HOW HE SEES IT Bribery allegations warrant a probe

By DEROY MURDOCK
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Did top Republicans solicit a congressman's support on Medicare reform by attempting bribery and blackmail? The Justice Department says it is reviewing this matter. This is serious business, worthy of the close attention of prosecutors, journalists and citizens.
At 3 a.m. Nov. 22, House members got 15 minutes to vote on the new $2 trillion drug entitlement. Two votes shy of passing the bill, Republicans abused House rules and let the vote run nearly three hours. This chicanery also included GOP arm-twisting by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and even Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who violated custom and trolled the House floor for aye votes.
As columnist Robert Novak reported Nov. 27, Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., said he was told on the House floor (he won't say by whom) that if he switched and backed the Medicare bill, "business interests" would provide $100,000 to his son's campaign to replace him in Congress.
'Special deals'
This looks like bribery. Smith said as much in a newspaper column the day after the vote. "Because the leadership did not have the votes to prevail," Smith wrote, "this vote was held open for a record two-hours and 51 minutes as bribes and special deals were offered to convince members to vote yes."
Federal law says that bribery occurs when someone "offers or promises any public official ... to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence any official act."
When Smith admirably stood his ground, Republicans changed tactics and said they would torpedo his son's candidacy.
"Other members and groups made offers of extensive financial campaign support and endorsements for my son, Brad," Smith wrote in a Nov. 23 newspaper column. "They also made threats of working against Brad if I voted no."
This reeks of extortion, which the federal Hobbs Act defines as obtaining someone's consent through fear.
Smith's pronouncements soon after the vote similarly describe these events. He again discussed a $100,000 figure, this time with John Gizzi and David Freddoso of "Human Events." They reported that the congressman said he was told his son would receive "almost unlimited financial support, plus some nationally recognized names to endorse him," if Smith voted yes. "This comes after [Brad] sold part of his property to put his own $100,000 in his campaign," Smith continued.
A Dec. 1 radio interview is even more revealing. Nine days after the Medicare vote, Nick Smith spoke with Kevin Vandenbroek of WKZO in Kalamazoo, Mich.
"Bradley, my son, is running for office, and so the first offer was to give him $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsement by national leadership," Smith said in the interview, available at slate.msn.com/id/2092153. When he said he would "stick to my guns" with his no vote, Smith recalled, "what they [presumably GOP leaders] did then is come forth with sort of the stick, and they said, 'Well, if you don't change your vote,' -- this was about 4 a.m. Saturday morn -- 'then some of us are going to work to make sure your son doesn't get to Congress.' And that kind of personal attack is just sort of beyond what anybody should do."
Changing tune
Despite these specifics, Smith's tune appeared to change two days later.
"I want to make it clear that no member of Congress made an offer of financial assistance for my son's campaign in exchange for my vote on the Medicare bill," he said in a Dec. 4 statement. "No specific reference was made to money."
Smith's dramatically conflicting accounts trouble Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (citizensforethics.org). "As you know," Sloan wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft on Dec. 8, "should a witness make such a complete recantation, in other circumstances, an investigation into witness tampering and obstruction of justice might result. ... The question now is, not only who attempted to bribe and extort Mr. Smith, but who ... pressured him to back away from his earlier representations?"
Bribery, extortion, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Such charges, encircling key Republicans, should rivet Americans, outrage the Right and trigger klaxons throughout the Justice Department.
XDeroy Murdock is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.