Who's Paying The Bill?

by Matt Margolis :: October 4, 2005 1:55 PM

While the media focuses solely on Tom DeLay's indictment, the dark ethical cloud over Chuck Schumer and the DSCC still goes virtually unnoticed. Newsday, however, is following the story...

The two women at the center of the FBI probe [DSCC researchers Katie Barge, 26, and Lauren Weiner, 25] have been keeping a low profile. Both have resigned from the committee.

Barge and Weiner declined to comment through their lawyer, William Lawler III, the ex-president of the Washington, D.C., bar association who represented former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey during his 2004 sex scandal.

The DSCC is picking up the tab for Lawler, who charges as much as $400 an hour.

Barge quit a job overseeing a research staff of six at David Brock's liberal watchdog organization Media Matters to take the DSCC job. She is highly regarded in the tight-knit community of Democratic researchers, friends and associates say. [emphasis mine]

UPDATE: A great editorial from Investor's Business Daily notes, "While the media focus on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's alleged skirting of campaign laws to get Republicans elected, former Education Secretary Bill Bennett's alleged racially insensitive hypothetical regarding blacks, crime and abortion, and Sen. Bill Frist's recent sale of stock, a real crime against a black politician has been committed in virtual silence."

Can you imagine the media firestorm if staffers for, say, Frist, had used Barack Obama's Social Security number to fraudulently obtain his credit report looking for stuff to derail his Senate campaign? Frist would have been before a media firing squad faster than you can say Bill Bennett.

Also interesting is that while President Bush has accepted responsibility for the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Chuck Schumer hasn't even offered an apology for the invasion of Steele's privacy perpetrated by his staffers.

UPDATE, 10/6/05: The New York Times picks up the story... finally... However, Michelle Malkin notes several omissions from the article, including Barge's previous employment at Media Matters, how Steele's credit report was stolen by Weiner, or how both Barge and Weiner were employed by Chuck Schumer, the self-proclaimed champion of privacy... and let's not forget who's paying their legal bills...

UPDATE: Also noteworthy, Katie Barge worked for John Edwards' presidential campaign before joining with Media Matters:

In Mr. Brock's new K Street offices on Friday morning, a team of nearly a half-dozen researchers, overseen by Katie Barge, who last worked for the opposition research arm of Senator John Edwards's presidential campaign, sat before a bank of computers and televisions in a room that was otherwise dark.

More specifically, according to some background info on Katie Barge from craigslist, she was the "opposition research director" for Edwards' campaign.

 1 Comments   Track   del.icio.us   digg it   IM   Facebook

A Letter To Schumer

by Matt Margolis :: September 26, 2005 8:43 PM

Click the image below for a letter that Senators Snowe, Santorum, Ensign, Lott and Chafee sent to DSCC chair Senator Chuck Schumer today asking him to assure them that no members of the DSCC accessed their credit reports as well:

I wonder if Schumer will respond, how long it will take, and what he will say...

 0 Comments   Track   del.icio.us   digg it   IM   Facebook

Schumer Staffers Illegally Obtain MD Lt. Governor's Credit Report

by Matt Margolis :: September 21, 2005 10:50 AM

Talk about having no agenda... Was there any other point to getting their hands on Lt. Governor Steele's credit report other than to find dirt?

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether two Democratic Party researchers in Washington illegally obtained the credit report of Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele as they conducted opposition research on the likely Republican Senate candidate.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged yesterday that two of his organization's employees had resigned as a result of the episode, which he said was subsequently referred to the U.S. attorney's office by the Democratic committee.
...
The DSCC, the arm of the Democratic Party tasked with promoting Senate candidates, declined to disclose the names of the employees involved. But sources with knowledge of the episode identified them as Katie Barge, the committee's former research director, and Lauren Weiner, an employee who had been researching Steele even before he formed an exploratory committee for Senate in June.

Think the DSCC's motives had something to do with this?

Steele has been heavily courted to run for Senate by national GOP leaders and is expected to give the party its best shot at a Senate seat in years.

The New York Post reveals that the two researchers are on Chuck Schumer's staff...

Two staffers on a Democratic political committee headed by Sen. Chuck Schumer are being investigated by the FBI for an alleged dirty trick — getting a Republican candidate's credit report illegally, officials confirmed yesterday. "We are investigating the matter jointly with the FBI," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Schumer-headed Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said two staffers were instantly suspended — with pay — in July after admitting they obtained the credit report of Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is running for Senate.

Since July? It's near the end of September, and Schumer has known all this time, and hasn't said a word? Meanwhile his staffers were awarded with a paid vacation?

UPDATE: The real irony here is the fact that Chuck Schumer has been very interested in the issue of identity theft...

UPDATE: Destroying evidence?

 0 Comments   Track   del.icio.us   digg it   IM   Facebook

McDermott and Iraq

by Matt Margolis :: August 30, 2005 9:16 PM

I never thought highly of Jim McDermott. I couldn't believe it when he went on his infamous trip to Iraq back in 2002... well, stories like this certainly don't help...

Congressman Jim McDermott this week returned a $5,000 contribution made to his legal defense fund by an Iraqi-American businessman who has admitted to financial ties with Saddam Hussein's regime.

Shakir al-Khafaji, a Detroit-area businessman who had been active in the anti-Iraq-war movement and who accompanied McDermott, D-Seattle, on his highly publicized trip to Iraq in 2002, acknowledged to the Financial Times of London this week that he received lucrative vouchers for Iraqi oil from Saddam's government.

According to the article, "McDermott was unaware of al-Khafaji's business dealings with the Iraqi government at the time of his trip to Iraq."

"They met literally for the first time on that trip. They did not know each other prior to that," [McDermott spokesman Mike DeCesare] said, adding that McDermott's opposition to the war in Iraq remained as strong as ever.

But according to an article in Roll Call published in February 2003, McDermott called al-Khafaji "a friend."

“He’s a friend and he gives me money,” said McDermott, who confirmed that he forged a relationship with the Southfield, Mich.-based businessman on the trip