Wednesday, July 21, 2004

If it's Wednesday, it must be the...



Last week's Scandal Scorecard Update was dedicated to Tom DeLay, who makes an encore appearance this week as well, but we can't let seven more days slip by without a look at the Administration, and as is so often the case, Rummy's DoD obliges with an all too common case of contract irregularity.

The General Services Administration is reviewing a technology company, Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), for its role in using a technology contract to provide dozens of interrogators and intelligence support personnel at the U.S. naval base prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to an administration procurement official.
Although the $13.3 million contract was written for technology engineering services and managed by the Interior Department, the agreement has been used largely for hiring 30 intelligence analysts and 15 to 20 interrogators, according to Raul Duany, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo.

What's a high-tech rubber hose look like, anyway?

On the Congressional side, we have this via Off The Kuff.

Peter Cloeren, who owns a plastics company in Orange, Texas, is a good Republican. The kind with the means and the will to max out his contribution limits, as he did for East Texas congressional candidate Brian Babin, a Woodville dentist.
Enter Tom DeLay.
In an affidavit he gave House investigators two years later, Mr. Cloeren said he was frustrated that he couldn't do more for Dr. Babin. According to the affidavit, Mr. DeLay, then majority whip, replied that "it would not be a problem for him to find, in his words, 'additional vehicles,' " and Mr. DeLay told an aide to provide "details of how to funnel additional moneys" to the Babin campaign.

Within months, federal records show, Mr. Cloeren and his wife gave tens of thousands of dollars to out-of-state congressional campaigns and groups. Donors to some of those groups later assisted the Babin campaign.
In 1998, Cloeren filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission accusing Mr. DeLay of luring him into the alleged donation scheme. A Democratic attempt to hold a House Government Reform Committee investigation was blocked by committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind.

When someone confesses to a crime, I'm inclined to believe them. When they implicate Tom DeLay, well, I see scandal.

That brings the Scorecard total to 52 items, which can be seen, today and every day, in full at the Scandal Scorecard homepage.

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