Sen. Hatch's secret drug firm links-Drugmaker money to Utah senator's charity escaped disclosure

[babylonsister]

Ruh Roh. :popcorn:


EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Hatch's secret drug firm links
Drugmaker money to Utah senator's charity escaped disclosure
Jim McElhatton (Contact) and Jerry Seper (Contact)
Monday, March 2, 2009

EXCLUSIVE:


The pharmaceutical industry that long has benefited from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch´s legislative efforts has directed large sums of money to a charity he helped found - and still raises money for - while also hiring the Republican lawmaker's son as a lobbyist.

Though Congress boasts that it is more transparent after passing new disclosure rules, Americans have had no way of knowing about the drugmakers' largesse to the charity, Utah Families Foundation. No way, that is, until a normally confidential tax filing was mistakenly released by the Internal Revenue Service to a nonprofit database last year.

The tax form, obtained by The Washington Times, shows that five pharmaceutical companies and the industry's main lobbying group wrote checks in 2007 to the Utah Families Foundation - some as large as $40,000 - that far exceed what they could give publicly to Mr. Hatch´s campaigns.

The donations, $172,500 in all, came at the same time that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) was paying one of Mr. Hatch's sons, Scott, to be its lobbyist in Congress.

And if that weren't enough political intrigue, the tax-exempt charitable foundation, which the senator from Utah helped start in the 1990s and still vigorously supports, has been delinquent for nearly a decade in filing its required annual reports with Utah state officials, a Times review found.

more...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/02/the-fog-of-congressional-transparency/

[mod mom]

1. Why would the Moonie Times go after one of their own?

[babylonsister]

2. Lilly-white Hatch seems as if he deserves some scrutiny. nt

[lazer47]

3. Because he isn't paying enough tithe (money) to the church

[starroute]

6. Hatch is a Mormon -- but he's defended Moon in the past

See http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/122706.html for Robert Parry's description of Hatch as a "key defender" of Moon.

One possibility which occurs to me is that this might be a limited hangout. Hatch's name comes up in some very weird contexts -- for example, he lobbied for BCCI, denounced John Kerry on the floor of the Senate in 1990 for going after BCCI, and was a longtime friend and business associate of alleged BCCI frontman Mohammed Hammoud, who was (allegedly) found dead a few hours after being taped saying he was going to go public with what he knew about corrupt American politicians and officials. (See http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/15hammoud.htm for the extremely strange facts about Hammoud.)

Hatch also had at least indirect connections with the S&L scandal and the Salt Lake City Olympics scandal.

In addition, several of the people involved in the US Attorney scandal had formerly been aides of his at the Judiciary Committee.

So all in all, there could be a lot more about Hatch waiting to come out -- and since it was apparently CREW and not the Washington Times that first unearthed this story, the Times might conceivably be trying to head it off at the pass.

[spanone]

4. k&r

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Hatch blocked the legalization of MJ in the 70s

not that there is any connection, mind you.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. Why is Hatch still in power?

Sometime around Reagan’s 1986 repeal of the “certificate of need” and HealthSouth’s IPO, Orrin Hatch wrote to federal bank regulators on behalf of an individual whom, eventually if not presently, is involved in the hospital construction business. His name is Monzer Hourani. Remember? These are the hospitals one needs to get a Certificate of Need to construct. Orrin Hatch urged them to consider the Hourani’s explanation of why he defaulted on a loan. Hourani had been managing a small real-estate investment for Senator Hatch in the 1980s. After 1996 or “a few years later” (which is a Latin term for “1991”) Senator Hatch worked to arrange a $10 million loan for Mr. Hourani from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI; founded in Pakistan in 1992) and BCCI later collapses in a money laundering scandal and is closed by regulators.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=103&topic_id=292328&mesg_id=292880

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEED6103FF935A1575BC0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
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