January 8, 2006
Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm Tied to DeLay
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and GLEN JUSTICE, NY TIMES

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - Having secured a guilty plea from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, prosecutors are entering a new phase of the corruption investigation in Washington and are focusing on a lobbying firm that has even closer ties to Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who is under scrutiny in the scandal.

The firm, Alexander Strategy Group, is of particular interest to investigators because it was founded by Edwin A. Buckham, a close friend of Mr. DeLay's and his former chief of staff, and has been a lucrative landing spot for several former members of the DeLay staff, people who are directly involved in the case have said.

Although the firm's name has circulated in connection with the case for many months, prosecutors' questions about Mr. Buckham and Alexander Strategy - which did not respond to requests for comment - have intensified recently, participants in the case said.

The firm openly promoted the idea that it could deliver access to Mr. DeLay, who has denied any wrongdoing but abruptly announced Saturday that he would not try to regain his leadership post. Now the very connections with Mr. DeLay that formed the backbone of Alexander Strategy, put together with Mr. Abramoff's help, have put the future of the firm in doubt.

While doing business with lobbyists is routine for most lawmakers, investigators are looking at the extent to which Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers may have accepted trips, campaign donations and other favors from Alexander Strategy, and in turn tried to help the business.

Still, prosecutors may have a difficult time reaching the high legal threshold required in a bribery case, in which it must be established that lawmakers performed official acts in exchange for specific favors, rather than as a result of an ongoing relationship with an outside lobbyist.

It is unclear whether any single action by the firm has caught investigators' attention so much as its overall pattern of activity.

Details of the ties between Alexander Strategy, Mr. DeLay and Mr. Abramoff - who pleaded guilty last week in federal court and is cooperating with investigators - have already begun to trickle out. Alexander Strategy paid Mr. DeLay's wife $115,000 in consulting fees while conducting business with Mr. Abramoff's firm. Mr. Abramoff also referred clients to Mr. Buckham.

Mr. Buckham and the firm also shared clients - among them an entity in Malaysia and the Choctaw Indian tribe in Mississippi - with Mr. Abramoff, who in his plea agreement admitted to using corrupting tactics with lawmakers on behalf of his clients. Mr. Abramoff also admitted to having defrauded his Indian clients of millions of dollars. At one point, Mr. Buckham even sought to hire Mr. Abramoff himself, participants in the case said.

Mr. Buckham and at least one member of his firm worked with domestic and overseas clients who prosecutors suspect helped funnel money and perks to Mr. DeLay, his fund-raising operations and other lawmakers in ways intended to curry favor with the Republican leadership.

And at one time, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, the leadership committee that raised money for Mr. DeLay, was run out of the offices of Alexander Strategy.

But the firm's web of contacts on Capitol Hill reaches past Mr. DeLay, making Alexander Strategy a potentially useful resource as investigators examine other lawmakers.

The firm's name surfaced at the periphery of the corruption investigation into Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California. Mr. Cunningham resigned after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from a defense contractor that did business with Alexander Strategy.

For years, Alexander Strategy was one of the crown jewels of the so-called K Street project, an effort Republicans began after taking control of Congress in 1994 to dominate the lobbying industry. The hope, exemplified by Mr. Buckham's company, was for Republican lobbyists to harness the power of their corporate clients to help keep the party in power for years to come.

The successful history of Alexander Strategy since its founding in the late 1990's offers a window into the nexus of Mr. Abramoff, Mr. DeLay and the lobbying world over the last decade or so of Republican control of Congress.

As Mr. DeLay grew more powerful in Congress, the lobbying firm rose in prominence on K Street, building an impressive roster of clients for such a young company and earning, according to records, about $8.8 million lobbying in 2004. That ranked it in the middle of the pack among Washington's largest lobbying firms, but its client list - including Microsoft, United Parcel Service, Time Warner, Freddie Mac and Eli Lilly & Company - suggests what was, at least at one time, a powerful and well-connected operation.

And Mr. DeLay, so intertwined with the lobbying world that his extensive network of allies and former aides scattered throughout town is nicknamed "DeLay Inc.," responded more quickly to calls from Alexander Strategy than he did for any other firm, former aides of his said.

One element prosecutors are trying to understand is what role Mr. DeLay played in sending business to the company. There is evidence, one participant in the case said, that it was "you hire these guys because Tom DeLay tells you to."

Mr. Buckham also ran the U.S. Family Network, a self-styled grassroots organization tied to Mr. DeLay that, according to The Washington Post, was financed almost entirely by clients and associates of Mr. Abramoff. People involved in the case said they expected investigators to examine whether Mr. DeLay cast a vote in Congress in exchange for donations to the network.

Another critical component of the investigation is the activities of Tony C. Rudy, a former DeLay deputy chief of staff who went to work with Mr. Abramoff as a lobbyist before joining Mr. Buckham at Alexander Strategy, where he still works. Mr. Rudy is mentioned - named only as "Staffer A" - in Mr. Abramoff's plea agreement, and investigators are looking into whether he helped secure legislative favors for Mr. Abramoff's clients in exchange for gifts and the promise of a future job while he was still on the DeLay staff.

Mr. Buckham and others from the firm have not responded to inquiries, and Mr. DeLay, through his spokesman, has said he is innocent of wrongdoing. Although investigators are looking at as many as a dozen lawmakers in the inquiry, they have not brought charges against them.

Richard Cullen, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, pointed out that Mr. Rudy had not been named outright in any court documents.

"But if it turns out to be Mr. Rudy," Mr. Cullen said, "and if what Mr. Rudy did turns out to have been in any way improper, Tom DeLay is going to be very sad and very disappointed. Because he will feel betrayed, and he expects much, much more from his staff than activities like that."

As a result of Mr. Buckham's ties with Mr. DeLay and Mr. Abramoff, investigators are "keenly interested" in him, especially in connection with deals he may have brokered with Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers after going into the private sector, one participant in the case said.

"He allows the connection to be made to DeLay," another participant said of Mr. Buckham. All participants in the case were granted anonymity in interviews because Justice Department officials do not want people talking about it publicly.

Alexander Strategy's name has also surfaced in the course of a corruption investigation that implicates the defense lobbyist Brent Wilkes, who is an unnamed co-conspirator in the criminal case against former Representative Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham pleaded guilty in December to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from Mr. Wilkes and others. Mr. Wilkes's firm, Group W, also hired Alexander Strategy to do lobbying work, and Mr. DeLay used a plane partly owned by Mr. Wilkes.

The scandals swirling around the Alexander franchise, composed of roughly two dozen lobbyists at its offices on the waterfront in Georgetown, have delighted its former rivals while triggering concerns in the lobbying community that the entire business may be tarred.

Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader, who now works for the firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and who clashed with Mr. DeLay in the House, invoked Charles Dickens, likening Mr. DeLay to Fagin and Mr. Buckham to the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist."

"Tom DeLay sent Buckham downtown to set up shop and start a branch office on K Street," Mr. Armey said. "The whole idea was, 'What's in it for us?' That's what I thought at the time, and I've seen nothing in the way they've conducted themselves since then to dissuade me from that point of view."

Mr. DeLay and a group of like-minded Republicans have spent years promoting Republicans for top lobbying positions in an attempt to counter decades in which Democrats controlled both Congress and K Street. The effort has caused several dustups over the years.

Mr. DeLay was rebuked by the House ethics committee in 1999 after allegedly badgering a trade association that chose a Democrat as its president, rather than the Republican candidate he favored.

Mr. DeLay's political action committee paid Alexander Strategy more than $300,000 for fund-raising and consulting services from 2000 to 2003, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit group that tracks money in politics. In addition to Mr. Rudy, the firm also employed Karl Gallant, who headed Mr. DeLay's political action committee.

The firm has already been dropped by one client, MGM Mirage, the casino and resort giant, which retained it in 2004, paying about $350,000 to help block a maneuver by an Indian tribe in Michigan.

At the end of last year, MGM ended the relationship. Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM, said that the project had ended and that the firm's services were no longer needed. But Mr. Feldman acknowledged that the scrutiny surrounding Alexander Strategy was a concern. "It would be dishonest to say that it didn't come up in discussions," he said.

Other lobbyists and participants in the case said it would be difficult for the firm to survive this type of scrutiny with all of its clients and relationships intact.

"It's a double-edged sword, being known as DeLay Inc.," said one Republican lobbyist. "They are on the sharp edge of the sword now."

Winning Strategies, Proven Results
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Alexander Strategy Group is a full-service lobbying and public affairs firm expertly equipped to handle all your advocacy needs. From K Street to Main Street, from the halls of power to the kitchen tables across America, Alexander Strategy Group understands your needs may include more than the "old style" lobbying services that are now antiquated in today's legislative and regulatory environment.

Unlike traditional lobbying firms, Alexander Strategy Group offers an integrated suite of advocacy services that includes government affairs, strategic consulting, public relations, grassroots development, creative media, international representation, coalition building, business development and corporate/crisis communications.
We have built a team of partners and associates that has made Alexander Strategy Group one of the most sought after lobbying and public affairs firms in the country. Our experience put into practice is molding today's public policy decisions in Congress and influencing national debate on the most important policy decisions facing our clients and the nation.

Your needs may be simply legislative. They may involve a complex public relations and government affairs challenge. They may require an understanding of how international policies are affected by domestic politics. They may present a corporate crisis that demands immediate expertise. No matter what approach is needed, the scope of services offered by Alexander Strategy Group can help you negotiate today's complex government affairs, communications and business development challenges.

Edwin A. Buckham
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Ed Buckham serves as Chairman of Alexander Strategy Group, Inc. (ASG). Before coming to ASG, Ed built an impressive resume of accomplishments and contacts that are an invaluable part of the services ASG provides to its clients.

Ed is former Chief of Staff to then Republican House Majority Whip, and current House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay where he oversaw the Majority Whip's political and legislative agenda. He was instrumental in helping House Republicans lay the groundwork for their impressive rise to majority status in the House of Representatives.

Before assuming the Chief of Staff position, Ed was the Executive Director of the Republican Study Committee for seven years. The RSC was composed of over 120 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and was responsible for the legislative analysis and strategy for these Members. Ed has also served as Chief of Staff to Representative Clyde Holloway of Louisiana, Legislative Director for Congressman Bill Cobey of North Carolina and Legislative Assistant for Congressman Daniel Crane of Illinois. Prior to his work in the House of Representatives, Ed served under Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure. He also worked for the Senate Republican Policy Committee chaired by Senator John Tower.

Ed began his career in Washington after graduating from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1982.

Please contact Ed Buckham at buckham@buckham.com

From Disinfopedia: Alexander Strategy Group

The Alexander Strategy Group (ASG) is a Republican Party-associated lobbying and political strategy firm with offices in Washington and Hong Kong. ASG was founded by Ed Buckham, the former chief of staff to Texas GOP Congressman and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, and Tony Rudy, a lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies and also a former top aide to DeLay.

Christine DeLay, Tom's wife, also receives a salary from ASG. Her approximately $40,000 a year salary, though, is "for her job as chief executive officer of Americans for a Republican Majority." According to Tom DeLay?'s communications director, "DeLay?'s wife is paid through the Alexander Strategy Group primarily as a bookkeeping arrangement... She does not keep an office at the firm and often works out of the couple's home."But Christine DeLay is not listed among the firm's 17 staff members on ASG's website.

According to its website: "Unlike traditional lobbying firms, Alexander Strategy Group offers an integrated suite of advocacy services that includes government affairs, strategic consulting, public relations, grassroots development, creative media, international representation, coalition building, business development and corporate/crisis communications." And, from a press release: ASG has "worked extensively with the Executive and Legislative branches of government, been involved in numerous Presidential and Congressional campaigns, forged alliances with numerous conservative advocacy groups and worked at the highest levels of the international arena."

Enron was ASG's biggest client; they received at least $411,000 from Enron between 1999 and 2001. Ed Buckham and ASG were involved with a "secret 'grassroots' campaign -- spearheaded by Enron -- to deregulate energy markets... An outline for the plan was faxed to Tom DeLay?'s Washington office. It was printed on Alexander Strategy letterhead complete with Ed Buckham's name in print. The only problem was that Alexander Strategy's CEO was still in the employ of the federal government at the time... Alexander Strategy Group was, as Enron promised, awarded the $750,000 contract to drum up support for electric power deregulation -- a goal that Enron believed would open the $300 billion a year electric markets to Enron. The stealth campaign would operate out of an energy consortium dubbed, 'Americans for Affordable Electricity' -- a name that Californians would find bitterly ironic just three years later."

The North Carolina-based private military contractor Blackwater USA hired ASG for crisis management, public and media relations as Blackwater - and private military contractors in general - came under increased public scrutiny following the public killing and mutilation of four employees in Fallujah, Iraq on March 31, 2004.

Other ASG clients include the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, the Asbestos Study Group, Time Warner, National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association, AT&T, the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, Eli Lilly, KOCH Industries, Microsoft, Nuclear Energy Institute, Xcel Energy and United States Telecom Association.

Contact Info ALEXANDER STRATEGY GROUP Mike Mihalke, Senior Partner 3000 K St. NW, Suite 101 Washington, DC 20007
Phone: 202-339-8900 Fax: 202-339-8927

Sourcewatch: Alexander Strategy Group

Our Badly Run Budget
By Ben Cohen and R. Warren Langley, AlterNet
Posted on January 7, 2006, Printed on January 8, 2006

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President George W. Bush was elected twice, promising to run the federal government like a business. Despite the fiscal crisis in Washington, there's no better time for the president to keep his promise than now.

As businesspeople, we know that CEOs are constantly balancing the twin needs of making money in the short term and investing in the future, so that profits don't disappear a few years down the line. Similarly, President Bush has to find money to pay for the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina in the short term -- while also investing in programs, like education, that are essential to our nation's long-term security.

Of course, the president could retract some of his tax cuts or withdraw troops from Iraq -- moves that could generate hundreds of billions of dollars. But assuming he won't, what to do?

Well, when the going gets rough in the free market, businesspeople call up their accountants and scrutinize the company budget. As our CEO-in-chief, President Bush needs to make an honest assessment of our national checkbook.

Such an analysis would reveal that the Pentagon budget, more than the ledger of any other single federal department, could yield big-time savings if subjected to the cost-cutting methodology of a business executive intent on ferreting out waste.

That view is held by former President Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence J. Korb, who argues that America could save $60 billion by cutting weapons still being built or maintained, believe it or not, to fight the defunct Soviet Union.

These cuts, Korb points out, would not affect our nation's ability to fight terrorists or the Iraq war. (The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are funded by "supplemental" appropriations by Congress, not by the Pentagon's annual budget.)

It's true that even a whopping number like $60 billion will not cure America's fiscal woes, but it certainly is a big chunk of money.

A business-minded President, along with Congress, would decide how to spend the $60 billion with a cost-benefit analysis. Which of America's fiscal needs require immediate investments and which can be deferred?

From a business perspective, we can no longer defer spending required to prepare us for the defining wars of the new century, and these wars will be fought on economic battlefields.

So the top priority for our leaders now is to ensure that America has the arsenal it needs to win future economic battles. For $60 billion in wasted Pentagon funding, America could:

Retrain hundreds of thousands of workers. America's workers, the foot soldiers in economic battles, need training as the economy shifts.

Renovate our public schools and provide health insurance for our children. America's future recruits, our children, must be equipped with the skills they need to trump their adversaries in the global economy. We should begin upgrading America's crumbling public schools and provide health insurance to every kid who lacks it in our country, the world's richest.

Take steps toward energy independence. The nation with the most energy-efficient economy will possess the most devastating weapon in future global economic wars.

Help poor nations. To promote democracy and basic decency, we should double the federal budget for humanitarian foreign aid, saving the lives of millions kids who would die of hunger in impoverished nations.

In this era of budget scarcity, President Bush and Congress must undertake a hard-nosed and bipartisan analysis of the widely acknowledged waste in the Pentagon budget. This is the only way we can 1) strengthen our strategic security by reducing our dependence on oil and rebuilding our stature overseas; and 2) ensure our economic competitiveness and security by investing in the jobs of tomorrow and the kids of today who will hold them.

It's time for our CEO to be a strategic leader and to be accountable for our future.

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's, and R. Warren Langley, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, are board members of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/30496/

WEEK IN REVIEW DESK

Go Ahead, Try to Stop K Street
By TODD S. PURDUM, NY TIMES
Published: January 8, 2006

WASHINGTON - IN 1872, some Republican elders, revolted by the rampant influence peddling of Ulysses S. Grant's administration, challenged him for re-election. 'He has used the public service of the government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence,' they complained, and 'shown himself deplorably unequal to the task imposed on him by the necessities of the country.'
Jack Abramoff's trading room was his Signatures restaurant, not the front of the old Willard Hotel, where favor seekers so besieged Grant that he helped popularize the label -- lobbyist -- that still clings to their descendants with a pejorative sting. But Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea last week to charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials prompted similar revulsion among some of the Grand Old Party's canniest hands.

'I think as this thing unfolds, it'll be so disgusting, and the Republicans will be under such pressure from their base, that they will have to undertake substantial reform,' said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker (who himself had to pay $300,000 to settle a 1997 ethics case). 'This is like Watergate.'

But will things really change? After all, Grant himself won a second term, despite the failings that would eventually leave his legacy forever tainted, and his chief Republican antagonist, Horace Greeley, died defeated and insane three weeks after the election. Is corruption just a part of Washington's DNA? What else explains the grim resignation of Washington veterans who wonder when, not whether, some scandal will arise?

'The history of civilization, for starters,' said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, an ethics group. 'This kind of problem is faced by all societies throughout all of history. It comes and goes in cycles, and becomes most prevalent when the activities are viewed as O.K. by the society where it's taking place.'

For watchdogs like Mr. Wertheimer, and for many Democrats, such tolerance dates to the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-1990's, when new leaders like Representative Tom DeLay of Texas began a campaign to fill the capital's K Street corridor with Republican lobbyists, and made it plain that those seeking to influence legislation would have to 'pay to play,' in the form of political contributions and other largesse.

Mr. DeLay, who was himself indicted last year in Texas on unrelated campaign finance charges and forced to step down from his post as House majority leader, has long had close ties to Mr. Abramoff. Now Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea increases the likelihood that Mr. DeLay will lose his leadership post for good, and raises the prospect that he -- and other lawmakers -- may be enmeshed in new legal troubles. The sheer scale of Mr. Abramoff's misdeeds -- millions of dollars in kickbacks from Indian tribes, a luxury golf outing for politicians to Scotland, misuse of a tax-exempt foundation -- make this an extraordinary case.

'There are all sorts of things that have gone on of the same generic kind,' said Harry C. McPherson, who came to Washington 50 years ago this month as a Senate aide to Lyndon B. Johnson and has plied his trade as a lawyer-lobbyist since leaving the White House in 1969. 'But this is truly a situation where the degree changes everything. It converts something that purists about government would find unpleasant into the utterly unacceptable -- into crime.'

But the problem is broader than Mr. Abramoff, Mr. DeLay or even the inherent potential for abuse in one-party rule of all three branches of government. It also has to do with the astounding growth of the lobbying industry, a growth that has tracked the growth of the federal government itself. The rise of government regulation -- first in the New Deal and then in the 1960's and 70's -- spawned a parallel rise in the private sector's efforts to master the new system. Between the early 1970's and the mid-1980's, the number of trade associations doubled; in the first half of the 1980's alone, the number of registered lobbyists quadrupled, according to The Washington Monthly.

A study by the Center for Public Integrity found that in the early 1990's, political donations from 19 major industries -- including pharmaceuticals, defense, commercial banking and accounting -- were split about evenly between the two parties.

By 2003, the Republicans held a 2-to-1 advantage. Since 1998, the center found, more than 2,200 former federal employees had registered as federal lobbyists, as had nearly 275 former White House aides and nearly 250 former members of Congress. Many rules governing their conduct remain deliberately vague, and the House Ethics Committee has been paralyzed because of dysfunction and partisan disputes.

'The scandal here is not that the rules were broken; the scandal is the rules themselves,' said Representative Martin T. Meehan, Democrat of Massachusetts, who with a Republican colleague, Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and Senators John McCain and Russell D. Feingold, has been a leader in pressing to overhaul campaign finance and ethics rules. 'Lobbying is part of our system, but there is a set of ethical standards and rules that ought to be followed.'

Together with Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Mr. Feingold, Mr. Meehan has introduced legislation that would, among other things, require lobbyists to file quarterly financial disclosures, instead of semiannual ones and to disclose just whom in the government they lobbied. Former members of Congress would also not be able to lobby their colleagues for two years, as opposed to the current one year. Members would be required to submit detailed itineraries and descriptions of expenses for privately sponsored travel.

Mr. Gingrich has offered more ideas. He would allow unlimited fund-raising in members' states or districts, but bar fund-raising within the District of Columbia, and would require that all contacts between lobbyists and elected and appointed officials be posted weekly on the Internet. And he would shrink a government that has only grown further with post Sept. 11, 2001, spending.

'There is $2.6 trillion spent in Washington, with the authority to regulate everything in your life,' he said. 'Guess what? People will spend unheard-of amounts of money to influence that. The underlying problems are big government and big money.'

Of course, the record suggests that for every loophole any new law might close, lobbyists will find a way to open another. The ban on so-called 'soft money' contributions to political parties led to the rise of new special-interest spending groups, for example. Entrenched industries -- and entrenched incumbents of both parties -- can be expected to resist change that would threaten the way they know how to do business.

For their part, some lobbyists hope legislators intent on reform resist painting with too broad a brush.

'A lot of what we do is an enormous educational effort, to avoid what we consider even well-meaning but wrong-headed legislation,' said Joseph Tasker, senior vice president for government affairs of the Information Technology Association of America, which represents companies like I.B.M. and Microsoft, on issues including privacy, piracy and Internet security.

'Congressmen don't know things; they're not experts in technology,' he said. 'In the mid-1990's, we were meeting with a Congressman about high-definition TV standards and we were talking about pixels and so on, and he said, 'Fellas, look, I'm trying to stay with you here, but one of the first times I ever took a ride on an airplane was when I came to Washington to take my seat and I remember looking out the window and I thought part of the wing was falling off when we landed, because the flaps came up.' '

And, this being Washington, even the best-intentioned efforts to stick to the rules can lead to overreaching silliness.

In 2004, David McKean, a veteran Senate aide, published a critically praised book on Thomas 'Tommy the Cork' Corcoran, perhaps the most successful Washington lobbyist of the 20th century. But the Senate ethics committee advised him not to disclose on the dust jacket the name of the senator he worked for, John Kerry, lest he be seen as using his position for commercial gain.

The restriction hampered his ability to promote his book. Indeed, when a Washington bookstore inadvertently identified Mr. McKean's position in an advertisement, he had to cancel an appearance there. A very small victory, one would guess, for the capital's reputation.