FBI recorded Rep. Don Young phone calls = Golf Tournaments Eyed in Corruption Case

[L. Coyote]

Golf Tournaments Eyed in Corruption Case
By MATT APUZZO – 5 hours ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdHuzL72HIBCvcsWuXtE9kP6SxFgD8STOAVG0


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is investigating whether an Alaska oil contractor used golf tournaments to funnel cash to Rep. Don Young, people close to the corruption investigation said.

The contractor, Rick Smith, told investigators that Young personally received cash at the events. Once an important ally who helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for Young's election committee, Smith has become a key government informant.

As part of his cooperation, Smith allowed FBI agents to record his telephone calls with the Republican congressman in a corruption sting. The former VECO Corp. vice president has pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers to support oil-friendly legislation.

Details of Smith's cooperation against Alaska's 18-term congressman were confirmed by people close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

...........

MORE: Corrupt Bastards Club: FBI Investigating Stevens' Fishing Bills = Earmarks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2227525

Who's Who in the "Corrupt Bastards Club" ?? Nothing Fishy Here. MOVE ON
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2101151

[MADem]

1. Ain't that special!!! A kick and R for that 'good news story!' nt

[Mnemosyne]

2. I'll 3rd that! n/t

[MADem]

4. We need more "Happy News" on the Greatest Page--and this qualifies!! Come on folks, vote it up! nt

[Mnemosyne]

18. Needs another

:kick:

[Richard Steele]

3. K&R

[L. Coyote]

5. TPM: Feds Tapped Calls between Corrupt Exec and GOP Rep Young

Feds Tapped Calls between Corrupt Exec and GOP Rep Young
By Paul Kiel - Nov 14, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004712.php


Things get worse for Rep. Don Young (R-AK). The feds are chasing Young for his ties to the corrupt oil company Veco (among other things http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003996.php), and he's already blown $450,000 in campaign funds on criminal defense lawyers. But it looks like investigators pulled out all the stops.

FBI agents recorded former Veco president Rick Smith's phone calls with Young, the AP reports today. In September, the AP reported (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004257.php) that Veco's CEO Bill Allen had recorded his calls with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Young was close to Smith in a couple ways. Smith, who pleaded guilty to bribing a number of lawmakers, arranged Young's annual mega-fundraiser pig roast (see picture above) at a cost of about $10,000 to $15,000 for a decade. ....

====================
Posts on “Don Young” = http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_young/
Posts on “Veco” = http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/veco/

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I'm happy to be the fifth R...

Don Young is one of the slimiest of the slimy. If he escapes indictment, we'll know Justice is dead.

[L. Coyote]

7. Hale Boggs plane crash killed DEM Rep. and put Don Young in office.

Nicholas Joseph (Nick) Begich, Sr. (April 6, 1932 – Undetermined; presumably October 16, 1972) was a Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives from Alaska. He disappeared after his plane crashed in 1972.

......

In 1970, Begich was elected to the at-large seat for the state of Alaska. He served until a mysterious plane crash on October 16, 1972. Begich was in the process of campaigning during the crash. Also aboard were Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana, and two others. All were presumed dead after an exhaustive 39-day search did not find any remains. The accident prompted Congress to pass a law mandating emergency locator transmitters (now called emergency position-indicating rescue beacons) in all U.S. civil aircraft.

During the period of the search, he was elected to a second term in the United States House. He was declared dead on December 29, 1972 at 40 years old and a special election was announced. Republican state senator Don Young won the election and took Begich's seat, and has held it ever since.

Nick Begich's younger son, Mark Begich, is the current mayor of Anchorage, Alaska. ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Begich

[L. Coyote]

8. The Breaking News Story, July 2007 WSJ: Alaska's Young, Stevens Face Inquiry

Four months later, as evidence and testimony and convictions in Alaska accumulate, we are still asking, "When will they resign? After they are convicted?"
This investigation is either being subverted or going after more Congress critters. Is Don Young wearing a wire now? Is Ted Stevens ensnaring other Senators. Whose phone is tapped today? This just gets more and more interesting. Will we find out what happened to Hale Boggs?

=======================
Alaska's Young, Stevens Face Inquiry
U.S. Prosecutors Look at Ties Of Republican Lawmakers To Engineering Firm VECO
By JOHN R. WILKE - July 25, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118531999682776863.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news&apl=y

WASHINGTON -- A senior House Republican has come under criminal investigation in the Justice Department's widening inquiry into alleged influence-peddling and self-dealing in Congress.

Rep. Don Young of Alaska, the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, now is the subject of a continuing criminal inquiry involving possible political favors for a company in Alaska, people close to the case said. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the powerful former chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the longest-serving Senate Republican, is also now under criminal investigation, these people said.

Federal investigators are examining whether Rep. Young or Sen. Stevens accepted bribes, illegal gratuities or unreported gifts from VECO Corp., Alaska's largest oil-field engineering firm, people close to the case said.

It isn't known what VECO allegedly may have received in return. The company has been awarded a series of federal contracts since 2000, including contracts to provide logistics support for arctic research .....

[L. Coyote]

9. Rolling Stone 2006.10: The 10 Worst Congressmen #3 MR. PORK brandishes walrus penis on House floor

The 10 Worst Congressmen
Oct 17, 2006
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12054520/the_10_worst_congressmen/3

3. MR. PORK
DON YOUNG (R-ALASKA)

Powerful enough to earn the moniker "Alaska's Third Senator," this seventeen-term congressman and former tugboat captain knows how to haul home the bacon. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, Alaskans receive $1.87 in federal funds for every dollar they contribute in taxes. Last year, Young leveraged his post as chairman of the House Transportation Committee to stuff the highway bill -- "like a turkey," in his own words -- with nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel projects for his home state.

More than $400 million of the money was earmarked for two separate "bridges to nowhere." One, nearly as long as the Golden Gate, would serve an island community of only fifty people. The second, a monument to waste known as "Don Young's Way," would connect Anchorage to a patch of scarcely habitable marshland.

"These two bridges are the most egregious example of government waste we've ever seen," says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation called one of Young's bridges a "national embarrassment." But the congressman refused to scrap the projects. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Sen. John McCain proposed that Young redirect his prized pork money to help rebuild New Orleans, Young accused his detractors of "ignorance and stupidity." The victims of Katrina, he suggested, "can kiss my ear!"

Such coarseness is a Young hallmark. He once called environmentalists a "self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots" who "are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans." And during a debate on the right of native Alaskans to sell the sex organs of endangered animals as aphrodisiacs, Young whipped out the eighteen-inch penis bone of a walrus and brandished it like a sword on the House floor.

As for his pork projects,....

[L. Coyote]

10. Young's Controversial Earmarks: Bridges to nowhere and Quid Pro Quo projects

Controversial earmarks http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Don_Young

Gravina Island Bridge

In 2005 Young and Senator Ted Stevens earmarked $223 million for building a bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island (pop. 50). Critics assailed this as pork barrel spending at taxpayers' expense and dubbed it the "Bridge to Nowhere". After criticism from citizens and others in Congress, lawmakers defunded the bridge specifically, and instead funneled the money to the state of Alaska's transportation department to use as it saw fit.<1> <2>

Knik Arm bridge

Allegedly, in early 2003, while Young was the Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, he began drafting a highway bill that would provide federal funding for a bridge to an uninhabited area outside of anchorage called Knick Arm. Young along with Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) earmarked the project which was overlooked because of the provisions of the Gravina Island Bridge incident (see above). According to a Roll Call report on May 14, 2007, Young's daughter, who is a staff member of Sen. Murkowski's, as well as other Alaska congressional staff members, previously bought land in Knik Arm and stood to profit off of the proposed bridge and following land development. <3>

Coconut Road project

In a 2006 transportation bill, Young earmarked $10 million for a construction project for Coconut Road in Fort Myers, Florida, which would connect the road to Interstate 75. The appropriations were not sought by the districts own representative, and the county authorities voted against using the money twice, until persuaded to do so by Young and the district congressman. However, the measure greatly benefited real estate developer Daniel J. Aronoff, who also happened to be a major campaign contributer to Young, having helped raise $40,000 only days before the legislation was introduced .....

[L. Coyote]

11. Constitutional Violations: Rep. Young’s transportation earmark controversy

CRS memo feeds into Rep. Young’s transportation earmark controversy
By Susan Crabtree - Oct 16, 2007
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/crs-memo-feeds-into-rep.-youngs-transportation-earmark-controversy-2007-10-16.html


The Congressional Research Service has issued a memo outlining the constitutional violations that occur when lawmakers, staff or enrolling clerks make substantive changes to bills after they pass the House and Senate.

Lawmakers must pass a concurrent resolution if they want to codify a substantive change to a bill that was made after its initial passage in either chamber, according to the Oct. 4 memo, which was obtained by The Hill.

An anonymous congressional office requested the memo, in an apparent attempt to gain insight into the growing debate over Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) alleged involvement in changing earmark language in the 2005 highway bill after both chambers passed it.

The memo states that if an error or change appears in a bill that was not included in the original version, and it does not “reflect congressional action on a measure,” “both chambers must agree to a concurrent resolution that directs the appropriate official to re-enroll the bill with specified changes.”

..................

[L. Coyote]

12. Published reports have linked Young to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.

Abramoff scandal http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Don_Young

Published reports have linked Young to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.

* In September 2002 Young and Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) wrote to the General Services Administration urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals.(John Stanton, "Alaska’s Friends and Family Plan," Roll Call, May 14, 2007. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/52_124/news/18461-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS) In particular, the letter referred to a historic building, the Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington, DC. (David Kirkpatrick, "Campaign Funds for Alaskan; Road Aid to Florida" New York Times, June 7, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/washington/07earmark.html?hp)

* The Marianas are a U.S. commonwealth, falling under jurisdiction of the House Resources Committee. The committee's chairman, from 1995 to 2003 was Rep. Don Young of Alaska. According to Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, " One of ] major legislative successes in 2000 was blocking legislation that would have put garment manufacturers in the Mariana Islands -- notorious for running sweatshops -- under federal labor laws," wrote (January 6, 2006 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/254712_joel06.html).

* "Young used Abramoff's MCI Center skybox in Washington, D.C., for fund-raisers. Lower 48 Indian tribes represented by the super-lobbyist gave about $20,000 to Young's campaign committee, according to the Anchorage Daily News," Connelly also wrote.

* Don Young's former Chief of Staff Duane R. Gibson worked for Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig.

* In April 2007, Mark Zachares, former Young staffer and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands employee, was arrested and expected to enter a plea of guilty. The list of charges all stem from his involvement in the Abramoff scandal. (Susan Crabtree, "Former aide to Young likely to plead guilty," The Hill, April 23, 2007. http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/former-aide-to-young-likely-to-plead-guilty-2007-04-23.html)

[L. Coyote]

13. Illegal campaign contributions = $5,500 from the seafood industry between 2000 and 2007

Illegal campaign contributions http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Don_Young#Illegal_campaign_contributions

In June 2007, Don Young filed a report with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) admitting to unknowingly having accepted illegal campaign contributions amounting to more than $5,500 from the seafood industry between 2000 and 2007. In June 2007, Young agreed to pay back the contributions to the Pacific Seafood Processors Association given since 2004, about $2,400, in keeping with the FEC's statute of limitations, intending to keep the illegal contributions made between 2000 and 2004. However, in early August, by which time Young was under federal investigation, he reversed his earlier decision and chose to refund the remaining campaign contributions, amounting to $3,175.

Laura McGann, "Young Turns Leaf, Gives Back Illegal Contributions," TPMmuckraker, August 6, 2007.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003873.php

Jill Burke, "Young thinks twice on returning illegal campaign contributions," KTUU NBC 2 News, August 4, 2007.
http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=6887784

[L. Coyote]

14. Clash with Rep. Garrett "you say you want my money — my money"

Clash with Rep. Garrett http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Don_Young#Clash_with_Rep._Garrett

On July 18, 2007, proposed legislation by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) that would have cut funding in Alaska launched Rep. Young into an outburst, claiming "Those who bite me will be bitten back," as a threat to Garrett. Young continued, "This is supposed to be a house of honor; you didn’t tell me you were going to offer this amendment... We are a new state. I have poverties that you don’t even think of and yet you say you want my money — my money, for my students that need to be educated — to go to New Jersey. This is a sad day for this House." Young also called New Jersey a "a state that doesn’t have the greatest reputation," and suggested that they seek better representation. (Jackie Kucinich. "The bitten says he will bite back," The Hill. July 19, 2007. http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/the-bitten-says-he-will-bite-back-2007-07-19.html)

Other Representatives stepped in to support Garrett. Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) wrote in a letter, "Rarely have I seen a member embody the principle, courage and caring for the people of his state as admirably as Scott Garrett... There is no more obvious indicator of a weak argument than one member personally denouncing another — or the people of his state — during a substantive policy discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives," Hansarling continued, criticizing Young's attack, "In addition, any member of Congress who confuses taxpayer money with their own has clearly spent too much time in Washington."

[L. Coyote]

15. Mark Zachares, Former Aide to GOP Rep. Don Young (R-AK) To Plead Guilty

Former Aide to GOP Rep To Plead Guilty
By Paul Kiel - April 23, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003083.php


Yet another shoe drops in the Jack Abramoff investigation. A former aide to Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Mark Zachares, looks set to plead guilty to corruption charges....... (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/zachares/?resultpage=1&)

According to the document, Zachares and Abramoff had what they called their "two year plan": Zacheres would work for Abramoff on the inside, taking advantage of his congressional position to throw business Abramoff's way, and eventually, when Zachares left Congress, Abramoff would reward him. ....

Abramoff "assisted Zachares in obtaining his position as a staffer on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee," which Young chaired. .....

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Thanks, L.Coyote

We're wondering what's taking so long, too. Rumors of Young's impending indictment(s) have been flying up here since before last year's election.

[L. Coyote]

17. 'I'll Sell My Soul to the Devil'

'I'll Sell My Soul to the Devil'
Corruption Scandals Involve Alaska's Biggest Political Names
by Karl Vick - Washington Post Staff Writer - Nov 12, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR2007111101585.html?nav=rss_politics


ANCHORAGE -- When the FBI came looking for corruption in Alaska politics, it found an excellent perch in Suite 604 of the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, the state capital. There, a profane septuagenarian named Bill Allen did business throughout a 2006 special session called to set taxes on the oil industry. With hundred-dollar bills in his front pocket for ease of access when lawmakers turned up with their hands out, the oil-services company executive turned in a bravura performance before the pinhole camera that federal agents installed opposite his favorite chair.

"Let me count first here," Allen said, shushing a former statehouse speaker as he counted out a bribe in video footage entered as evidence in the lawmaker's September trial, one of several crowding the docket of the federal court here.

On another tape, Pete Kott, the former Republican speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed by oil companies. "I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie," Kott said. "Exxon's happy. BP's happy. I'll sell my soul to the devil."

"Well, that will stay in this room," one lobbyist said as a midnight session wound down.

It did not, of course .......