Thread: Rick Santorum (R-PA) Named 'Most Corrupt' Congressman List In 2006!

September 20, 2006

CREW Releases Second Annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report

Washington, DC – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its second annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress entitled Beyond DeLay: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and five to watch). This encyclopedic report on corruption in the 109th Congress documents the egregious, unethical and possibly illegal activities of the most tainted members of Congress. CREW has compiled the members’ transgressions and analyzed them in light of federal laws and congressional rules.

Two members have been removed from last year’s list of 13. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) is now serving an eight-year jail term for bribery and Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) has agreed to plead guilty to crimes that will likely result in a minimum two-year prison term.

CREW has also re-launched the report’s tandem website, www.beyonddelay.org. The site offers short summaries of each member’s transgressions as well as the full-length profiles and all accompanying exhibits.

CREW’s Most Corrupt Members of Congress:

Members of the Senate:

• Conrad Burns (R-MT)
• Bill Frist (R-TN)
• Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Members of the House:

• Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
• Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
• Ken Calvert (R-CA)
• Richard Pombo (R-CA)
• John Doolittle (R-CA)
• Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
• Tom Feeney (R-FL)
• Pete Sessions (R-TX)
• Katherine Harris (R-FL)
• John Sweeney (R-NY)
• William Jefferson (D-LA)
• Charles Taylor (R-NC)
• Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
• Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Gary Miller (R-CA)
• Curt Weldon (R-PA)

Five Members to Watch:

• Chris Cannon (R-UT)
• J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
• Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
• John Murtha (D-PA)
• Don Sherwood (R-PA)

“CREW created this exhaustive go-to guide on corruption in Congress to expose and hold accountable those members of Congress who believe they are above the law,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today. “The officials named in this report have chosen to enrich themselves and their families and friends by abusing the power of their office, rather than work for the public good. Their collective corruption affects all Americans.”

An August 2006 Harris poll shows that 77% of Americans have a negative view of Congress and a May 2006 Gallup poll indicates that 83% of Americans consider corruption a serious issue.

Sloan continued, “Congress persists in abdicating its constitutional responsibility to police itself, opting to ignore the ethical and legal transgressions of its members. Luckily for the public, at least the Department of Justice still believes that political corruption is worth pursuing.”
Several other members’ careers have been tarnished or destroyed by their corrupt activities. In addition to Reps. Ney and Cunningham, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) has been indicted in Texas and is facing possible federal indictment in the Jack Abramoff scandal and Reps. William Jefferson (D-LA), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), as well as Sens. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Bill Frist (R-TN) are now under federal investigation.
Click here to read CREW's report "Beyond Delay: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress"

Click here to read supporting exhibits.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/ind...ngress-report/

Bumping this to top. People need to be reminded every now and then.

Not only that read this:

Senator RICK SANTORUM ("It Takes a Family"): They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do. Government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulation low and that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues, you know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can't go it alone, that there is no such society that I'm aware of where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4784905

Rick Santorum’s Big Government Problem

The CATO Institute’s David Boaz explains why he says there hasn’t been a candidate more inimical to American political values than Rick Santorum since Hillary Clinton.
Here's the video from that interview on Judge Napolitano's Show last night:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/fr...list_id=163774

Originally Posted by chloe24

Here's the video from that interview on Judge Napolitano's Show last night:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/fr...list_id=163774

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

A great exposure of what a globalist, rino, Republican really looks like. Thank you Judge Napolitano, I don't see how you are able to remain on the air.

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

A great exposure of what a globalist, rino, Republican really looks like. Thank you Judge Napolitano, I don't see how you are able to remain on the air.

good video ..amazes me people have eyes and yet they can't see they are blind!!!!!

Truth hurts for some reason .... this is not going to be pretty

Originally Posted by chloe24

Senator RICK SANTORUM ("It Takes a Family"): They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do. Government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulation low and that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues, you know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can't go it alone, that there is no such society that I'm aware of where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4784905

Wow, are we sure Santorum is even an American, much less a conservative, making a statement like that????

If you want to see what REAL political corruption looks like as it relates to the current flock of globalist GOP candidates ..

Newt Gingrich, Marianne and the Arms Dealer: A Buried FBI Investigation

DCBureau has learned that Gingrich was at the center of a U.S. Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s for a scheme to shake down the arms dealer for a $10 million bribe in exchange for Gingrich using his influence as Speaker to get the Iraq arms embargo lifted so Soghanalian could collect $54 million from Saddam Hussein’s regime for weapons he had delivered during the Iran-Iraq War.

People need to be reminded about a lot of things..especially the choices they are ramming down our throats.....




See what voting in an illegal has accomplished!!!! These guys should know!!!

Santorum charity for the poor spent most of its money on management, political friends



By Carol D. Leonnig and Dan Eggen, Published: January 13

As Republicans gathered for their national convention in Philadelphia a decade ago, Rick Santorum, who was then an up-and-coming senator from Pennsylvania, launched a charity he said would improve the lives of low-income residents in his home state.



Video
Though Santorum's old-fashioned, shoe-leather approach to campaigning paid off in Iowa, the question for him now is how far he can go from here, given his lack of resources and the need to ramp up a national organization.

Though Santorum's old-fashioned, shoe-leather approach to campaigning paid off in Iowa, the question for him now is how far he can go from here, given his lack of resources and the need to ramp up a national organization.


“Wouldn’t it be a great thing to leave something positive behind other than a bunch of parties and a bunch of garbage?” Santorum told a local reporter.

But homeless families and troubled children were not the biggest beneficiaries of “Operation Good Neighbor.” Instead, the foundation spent most of its money to run itself, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for fundraising, administration and office rental paid to Santorum’s political allies.

The charity also had significant overlap with the senator’s campaigns and his work on Capitol Hill. Among the leading donors to the foundation were Pennsylvania development and finance firms that had donated to his election efforts and had interests that Santorum had supported in the Senate.

Santorum, whose last-minute surge in the Iowa caucuses has brought new attention to his presidential bid, portrays himself as a common man concerned about the gap between the nation’s rich and poor. But in the case of his charity, his efforts ended up mostly helping his cadre of political friends.

Before it folded in 2007, the foundation raised $2.58 million, with 39 percent of that donated directly to groups helping the needy. By industry standards, such philanthropic groups should be donating nearly twice that, from 75 to 85 percent of their funds.

“That’s exceptionally poor,” Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, a national organization that rates charitable groups, said of the group’s giving. “We would tell donors to run with fear from this organization.”

Santorum campaign adviser John Brabender said the former senator remains proud of the cause he championed.

“Senator Santorum was very committed to helping raise funds for Operation Good Neighbor and did so with the understanding that those funds would be used to help many organizations and families located in urban areas of Pennsylvania,” Brabender said.

Robert Pratter, who had served on the charity’s board, defended its management, saying its fundraising costs and payments to staff and consultants were reasonable.

“We were raising money for these very small mom and pop groups — the most effective way to raise money was the way we raised it,” said Pratter, who was formerly with Philadelphia risk management firm PMA Capital, a donor to the charity and to Santorum campaigns. “If you have a golf outing , it costs money to have a golf outing.”

Recipients, including an AIDS group, a local YMCA and others, received checks of roughly $6,000 to $15,000. Pratter said they were much-needed resources for tiny nonprofits struggling raise money on their own.

Robert Bickhart, a Republican political strategist who was Santorum’s campaign finance director, became the charity’s executive director.

He served without pay in 2001, and received payments for renting the charity office space in his Conshohocken consulting firm, Capitol Resource Group. Tax records do not specify the amount paid for rent.

Beginning in 2002, he was paid for his part-time job as director, and from 2002 to 2006 he received a total of $97,000 in compensation, plus unspecified amounts in office rent.

Bickhart, who became finance chair of the Republican National Committee in 2009, had resigned three years earlier from the Santorum charity. The group had been the subject of a piece in the magazine American Prospect that reported some of his early fees and noted the charity’s low level of giving to nonprofits.

i

Video
Though Santorum's old-fashioned, shoe-leather approach to campaigning paid off in Iowa, the question for him now is how far he can go from here, given his lack of resources and the need to ramp up a national organization.

Though Santorum's old-fashioned, shoe-leather approach to campaigning paid off in Iowa, the question for him now is how far he can go from here, given his lack of resources and the need to ramp up a national organization.



When Bickhart left, Santorum’s former spokesperson, Laura Lebaudy, took over briefly as the charity’s director, records show.

In its six years, the charity also paid $347,088 for the fundraising services of Maria Diesel, a Chester County events coordinator who has also helped raise money for Santorum’s political efforts.

Diesel did not return messages left at her home. And Bickhart, who later became mired in controversy over his stewardship of the finances at the Republican National Committee under former chairman Michael Steele, referred questions to the Santorum campaign.

Pratter said Bickhart and others were properly compensated, and their political ties to Santorum were irrelevant.

“I don’t believe they got a tremendous amount of money, and I know whatever they got was for services provided,” Pratter said. “It wasn’t as if this was some kind of front. They did their work.”

Bickhart also benefitted from another Santorum organization, a political action committee known as America’s Foundation PAC, which the senator formed while he was in office. Lawmakers often use such committees, known as “leadership PACs,” to dole out money to political allies.

Santorum kept the committee going, even after losing his seat in 2006, and has raised $5.5 million over the past five years.

When he was in office and running for re-election, he gave 20 percent of the funds to other GOP candidates in federal races. But after Santorum left the Senate, that figure dropped to about 3 percent, although he also gave a small amount to local Republicans in key primary states.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found in a 2011 study that leadership PACs run by lawmakers commonly give away from 80 to 90 percent of their money to other candidates or political committees.

After he left the Senate, Santorum spent most of his PAC money — more than $3 million — on campaign-style expenses criticizing Democrats, including direct mail, polling and political consultants, disclosure records show. Another $1.4 million went for travel, salaries and other administrative costs.

As with the charity, hundreds of thousands of dollars of the PAC money went to loyal aides with close ties to Santorum. Bickhart and his firm, for example, have received nearly $780,000 from America’s Foundation since 2001, records show.

In a January 2010 letter seeking donations, Santorum said he needed money to “reinforce our conservative allies” in Congress and retake control of the House. Though Santorum had not then registered as a presidential candidate, he also wrote he was “actively considering” a presidential run and hoped to “kick the Obama administration to the curb,” according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

Santorum centered much of his fundraising and political organizing in recent years on opposition to the policies of President Obama and other Democrats. In one “thank you” mailing sent to supporters in 2010, Santorum said he was “fighting to preserve the very soul of America” and “to stop President Obama and his radical agenda.” The document is preserved on a vendor’s Web site as an example of award-winning fundraising work.

By 2011, much of the spending by America’s Foundation was centered on key primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as Santorum laid preparations for a presidential run.

Brabender said the expenses in primary states were proper.

“The senator spent a great deal of time on party building activities and helping other candidates, and he was entitled to have these expenses paid for,” he said.

Federal campaign-finance laws provide few limits on how a politician can spend money from a leadership PAC, and candidates are not required to form a presidential campaign committee until they explicitly declare an interest in running for the White House.

Santorum formally announced his bid in June 2011, after spending about $585,000 in the first six months of 2011 through America’s Foundation .

“Leadership PACs have become a very common vehicle to be treated as a kind of slush fund for former officeholders,” said Paul S. Ryan, associate counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “It’s perfectly legal for a senator to amass millions of dollars in a leadership PAC, and then once they leave office or are kicked out office, they can do whatever they want with that money.”

Staff writer T.W. Farnum and Research Editors Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.


Santorum charity for the poor spent most of its money on management, political friends - The Washington Post


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