An Impeachment-Fed Ham

Video

Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Impeachment

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) talks with washingtonpost.com's Mary Ann Akers about the 35 articles of impeachment he brought before the House of Representatives against President George Bush.

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The chairman's letter to Kempthorne was dated April 21. The response did not come for more than a month, and it didn't even come from Kempthorne, further irritating Rahall. The letter came May 30, after the event had been held, from a Kempthorne subordinate, National Park Service Director Mary A. Bomar.

Bomar defended the choice of venue and her nonpartisan record celebrating the parks. But she blamed the National Park Foundation and its financial supporter, Unilever, maker of products including cold cream, dishwashing detergent and salad dressing, for choosing the GOP club. (As it happens, Unilever executives gave far more generously to Democratic candidates and organizations than they did to Republicans in the past two cycles, according to federal election records.)

Rahall says he's looking on the bright side: Maybe his GOP colleagues are going green. "I think to have the Republican Club in league with the National Park Service appears to be showing a movement of the Republicans to the middle ground of wanting to protect our parks," he said.

The Countrywide Club Grows

Members of the House and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, took out loans and made investments in Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender in recent years, according to their financial disclosure statements.

After a report was last week published in Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) acknowledged receiving VIP treatment in loan programs, reducing their fees by thousands of dollars, apparently as part of chief executive Angelo Mozilo's "Friends of Angelo" program.

But plenty of other lawmakers have financial connections to Countrywide, as either borrowers or investors.

At least four members of the 70-person House Financial Services Committee, which has oversight of the mortgage industry, have investments in the troubled company, according to the reports, and two others have borrowed money from it. More than 10 other committee members received extensions of the filing deadline.

Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.), who has been under attack for his own real estate dealings back home in Orange County, took the biggest hit of the lawmaker-investors. Miller plunked down between $250,000 and $500,000 to buy stock in Countrywide on Dec. 14. At the time the company's stock was crashing, down from its 52-week high of $39.45 to less than $10, according to MarketWatch.com.

A few weeks later, Bank of America announced plans to purchase Countrywide, sending the price back up, briefly, before it settled into the doldrums again. It was selling at $4.71 a share yesterday, and Miller is the first to admit his bet didn't pay off.

"The stock was a roller coaster when I purchased it, it was up and down. After I bought the stock, the value went down and my next financial disclosure will show that I sold the stock at a loss," Miller said in a statement to On the Hill.

A couple other brave souls on the committee have gambled on Countrywide stock, though not nearly as much. Rep. Mike Castle (Del.), third in seniority among Republicans on the panel, holds between $1,000 and $15,000 worth, and Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.) holds the same amount, after selling between $1,000 and $15,000 last year.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) has a CD worth between $15,000 and $50,000 with Countrywide and a money-market account valued in the same range.