The Republican party was on Tuesday facing a fast-growing corruption scandal with potentially serious implications for next year's elections after a well-connected Washington lobbyist pleaded guilty to bribing a congressman and other public officials.
The plea by Michael Scanlon is a breakthrough in an investigation of influence-peddling in Congress that could reach top levels of the party. It comes at a time when the Republicans are already nervous about next November's congressional elections, with support for the Iraq war falling away and the White House under the cloud of an intelligence leak investigation.
"The potential is huge," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. "We've never seen an example as egregious as this with these sums of money, the bilking, the cynicism and linkages ... I think you're going to see a string of indictments."
Scanlon is expected to give evidence against public officials alleged to have accepted bribes, including free golfing trips to Scotland, restaurant meals and sports tickets, in return for pushing legislation favorable to clients of Scanlon and his boss, Jack Abramoff, a Washington super-lobbyist who is also under investigation.
The congressman named in the Scanlon plea agreement is Robert Ney, a powerful Republican insider known as the "mayor of Capitol Hill" because of his influential role at the head of the House administration committee. He received a free golfing trip to Scotland, US$14,000 in campaign contributions and regular free meals at Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures.
In return, court documents allege, he backed legislation and attempted to influence administration officials on the lobbyists' behalf. He is also alleged to have put his political weight behind Abramoff's attempt to buy a fleet of Florida casino ships. The man who sold it to him was killed in a mafia-style execution in 2001.
Also reported to be under investigation are half a dozen other members of Congress, including Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who was forced to step down in September after being charged in a separate scandal over political money-laundering.
Attorneys for DeLay sought the immediate dismissal of conspiracy and money laundering charges against him on Tuesday, but a Texas judge said he would not rule for two weeks in the case.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS