The Daily Background

Okay, I’ve been doing some reading and here’s the basic deal with the Curt Weldon investigation.

Ten-term Pennsylvania Republican Congress Curt Weldon’s daughter Karen Weldon went into the lobbying business in 2002 with one of Weldon’s political pals, Charles Sexton. Their lobbying firm is called “Solutions North America” (what a generic name, right?). Anyways so they represent a murky and secretive Russian oil firm called Itera International Energy Corp (which has long been rumored to be involved in shady money-laundering-like activities).

Anyways, it’s alleged that Weldon helped “Solutions North America” get lobbying contracts with Itera (the contract was reportedly worth an astoundingly high half a million dollars- in 2002 the same year that “SNA” was founded), and that he helped the former get around 1 million dollars in contracts with the US government and tried to get more.

Weldon is also reportedly tight with Itera execs and got 8,000 dollars in campaign donations from them this year. He has also visited their headquarters at least twice, saying on one visit “Itera is a great source for American companies to be involved in joint projects,” and “I can think of no other company that represents what Russia is today and offers for the future” on another.

Weldon says that this investigation is politically-timed and that the House Ethics Committee absolved him of any wrongdoing in 2004. Unfortunately for Weldon, his brush-off doesn’t quite hold up.

For one, the FBI and DoJ have been investigating Weldon’s conduct for several months and it only became public last Friday or Saturday. Once it became public that the secret investigation was existent, investigators felt they needed to conduct yesterday’s raids in order to secure evidence without fear of it disappearing. In addition, the Washington Post reports today that a federal grand jury has been investigating Weldon since May and has even been listening to wiretapped calls between individuals involved in the situation.

Further, Itera only gave Weldon thousands of dollars in campaign contributions this year, so it wouldn’t have been open to investigation in 2004 by the House Ethics Committee.

Finally, it is important to mention, the Committee is charged more with discovering if anything has happened that would disgrace the House, not necessarily conducting criminal investigations like the FBI does. The FBI investigation is separate from the House one, and it seems to be in reaction to recent developments earlier this year (like the campaign donations earlier this year from Itera).

In short, this is a suspicious situation, and Weldon’s accusation that the FBI is acting as a political tool does not stand up to the facts in this case. I don’t know where this investigation will lead, or what other developments will happen in the near future, or what effect it will have on Weldon’s re-election chances. He’s stuck in a race against former Vice Admiral Joe Sestak, who leads him in the polls.

Filed under: Abramoff Scandal, Z-TDB Blog