Culture of Corruption

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), under fire for recommending his “girlfriend” for a U.S. Attorney post, was accused in 1999 by his former chief of staff Christine Niedermeier of making repeated sexual advances. She claimed that Baucus implored her to take weekend trips with him to destinations like Disney World.

Baucus was married to his second wife at the time so he would not have been able to  invoke his current “shacking up” defense of his relationship with former staffer Melodee Hanes. Both Baucus and Hanes were still married at the time Baucus claims the relationship started, but separated from their spouses. Baucus statement last week twice said that the two were living together, as if it such a fact was exculpatory of the impropriety of a U.S. Senator having a romantic relationship with a staff member, and recommending her for high appointive office.

The Ethics Committee document leaked last month to the Washington Post is putting a renewed spotlight on Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and the fact that he chairs the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the budget of the Justice Department, which is investigating his finances.

From Carol Leonnig in today’s Washington Post:

"There are a hundred ways he can influence what happens with the department's funding -- without one vote. Everything goes through his committee," said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group that alleged in a complaint that the congressman had not reported the nature and increasing value of his real estate investments. "If that's not a conflict of interest, I don't know what is."

For the first time, earmark champion Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has been linked to criminal activity by the government. It came in a memo filed last week in the sentencing of former VECO CEO Bill Allen, the central figure in the corruption probe that ensnared former Senator Ted Stevens.

In May, we expressed concern that the overturning of Stevens’ conviction — and Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision not to retry him — endangered the prosecution of Young and other corrupt Alaska politicians.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is the subject of a story in The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register newspapers today about the investigation touched off by NLPC.

The immediate reason for revisiting the issue is the naming of Mollohan as one of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress for the fourth year in a row by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Following a nine-month investigation, NLPC filed a 500-page Complaint on February 28, 2006 with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia detailing more than 250 misrepresentations and omissions on Mollohan’s disclosure reports, prompting an extensive probe by the FBI.