virtual unknown who would signal a clean break and the idea that the GOP “gets it.”

Shadegg, however, entered the race late and seemed to have no chance. While he’s gotten endorsements from bloggers ranging from Glenn Reynolds to N.Z. Bear to Mike Krempasky and the Red State Gang and conservative bastions including Human Events and National Review, he seemed to have no shot at winning. Blunt and Boehner together claimed roughly 150 percent of the Caucus as supporters.

Suddenly, though, something is changing.

WSJ’s Brody Mullins gives the latest example of Members pledging their support for one candidate and then voting for another:

As three Republicans candidates vie to replace Rep. Tom DeLay as House Majority Whip in an election Thursday, Democrats showed that anything can happen in a closed-ballot election in Washington.

Democrat Rep. John Larson of Connecticut won a startling election to become the fourth-ranking member of the House Democrats’ leadership team.

Larson had just 18 publicly announced supporters heading into the election. Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York had 72 public supporters while Rep. Jan Schakowsky had 56. In the first round of voting, Mr. Larson received 60 votes; Crowley, 79; and Ms. Schakowsky, 56. Since no candidate won a majority of the votes, the top two vote recipients — Mr. Larson and Mr. Crowley — moved on to a second ballot. There, most of Ms. Schakowsky’s supporters backed Mr. Larson — and he won, 116-87.

On Thursday, House Republicans will chose among Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona to serve as House majority leader. Blunt, who now serves as interim majority leader, is considered the frontrunner with 94 public supporters. Boehner has just 55 public backers, and Shadegg just a few dozen. If Mr. Blunt doesn’t win a majority — 117 votes — on the first ballot, he will face either Boehner or Shadegg on the second ballot.

(Via InstaPundit, who notes it is “Very interesting.” Indeed.)

Apparently, Blunt himself knows this.

“This is a secret ballot. Things happen. . .If it turns out I am not the majority leader, I will still be the whip.”

– Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), quoted by CQ’s Alan K. Ota (”Signs of Unrest Grow on Eve of Leadership Vote,” CQ, February 1, 2006)

Above quote via email from a Boehner staffer. The irony is twofold. First, it demonstrates the arrogance of Blunt’s position. Second, losing a race while thinking one has the votes sewn up is prima facie evidence that one is not a very good Whip.

Now, here’s the kicker: Senator John McCain has endorsed Shadegg.

Looking to give his fellow Arizonan an eleventh-hour boost before House Republicans retreat today behind doors to select a new majority leader, Sen. John McCain announced Wednesday that Rep. John Shadegg would be his choice. “I’m here in support of John Shadegg, not because I’m a member of the United States Senate,” said Republican McCain, appearing with Shadegg at a Capitol news conference.

McCain acknowledged, “I think you can make an argument it’s none of my business that a senator would come over and try and interfere or have influence over an election in the House.” But McCain said he believed it was appropriate to make his support of Shadegg known to House Republicans, given that any reforms in how Congress operates would have to be enacted by both the House and the Senate to become law.

“And I know that John Shadegg, who I have had the honor of knowing for more than 25 years and have a close working relationship with, is committed to reform,” McCain said. The senator said Shadegg is dedicated, for instance, to ending the practice of lawmakers’ slipping their often costly pet projects into legislation, or so-called earmarking.

Now, granted, McCain does not have a vote in this one, either. But he would not go out on a limb and endorse a surefire losing candidate on the day before the election.

Still, Shadegg continued Wednesday to sit in third place in the number of publicly declared supporters among the House GOP’s 232 members. Blunt on Wednesday claimed 97 public backers and Boehner 51. Shadegg was not publicly releasing a list, although at least 16 House GOP members are known to be backing him.

But Shadegg, who entered the race late, and others emphasized that the vote, which is to begin shortly after 10 a.m. Arizona time, is by secret ballot. So, early declarations of support can be unreliable. “A lot of interesting things happen on secret ballots,” said McCain, recalling that the late Morris Udall once famously quipped after he ran for majority leader, “I’d like to thank the 120 guys that committed to me and the 60 that voted for me.”

I had been looking for that quote for the last couple of weeks, mistakenly believing it was uttered by Teddy Kennedy when he lost to Robert Byrd in the Whip race in 1971. But it’s absolutely accurate.

Update: Jon Henke weighs in with “How Republicans Can Get Their Groove Back.”

WaPo fronts a piece by Jonathan Weisman, “Lobbying Changes Divide House GOP,” highlighting why change is needed.

Just two weeks after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pledged to pass far-reaching changes to the rules of lobbying on Capitol Hill, House Republican members pushed back hard against those proposals yesterday, charging that their leaders are overreacting to a growing corruption scandal. In a tense, 3 1/2 -hour closed-door session, many Republicans challenged virtually every element of the leadership’s proposal, from a blanket ban on privately funded travel to stricter limits on gifts to an end to gym privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), a veteran conservative who is seeking a top leadership post, scoffed that Congress knows how to do just two things well — nothing and overreact, according to witnesses.

GOP leaders did withstand a motion to force every leader but Hastert to stand for reelection today. Yet the motion was backed by 85 of the roughly 200 Republicans at the meeting, after leaders predicted that it would attract little support. “I always figure you have to look in the mirror before you go out in the morning. All we were doing was asking us to look in the mirror,” Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Calif.), a co-sponsor of the motion, said after the vote. “The shadow of [Jack] Abramoff is not a mere distraction but a serious problem to address.”

Quite so. Roy Blunt termed it mere “optics” in his conference call with bloggers. He’s wrong.

Update 2: The answer to the titular question would appear to be No.

_________
Related posts in extended entry.

Previously:

Blogger Conference Call with Roy Blunt
Blogger Conference Call with John Boehner
Blogger Conference Call with John Shadegg
House Leadership Race: Restoring the Spirit of 1994
Bob Ney to Resign Chairmanship
Boehner vs. Blunt: The E-Mail Wars II
An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers
Shadegg Enters Majority Leader Race
Boehner Pledges End to K-Street Project
Blunt v. Boehner: Blunt’s Lead Grows
Blunt vs. Boehner: The K-Street Connection
Boehner vs. Blunt: The E-Mail Wars
Fixing Congress by Restoring Conservatism
Tom DeLay Resigns Leadership Post
Judge Throws Out Tom Delay Conspiracy Charges
Leadership Thwarted in Attempt to Impose DeLay Successor
Bloggers React to DeLay Indictment
Tom Delay Indicted by Texas Grand Jury
Tom DeLay: Liar or Fool? (Stotch)
Republicans to Reverse Ethics Rules Changes: Hastert
Bush Not Seeking DeLay’s Ouster
Newt Gingrich Criticizes Tom DeLay on Ethics
Is the Cover-Up Worse than the Crime?
Democrats to Make ‘Ethics’ Key to 2006 Campaign
Conduct Unbecoming a Congressman
DeLay Appears To Be Off The Hook
GOP Pushes Rule Change To Protect DeLay’s Post
Ethics Truce Frays in House
HOT PINK LEISURE SUITS
POLITICIANS BEING POLITICAL?!
—–
Abramoff Scandal Backfiring of Republican Strategy?
Abramoff Scandal Brings New Scrutiny to Lobbying
Abramoff Bought Cato Columnist Doug Bandow
Scandals Heighten Public Concerns about Corruption

NYT reports that, “The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.”

Karl Rove is clearly losing his touch. While I am reasonably sure the appointment is above board–there was a reason he was put in charge of a high profile case like this to begin with, after all–it is positively dumb timing from a public relations standpoint.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid apologized to the Republican party yesterday for the intemperate tone of a report released by his office on the Abramoff scandal.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday apologized to 33 Republican senators singled out for ethics criticism in a report from his office titled “Republican Abuse of Power.” “The document released by my office yesterday went too far and I want to convey to you my personal regrets,” Reid said in a letter. “I am writing to apologize for the tone of this document and the decision to single out individual senators for criticism in it.”

Reid came under attack Wednesday over the report, which was issued by his staff on Senate letterhead, even as he and fellow Democrats released ethics overhaul proposals. “Researching, compiling and distributing what amounts to nothing more than a campaign ad on the taxpayers dime raises serious ethical questions,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, one of the lawmakers named. The 27-page report criticized Republican lawmakers over their ties to disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, questionable campaign contributions and other issues.

Meanwhile, the head of the Republican Party said GOP lawmakers who are guilty of wrongdoing should expect to be punished whatever their political affiliation. “The public trust is more important than party,” said Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman. “Which is why the first solution to the problem is rooting out those who have done wrong, without regard to party or ideology.” Mehlman’s comments were in a speech that he planned to deliver Friday to the annual winter meeting of the Republican National Committee. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the speech.

The Abramoff investigation threatens to ensnare at least a half dozen members of Congress of both parties and Bush administration officials. Abramoff, who has admitted to conspiring to defraud his Indian tribe clients, has pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Whether they are sincere or merely posturing for political advantage, the tone struck by both Reid and Melman here is exactly right. Melman is smart to acknowledge that this is primarily a Republican scandal and emphasize that the guilty must be punished. Thankfully, there are hopeful signs that the GOP membership of the Congress understands the nature of this and are trying to make amends. Whether that will be enough to hold the House in November remains to be seen.

Reid is smart not to overplay his hand here. The Democrats have every right to seek political advantage from this scandal, as the GOP did in 1994. The Republicans created the climate for it with the K-Street Project and otherwise abusing the power of their majority status. But the scandal very much goes to the institutional nature of lobbying, the Congress, and party politics in America. The public mood appears to be more anti-incumbent than anti-Republican. While that redounds to the advantage of the Democrats anyway–there are fewer incumbent Democrats than Republicans, after all–Reid would not be serving his caucus well if he gets them tossed, too.