By Mary Ann Akers And Paul Kane
Thursday, January 3, 2008
As if the House page scandal involving former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) hadn't done enough damage to Republicans, now we discover that legal bills arising from it landed former speaker J. Dennis Hastert's campaign committee in hot water with the Federal Election Commission.
According to FEC documents, Hastert (R-Ill.) failed to disclose in early January 2007 that his 2006 reelection campaign had run up $147,000 in legal bills stemming from his connection with the Foley investigation. Hastert agreed to settle the matter and pay a $1,000 penalty.
One of Hastert's campaign lawyers signed the agreement Aug. 20, three days after he publicly announced he would not run for office again, and it was filed with the FEC in September. Hastert officially resigned Nov. 26.
The FEC allows lawmakers under investigation for matters of official conduct to pay attorneys with campaign funds. But they must disclose the payments and any outstanding debt in filings with the FEC.
The House ethics committee found that Hastert and his senior aides did not properly respond to warnings before the Foley scandal that the Florida lawmaker was sending explicit Internet messages to former House pages, all of them teenage males.
Through the first half of 2007, Hastert raised more than $540,000 in campaign funds. More than $130,000 of that went toward paying off old legal bills, FEC records show. On Sept. 30, the end of the most recent reporting period, Hastert had $1,557.86 in his campaign account but more than $52,000 in outstanding debts. That includes the last $11,000 owed to his law firm, McKenna, Long & Aldridge, which represented Hastert during the Foley probe.
Stefan C. Passantino, Hastert's lawyer, said Hastert had decided to retire before reaching the settlement with the FEC. "It was clearly in his interest to accept the consent order that was offered to us, rather than to fight," he said.
Specter, Kennedy Back From PakistanSen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) are back on American soil after a trip to Pakistan that evoked eerie memories for both when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was slain as the lawmakers were departing their hotel to meet her for dinner.
Kennedy says he's still in shock over Bhutto's assassination. He and Specter were in Rawalpindi earlier in the day and were scheduled to have dinner with Bhutto, after first stopping by a reception at the home of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
That day, before Bhutto was killed, Kennedy found himself chatting with Pakistanis about the 1963 assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. The subject came up when the congressman handed out Kennedy half dollars as gifts to thank various officials for their "good will."
"When I did, they'd tell me where they were the day my uncle was killed. People halfway around the world, speaking through interpreters, remembering where they were," Kennedy told us yesterday. "It's highly ironic, because on that day I'll never forget where I was when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated."
Specter, who served on the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy, is calling on the United Nations to appoint a commission to investigate the Pakistani opposition leader's death.
"In a matter of this sort, it is to be expected, based on what happened following the assassination of President Kennedy, to have a wide range of allegations and conspiracy theories," Specter wrote yesterday in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Schumer Takes FlightUntil this holiday season, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) had taken the old Dick Armey approach to international travel. Armey, the acid-tongued Texas Republican who was House majority leader in the 1990s, once famously degraded global travel, saying, "I've been to Europe once; I don't have to go again."
After 27 years in the House and Senate, Schumer returned yesterday from Iraq, his second official congressional delegation trip ever.
"I was more or less a homebody," Schumer explained to incredulous reporters this week on a conference call from Baghdad. "In the early years, the Codels were far more fun."
Schumer, who apparently didn't like fun, steered clear of them.
But after several years of critiquing President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, Schumer traveled to Israel and Jordan, then spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in Iraq. He met with Army Gen. David H. Petraeus as well as troops from New York. In a market south of Baghdad, Schumer donned a flak jacket and walked around, with 30 soldiers guarding him.
It was an eye-opening experience, one that might even encourage him to do more overseas traveling. "I learned things I don't think I would have learned by staying in Washington," he said.
Senatorial BaggageSenators, beware. Strange things keep happening to you at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), fresh off of two days of stumping through freezing cold Iowa for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), was trying to get home in time for a New Year's Eve movie date with his wife when airline chaos hit. Conrad's Des Moines-Minneapolis-Bismarck travel schedule was delayed when his plane sat on the Twin Cities tarmac for at least 25 minutes before passengers were allowed to disembark.
The senator raced to make his connection to North Dakota, leaving no time for any restroom stops, not even in the one where Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) was busted seven months ago.
Although Conrad made the Bismarck flight, his luggage didn't.
By dinnertime New Year's Eve, Conrad slogged home without his bags. "New Year's Eve without any luggage -- gotta love it," he told On the Hill.
But Conrad, a self-proclaimed reserved Scandinavian, wasn't letting a lost toothbrush dampen his spirits. The 21-year Senate veteran just endorsed Obama, the first time he's ever weighed in on a presidential primary.
Conrad compares Obama to Abraham Lincoln-- who served two years in the House before becoming president -- and can't stop praising what he saw Sunday night when he introduced Obama to a crowd of 1,000 in South Des Moines. "It was magical," he said.
That magic kept Conrad upbeat even without his luggage. Rather than wait for his bags, he celebrated the holiday by taking in "Charlie Wilson's War."
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