U.S. Family Network

* i've been meaning to get to this National Journal article about Abramoff & DeLay's US Family Network for a few days.

The article was triggered by the latest subpoena :

"Sources familiar with the Justice Department-led probe say that one area of interest to investigators is $15,600 that the U.S. Family Network paid in 1999 to Liberty Consulting, a firm run by Lisa Rudy, the wife of Tony Rudy, who was a deputy chief of staff to DeLay before becoming a lobbying colleague of Abramoff's."

Fair enough.

The article continues:

"The Washington Post reported late last year that most of the network's $2.5 million in funding over a five-year period came from Abramoff clients. For instance, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws and a small group of textile executives from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands together donated a total of $750,000 to the U.S. Family Network in the late 1990s. Another $1 million donation was made in 1998 by an anonymous donor through a London law firm that may have been used as a conduit by two Russian oil executives."

Fair enough, as it goes, but they somehow forgot to mention that the rest of the funds came from the NRCC!

" The Network made headlines as the recipient of the largest single donation the National Republican Congressional Caucus ever made, $500,000. The check was cut by Virginia Congressman and DeLay crony Tom Davis, NRCC chair, but was never approved by the executive committee." (link)

That's where a big scandal lies, undoubtedly, as i mentioned the other day.

NJ continues:

"The network, which had a tiny staff and did little public advocacy, also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Buckham and the Alexander Strategy Group, which for a period of time was based in the same townhouse. Christine DeLay was a consultant to the ASG lobby shop for three years and earned $115,000 in fees for work related to charities. Investigators have been seeking to find out whether Abramoff clients helped to underwrite her work."

I don't know when the 'Christine did work related to charities' meme got (very effectively) planted - but it's untrue. I categorically debunked this nonsense here.

(apart from that, the NJ article is worth a read)