4-12-05, 9:15 am

As top Republican leaders demand an honest accounting from Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) for his questionable campaign dealings, reports of corruption, fraud, and misuse of taxpayers funds related to activities of the Bush administration and the Republican Party continue to snowball.

Other Republican members of Congress have also been exposed for their questionable relations with 'Casino Jack' Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist with close ties to DeLay. Abramoff, who some reports indicate paid for several trips DeLay took abroad in exchange for favorable consideration on pending legislation, also paid for a trip to Scotland and provided favors and contributions for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

Former head of the Christian Coalition turned Republican campaign fundraiser Ralph Reed traveled with Ney to Scotland.

Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) took over $130,000 in campaign contributions from 'Casino Jack' and his clients. Additionally, several Republican leaders in the House took favors from the notorious lobbyist, such as the trips to the Super Bowl, expensive skybox tickets at local sports arenas, and free meals at Abramoff’s restaurant in DC, reports the New York Times.

Abramoff is under several federal investigations for stealing from his clients and paying for political favors.

But Abramoff didn’t invent the idea of paid vacations for members of Congress. The man expected to replace Delay as House Majority leader, John Boehner (R-OH), accepted a trip to Spain in 2003 with fellow Republican Richard Burr (NC) and their wives. The trip cost $34,000. They traveled to Spain to learn more about the need to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain...in Nevada.

Meanwhile, scandal swirling in the Bush administration seems to have been overshadowed by GOP corruption in Congress.

Estimates from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) show that the Bush administration has spent at least $2.2 million in taxpayer money promoting its Social Security privatization plan.

According to Market Watch, Federal law prohibits spending any public funds for publicity or propaganda designed to support or defeat legislation pending in Congress.

The amount of money and the heat of Bush’s campaign has led the GAO to call for a congressional investigation into whether or not the $2.2 million should be characterized as a misuse of taxpayer money for propaganda purposes and a congressional lobbying campaign.

The money reportedly has been spent on airplane trips and the cost of carefully staged 'town hall' meetings at which Bush and dozens of administration officials have pushed his Social Security privatization plan and at which opponents or critics of Bush’s plan have been excluded.

This isn’t the fist time the Bush administration has used taxpayer dollars for propaganda purposes. In January of this year it was revealed that the Department of Education paid right-wing partisan radio talk show Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind law.

Two other journalists with a national audience have also admitted to accepting thousands of dollars to push the administration’s agenda.

According to a report from Inter Press Service, millions of dollars have been spent by the US military and at least 20 federal agencies to hire reporters, TV producers, and equipment in order to produce pro-administration, pro-military 'news.'

In 2003 and 2004, taxpayers shelled out hundreds of thousands for a publicity blitz for Bush’s Medicare law. To spin the bill positively, the Bush administration created a number of phony television news reports in which a fake reporter named Karen Ryan 'interviewed' administration officials who provided misleading information about the bill. The administration admits to creating 'packaged news' for TV and sending them to local television stations. These TV stories are deceptive about who has produced them and their sources of information, and present themselves as objective news created by a disinterested media outlet. They are also designed to mislead viewers about given issues.

The GAO described this activity as 'covert propaganda,' but the administration says it doesn’t have to and won’t stop.

Altogether, the administration spent $254 million on 'covert propaganda' in its first term alone.

According to preliminary investigations by the GAO, the New York Times reported in March, the same company that was paid to create the Medicare spots has also received about $97 million from the US government more recently for undisclosed work.

This revelation comes on the heels of information leaked from the White House saying the president ordered his people to ignore what the GAO had to say about 'covert propaganda.'

Observers believe that Bush paid the firm the $97 million to organize its Social Security campaign blitz.

Spending millions of US taxpayer dollars to control the media and to eliminate or reduce opposing views of the Bush administration agenda isn’t simply an abuse of the 'political capital' Bush imagined he had won after his razor thin victory in November. It is a misuse of taxpayer funds and is probably illegal. It should be openly and thoroughly investigated.

Another area that demands fuller investigation that the Republicans would prefer to keep under the radar is a series of revelations of fraud and abuse of power by administration appointees in Iraq.

A report prepared for Congress released last November showed that over 100 investigations had been opened by the FBI, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and other agencies to scrutinize billions of dollars spent during the Iraq occupation.

The investigation included charges of favoritism and bribery by companies, including Halliburton, clamoring to get their teeth into billions in government contracts, according to Reuters.

Just as the UN oil-for-food scandal that the Bush administration and the Republicans had made so much of wound down to nothing, a quieter scandal was revealed in an additional report on the finances of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headed by Bush appointee Paul Bremer.

In the 14 months of its existence, the CPA lost $8.8 billion. Additionally, in early February, the BBC reported that CPA officials demanded $300,000 in exchange for awarding contracts.

Iraqi money disappeared. An estimated $2 billion turned over to US military commanders has never been seen since.

'Cost-plus' and 'no-bid' contracts – generally viewed as wasteful and a breeding ground for corruption – were handed out hand over fist without safeguards or accounting. Cost-plus contracts provide an agreed amount over what the contractor says it costs to perform the contracted service. No-bid contracts means that there is no competition that may reduce prices and demand higher quality controls.

Pentagon auditors found that Halliburton, which still retains Vice President Cheney on its payroll, in the course of just one contract overcharged the government $61 million for imported fuel. The auditors suggest this may have been officially authorized.

The New York Times reported that Army officers admitted that they received pressure from political figures to accept these sorts of deals and that they wouldn’t be asked to account for them.

The report on the CPA’s work documents widespread abuse and fraud.

But, as noted by the Christian Science Monitor last week, the Bush administration has refused to prosecute any companies or individuals who may have been involved, claiming conveniently that the CPA was a multinational institution not a US government tool and that defrauding the CPA isn’t the same as defrauding the US government and isn’t punishable by US law.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.