Latest D.C. scandal may top them all
WASHINGTON -- It has been more than 40 years since the so-called "Bobby Baker" scandal washed over the Capitol like a tsunami threatening to engulf any number of lawmakers including the then-vice president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, who ultimately managed to avoid its devastation through the good offices of his mentor, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and a Democratic majority that did everything possible to whitewash it.
The affair, named after the secretary to the Senate Democratic majority, shortened the career of several prominent politicians, sent Baker to jail, disrupted the corrupt practices of a number of lobbyists, and prompted the creation of committees in both houses of Congress to oversee and examine the ethics of members. It was also the first of a two decades series of scandals that included Watergate and has been referred to as the age of the investigative reporter.
Ironically, its significance was not even recognized by fellow journalists who denied the two reporters most responsible for uncovering the corruption, the Washington Star's Paul Hope and the late John Baron, the Pulitzer Prize they so richly deserved and expected to receive. The governing board of the prizes decided at the last minute to award the national reporting award that year to a prominent New York Times columnist, who was a former winner, for what in comparison was routine work. So what's new?
Watergate
While the impact of the Baker scandal and those that followed -- including the Ethics Committee's first case, an inquiry into the financial activities of Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut (in retrospect an unfair journalistic attack on an honest but careless man) -- were considerable, they pale in significance when measured against the likes of Watergate and Iran Contra and the much earlier Teapot Dome. But if you think that any of those was the Mount Everest of government malfeasance, at least from a financial standpoint, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Churning down Constitution Avenue toward Capitol Hill is a hurricane of potential political anguish the size of Katrina. It has been swirling around down the street at the Justice Department for sometime and with a major development just last week seems on the move to destroy any number of careers. It involves an extraordinarily well-connected super lobbyist named Jack Abramoff, whose activities already have resulted in an indictment in Florida and have been under close scrutiny in this town for at least a year and a half.
Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's partner and a former spokesman for besmirched former House GOP leader Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty last week to having plotted with Abramoff to bribe government officials and defraud Indian tribes with casinos out millions of dollars in fees. Something like $80 million has been mentioned. The betting is that Scanlon cut a deal to become the star witness against Abramoff. Scanlon agreed to pay back millions.
While a major Republican player (after all, they are in power) who salted the congressional landscape with golf outings and campaign donations and no one knows quite what else, Abramoff and his partners weren't adverse to rewarding support for their efforts to Democrats.
But the lawmakers most targeted for favors seems to be Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Administration Committee, who appears to have frequently eaten free at Abramoff's now closed Capitol Hill restaurant, and DeLay, who was the chief celebrity at a big time golf outing in Scotland, sponsored by Abramoff. The Associated Press has identified more than 30 other lawmakers as having pushed for an Aramboff cause. All deny there was any exchange of favors.
Millions lost
The extent of Abramoff's activities is apparently still being determined. But his alleged improprieties make those around Baker, who even shook down Senate pages, look like penny ante stuff, or, in Watergate parlance, a third rate burglary. The key amount that brought down Baker was something like a $100,000 donation in cash from a lobbying group. Native Americans lost millions in this deal, not an unusual consequence for our indigenous citizens at the hands of the government and those who influence it. That alone makes the entire mess more egregious than most of these scandals.
It is easy to predict that when all is said and done here, and that may take years, the impact will be enormous. It clearly is shaping up as the first great scandal of the 21st Century.
X Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard.