Roll Call: Black Caucus’ Institute attempts better ethics in Tunica this year

As we have blogged previously, The New York Times reported on the Congressional Black Caucus 2008 event in Tunica:

House rules, which prohibit lawmakers from taking multiday trips “planned, organized, requested or arranged by a lobbyist.”

It takes a little digging to find the role big companies with lobbyists played in sponsoring the Congressional Black Caucus’s four-day 2008 conference at a casino resort in Tunica, Miss.

Each of the 14 House members submitted a detailed agenda for approval to the ethics committee. It listed social events like a golf outing, but it also included serious topics like health care and global warming.

But there is something missing from the agenda sent to the ethics committee.

A different copy handed out to the caucus members is much the same — except for the line under each event that names a corporate sponsor. A workshop focused on health care included the words “Sponsored by Eli Lily,” the big drug company with a huge stake in health care legislation. Edison Electric Institute, an association of power plant owners, hosted the global warming seminar. Wal-Mart sponsored a clinic to teach lawmakers and other attendees how to skeet shoot; after the lessons came a competition sponsored by the International Longshoremen’s Association.

The NYT then said in an editorial:

Representative Zoe Lofgren, who leads the ethics panel, said that if nonprofit groups are being used “as a pass through” for corporate players, then “that is a fraud.” It looks that way to us.

Without admitting it did wrong, the Congressional Black Caucus and members of Congress were more careful this month in Tunica. Roll Call reports:

The Congressional Black Caucus Political Education & Leadership Institute took extra steps to ensure its annual policy conference in Mississippi last week complied with House ethics rules, according to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and an institute board member.

The effort comes a year after the nonprofit ran into criticism over corporate sponsorships listed on its itinerary and for giving free space to the American Gaming Association to host an industry forum.

Thompson, chairman of the CBC Institute board, received approval from the ethics committee for the event Aug. 9, two days before the conference started and nearly a month after he submitted forms seeking approval.

Thompson said the ethics approval process has become so arduous it requires Members to seek legal counsel to ensure compliance. And more lawmakers are picking up the tab for their own travel rather than having to interact with the ethics committee. Thompson estimated that about half of the Members who attended the policy conference opted to pay for their own travel.

“More and more Members will say, ‘I’m coming, but I’ll pick up my own expenses. I won’t go through this constant badgering by ethics,’” Thompson said.

Thompson was one of six CBC members who had to reimburse the government for the costs of two trips to the Caribbean. After an investigation, the committee found that the trips were largely paid for by for-profit corporations.

“There’s a reluctance to rely on ethics for advice anymore, and when Members of Congress have reluctance to rely on Congress for advice, that undermines the whole process,” Thompson said.

In order to get the ethics committee’s approval this year, the institute made sure to demonstrate that corporations and trade associations that contributed to the group did not control the agenda of the three-day event.

Roll Call reported in October 2009 on the forms a dozen CBC members filed with the House ethics committee in 2008 and 2009 seeking approval of their travel to the annual conference. The copy of the 2008 itinerary listed corporate sponsors for every aspect of the conference.

Bennie Thompson would hide ethics complaints from public

The Ethics Committee ordered Bennie Thompson to repay the cost of his Caribbean trips that were found to violate House Ethics Rules, but said they could not prove he knew corporate funding was behind it so they didn't punish him otherwise.

But we still don't know if there will be any decision on the other items pending against Thompson.

1) Allegation he used a House Homeland Security Committee hearing to shake down lobbyists for campaign contributions
2) Whether as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, Thompson used the organization as a pass through to hide corporate sponsorships of congressional junket in Tunica
3) Is there anything wrong with corporate lobbyists paying a member of Thompson's staff money to throw a party that honors Thompson at which the lobbyist/sponsors will attend and get access to Thompson?

And if Bennie Thompson had his way, we might never know. Last week Peter Flaherty from the National Legal and Policy Center spoke on "On Deadline with Sid Salter" about the efforts of several accused or investigated congressmen to shut down some of the new ethics procedures to keep allegations and investigations from the public arena. Brian Perry wrote in the Madison County Journal that one of these congressmen was actually goodtime Bennie Thompson.

The national press is talking about this story as well, including the Washington Post.

The newly created Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog set up to review and, if warranted, forward ethics complaints to the official House ethics committee for further action, has taken its mission seriously. Too seriously, it seems, for the comfort of some lawmakers. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), joined by 19 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, last week introduced a resolution that would essentially neuter the ethics board, making it more difficult for OCE to launch investigations and inform the public of its findings.

Ms. Fudge said in a statement that she acted to make the process fairer; OCE, she said, "is currently the accuser, judge and jury." It's not too hard to imagine other motivations for Ms. Fudge's concerns. Her chief of staff, Dawn Kelly Mobley, was admonished by the ethics committee for her role in helping a group of Black Caucus members improperly obtain an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean -- this when Ms. Mobley was the ethics lawyer for Ms. Fudge's predecessor, the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and Ms. Tubbs Jones was chairing the ethics committee. Four of the lawmakers who went on the Caribbean trip signed on to Ms. Fudge's resolution: Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.) and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.).

Undercutting OCE's authority would be backsliding. This change would have prevented release of OCE's findings in the Caribbean trip. That Ms. Fudge and friends fear their power to launch an investigation says less about the new ethics office than it does about the sponsors of this misguided resolution.

Salter, Perry, VP on Thompson Ethics

Sid Salter, Brian Perry, and the Vicksburg Post all wrote about the ethics investigations surrounding Congressman Bennie Thompson last week.

Salter interviewed Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center who said

it would "have been impossible" for congressmen attending the conference not to know about its corporate sponsors. Flaherty documented signage, posters, banners and other promotional materials visible inside the meeting rooms at the event. He submitted 18 photographs and other documentation to the House Ethics Committee documenting that Citigroup, Pfizer, American Airlines, AT&T, Verizon, Macy's, and IBM were corporate sponsors promoting their businesses at the event. And while Flaherty scoffed at the claims of congressmen who said they were unaware of the corporate sponsorship of the Caribbean junket, he was quick to point out that Democrats don't have the market cornered on such behavior.

Perry noted that there are additional allegations pending against Thompson including the credit card hearing, the Tunica junket, and his staffer's lobbyist/fundraising connections. Perry asked

Are these investigations into Thompson's alleged activities just political attacks? Some in Washington point fingers not at Republicans, but at allies of the Obama White House. Thompson led the investigation into the gate crashing event at the White House in November of last year, with his committee threatening to subpoena White House social secretary Desiree Rogers in opposition to the wishes of the Obama Administration. Shortly afterward, these allegations in the Post and the Times began to leak out. Was it a shot across the bow of Congressman Thompson? Could the bare knuckle Chicago style politics of the Obama Administration be the source of the Thompson accusations? The motive is irrelevant, and the Ethics Committee should investigate and report the results to once again clear Thompson, or admonish any wrongdoing.

The Vicksburg Post editorializes

Mississippi Democrats did not offer an alternative candidate for this fall’s election in the 2nd Congressional District. Thompson advances to the November ballot to face one of three Republicans and a smattering of independents. Most see him as a shoo-in once again.

So the biggest career threat he faces could be from his fellow House Democrats. If he becomes more of a liability than an asset, they’ll toss him overboard. If he doesn’t believe it, he can ask Charlie Rangel.

NYT - Thompson ordered by Ethics to repay costs of Caribbean trip

The New York Times reports that the U.S. House Ethics Committee has ordered Representative Bennie Thompson and others to repay the costs of two trips to the Caribbean sponsored by corporate interests.

None of the other members of Congress on the trips were admonished because they did not know of the sponsorships, the committee said. But all were ordered to repay the cost of the trips, about $11,800 in total.

The others were Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee; Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan; Donald M. Payne of New Jersey; and Delegate Donna Christensen of the Virgin Islands. All five are Democrats.

Peter Flaherty from the National Legal and Policy Center exposed this trip as a corporately paid event and here is his take on the matter.

TPM reports the Ethics Committee

is referring to the Justice Department the matter of three employees of Carib News -- which sponsored the trips -- who allegedly submitted false information to the committee during pre-travel review for the trips in question. The panel also admonished its own former counsel, Dawn Kelly Mobley, for "improperly" communicating confidential information to two of the Carib News officials during the investigation.

Stay tuned.

Ethics Committee - Thompson Not Guilty Due to Ignorance

The U.S. House Ethics Committee has admonished Representative Charlie Rangel for taking a trip to the Caribbean paid for by corporate interests in violation of House Ethics rules. The Committee said that Rangel's staff knew corporate funds were involved, so he gets a slap on the wrist. But,

The report cleared five others saying that they "properly relied on the information provided to them by the officers and employees of Carib News and the Carib News Foundation in seeking and receiving pre-trip approval from the committee to accept these trips." They are Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.; Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y.; Donald Payne, D-N.J., Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.; and Delegate Donna Christensen, D-V.I.

It seems ignorance saved Thompson from also having the Ethics Committee shake its finger at him. While he did go on trips that violated the rules, they couldn't prove he knew it, and they couldn't prove his staff knew it, so, no problem. How is that for confidence in the Homeland Security Chairman?

I mean, lets be fair. What about this poster would ever lead you to think it was sponsored by corporate interests?Now, what about the corporate funds going to Thompson's Tunica event organized by his own staffer?

Big Money for Congressional Black Caucus

The New York Times continues a critical examination of the Congressional Black Caucus and related organizations. As we have mentioned, Mississippi's own Bennie Thompson is involved in multiple ethics investigations related to his actions connected to these groups. Thompson serves as Chairman of the Board of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.

When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.

Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.

Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town.

It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.

From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The caucus says its nonprofit groups are intended to help disadvantaged African-Americans by providing scholarships and internships to students, researching policy and holding seminars on topics like healthy living.

But the bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.

In 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation spent more on the caterer for its signature legislative dinner and conference — nearly $700,000 for an event one organizer called “Hollywood on the Potomac” — than it gave out in scholarships.

At the galas, lobbyists and executives who give to caucus charities get to mingle with lawmakers. They also get seats on committees the caucus has set up to help members of Congress decide what positions to take on the issues of the day. Indeed, the nonprofit groups and the political wing are so deeply connected it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

“The claim that this is a truly philanthropic motive is bogus — it’s beyond credulity,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, a nonpartisan group that monitors campaign finance and ethics issues. “Members of Congress should not be allowed to have these links. They provide another pocket, and a very deep pocket, for special-interest money that is intended to benefit and influence officeholders.”

But caucus members have attracted increasing scrutiny from ethics investigators.

All eight open House investigations involve caucus members, and most center on accusations of improper ties to private businesses.

Elsie L. Scott, chief executive of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, acknowledged that the companies want to influence members. In fact, the fund-raising brochures make clear that the bigger the donation, the greater the access, like a private reception that includes members of Congress for those who give more than $100,000.

“They are trying to get the attention of the C.B.C. members,” Ms. Scott said. “And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. They’re in business, and they want to deal with people who have influence and power.”

In 2007, it retained Zahra Buck, a former aide [salary here] to Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and a caucus member, to help expand a lobbying campaign.

Remember that this is not the first Thompson aide to benefit from this big money. The website TPMMUckraker reported in December that another Thompson staffer had been paid by lobbyists to conduct events honoring Thompson, while still a federal employee being paid by taxpayer dollars to work for Thompson.

Everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, use big money to advance their agendas. But not everyone represents a district so poor as Thompson does, or pretends to humbly stand up for the poor against corporate interests like Thompson does, and then milks the corporate interests like Thompson seems to be doing.

More Problems for Bennie Thompson: Report that lobbyists paid Thompson staffer to do fundraisers for Thompson

Y'all Politics dug up another item breaking this week about Bennie Thompson. The website TPMMUckraker reports a Thompson staffer has been paid by lobbyists to conduct events honoring Thompson. The plots thicken...

A party planning side business run by three current and former congressional staffers raked in over $20,000 last year from lobbyists holding events to honor Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) -- whose own communications director is co-founder of the firm.

The apparent arrangement between Thompson and the business, Chic Productions, at once allows private interests to get closer to the congressman's office and gives the staffers a way to dip a straw into the river of outside money flowing through Capitol Hill.

The three women who run Chic are: Dena Graziano, Thompson's communications director since 2006; Michone Johnson, chief counsel for the House Judiciary Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee; and Michelle Persaud, formerly of the House Judiciary Committee, now corporate counsel at T-Mobile.

Graziano's bio on Chic's Web site says she has "straddled the fine line between politics and entertainment as an event and communications strategist to some of the nation's most well known personalities."

A Chic floral display with the congressional seal at '07 Thompson eventThe extent of the business Chic has done for Thompson remains unclear because lobbyist disclosure statements that reveal the arrangement have only recently been required, and comprehensive data is available only for 2008. But besides the lobbyist receptions, Chic has put on at least six other Thompson-linked events.

Thompson at Chic "Chairman Reception" in 2007

In a six-week period in late 2008, four companies paid Chic $22,500 to plan events to honor Thompson, according to lobbying disclosures reviewed by TPMmuckraker. The companies were private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America ($10,000), lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs ($5,000), Pepsico ($5,000), and software giant Oracle ($2,500).

Chic's links with Thompson are not limited to the 2008 lobbyist receptions.

The congressman's campaign committee paid the firm $5,000 in December 2007 for a fundraising event, and Chic's Web site shows Thompson giving a toast at a "Chairman's Reception" that year. Chic also planned the Congressional Black Caucus Back to Blues event in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. The invitation for the '06 party -- held at the landmark 101 Constitution Ave. -- identifies the host of the "celebration of Blues" as Thompson.

The spread at the 2007 "Back to Blues" party

And finally, Chic's Web site says the firm organized a 2008 CBC "policy conference" in Tunica, Mississippi -- Thompson's home state. The four-day conference featured a target shooting event, the Bennie G. Thompson Sporting Clays Challenge.

According to financial disclosure statements, Graziano, the Thompson staffer, claimed $12,000 income from Chic for 2006-2008. Johnson, of the Judiciary Committee, claimed $4,000 in 2008 and some amount over $5,000 in 2007.

Now an investigation into Bennie Thompson's Tunica event

Brian Perry at the Madison County Journal covers the investigation of Bennie Thompson broken by the Washington Post that we discussed here and here. Perry and the DDT appear to be the only print media in Mississippi covering this story. But we did hear Sid Salter talking about it on his radio program yesterday and again today.

But Perry's column also brings up another investigation, this one broken earlier this week by the New York Times into a Congressional Black Caucus event hosted in Tunica and apparently funded through corporate sponsors through the Congressional Black Caucus Institute of which Bennie Thompson is the Chairman of the Board. Perry mentions in his blog that the New York Times also editorialized on the investigation yesterday quoting the Ethics Committee Chairman as saying that if nonprofits like the Congressional Black Caucus Institute

are being used “as a pass through” for corporate players, then “that is a fraud.” It looks that way to us. So who will fix it?

If your answer is the House Ethics Committee, don't hold your breath.

Another investigation on Bennie Thompson

Y'all Politics picked up this item from the Washington Post that reports Bennie Thompson is under scrutiny for credit card related hearings: Homeland Security panel faces ethics scrutiny after credit card hearing

At a hearing in late March, the nation's credit card companies faced the threat of expensive new rules from an unlikely regulator: the House Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

The committee had never before dealt with credit card issues, but Thompson warned Visa, MasterCard and others that Congress might need to impose tighter security standards costing millions of dollars to protect customers from identity theft.

Behind the scenes, some of Thompson's staffers sensed a different motive -- an attempt to pressure the companies into making political donations to the chairman, according to several former committee staffers.

Now the House ethics committee is investigating the propriety of the committee's operations, and whether its members' interactions with companies compromised its work. Within a few weeks of the hearing, Thompson collected $15,000 in donations from the credit card industry and its Washington-based lobbyists, a Washington Post analysis shows. No legislation on card security has been introduced.

Several former committee staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have told The Post that the credit card hearing was one of several committee actions that caused staff concerns because of their consideration of potential donors and contractors friendly to Thompson. The current ethics inquiry was prompted this summer, according to an ethics document obtained by The Post, when a former committee aide alleged she was fired after complaining to her bosses that a lobbyist made improper requests of staff members.

"That's incorrect," [Thompson] said of the suspicion. "We do hearings all the time -- sometimes we are able to generate legislation earlier, and sometimes we have to [build] a public record."

He added that he has never been told of staff complaints about his hearings and was not aware that a committee staffer said she was fired for raising objections about inappropriate lobbyist requests.

"I would assume if discomfort was there with the staff they would have shared it, " he said. "I have not heard this."

Committee staff director Lanier Avant, who also serves as the congressman's chief of staff, said the credit card hearing was prompted by a data breach at a payment company, Heartland Payment Systems, that compromised the credit information of millions of customers.

Sarah Dufendach, a vice president at Common Cause, said the House ethics committee should take the staffer's allegation against her former boss seriously, especially because Thompson's office has had a number of staff departures. She questioned whether credit card security was a top committee priority, given terrorism threats and the need to plan for pandemic flu.

"You have to wonder: Did this take precedence over everything else that was on your committee's plate?" she said. "Homeland Security is not a committee that should be wanting for things to have hearings on."

Joshua Levy, an attorney for the fired staffer, Veronique Pluviose-Fenton, declined to comment.

At this point, let us insert these observations from the Hot Air Blog:

No one doubts that identity theft is a major issue, but jurisdiction for that would be with the Judiciary and Finance committees. Homeland Security’s jurisdiction includes national security, immigration, and emergency response, not normal legal matters. Even the corollary between identity fraud and immigration fraud would have more to do with Judiciary, and certainly that issue’s impact on credit-card regulation would be the purview of Finance.

Small wonder Thompson’s staffers wondered what Thompson wanted with this issue. It smells like a shakedown attempt. Thompson had no business threatening to impose credit-card regulations in the name of national security. One also has to wonder how much free time the HSC has under Thompson’s leadership. Have they completed visa reform before starting on Visa-card reform? Has Thompson done anything to focus on American border control before trying to control American Express?

Now, back to a few more items of interest from the Washington Post story, which really should be read in full.

Thompson's committee has been roiled by turnover this year, with at least 10 staff members resigning or being fired, according to congressional payroll records. Former and current staffers said many departures came after employees objected to committee operations. Many blame the staff turmoil on Avant, a 30-year-old Thompson confidant. Avant played a role in planning the March 31 credit card hearing, hosted by the subcommittee on cyber-threats.

Avant said politics have not guided his committee decisions. "I've never asked anything that they would be uncomfortable with," he said. "I ask people to come to work and work hard, to help our members do the best they can to oversee the department."

Legislation never surfaced. Avant said that the hearing helped inform lawmakers and the public about the issue, and that the committee might consider legislation at a later date.

In April and May, donations of $250 to $1,500 came in from lobbyists registered to represent Visa, American Express, MasterCard, Heartland and the National Installment Lenders, among others, as well as from the American Bankers Association political action committee.

Much more in the Post piece than we should quote here, be sure to read it. Also, as readers here know, the House Ethics Committee is also reviewing Bennie Thompson's behavior on another item.

Despite pictures and audio clips of corporate sponsorship, House Dems may exonerate Bennie Thompson's travel

The National Legal and Policy Center comments on a Roll Call report that the House Ethics Committee may clear Bennie Thompson and others who attended a carribean junket with corporate sponsors in violation of House Ethics rules.

If this is true, we are not surprised. When we provided photographs and audio recordings from the trip at the request of the Committee in May, we made clear that our willingness to do so was not an endorsement of the Ethics Committee process, which has again proven to be a joke.

Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC), a member of the CBC, who was appointed just days after the CBC publicly objected to the probe, heads the investigation of the trip. He went on the same trip in a previous year.

Because the violations of House Rules by Rangel and Co. were so clear-cut, the Committee maintains its reputation for ineffectiveness. The Rules against corporate sponsorship of multi-day Congressional travel and hospitality were tightened at the behest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself in the wake of the Jack Abramoff golf trip to Scotland. The new Rules apparently do not trump partisan and racial double standards.

If it will not do anything about five members of Congress taking a junket to sunny St. Maarten, courtesy of Citigroup and other corporations, how is it ever going to deal the complicated cases of John Murtha’s “pay to play” empire and Charles Rangel’s tax evasion and hiding of assets?

The answer is that it can’t and probably will not.

Ethics scrutiny into Bennie Thompson's travel continues

The Washington Post reported that a leaked report on ethics investigations in the U.S. House of Representatives indicates the probe into the travel of Reps. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (Mich.), Donald M. Payne (N.J.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.), and Del. Donna M. Christian-Christensen (U.S. Virgin Islands) "appears to be ongoing, and the committee document gives no details about how far the investigation has progressed."

The members' official disclosure forms listed the New York Carib Foundation or Carib News Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with a New York-based newspaper, as the sponsor of the event. Because of that information, the ethics committee approved the trip before it occurred.

But an official with the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, attended the 2008 event and came back with photos and other evidence suggesting that AT&T, Citigroup, IBM, Pfizer and Verizon may have played a role in sponsoring the conference.

The ethics panel also reportedly is scrutinizing a 2007 trip to Antigua and Barbuda that some of the same members took.

Under more stringent rules imposed in 2006, House members are not allowed to accept travel paid for by corporations, but they can take trips sponsored by nonprofit groups.

Rangel, who also is under investigation on several unrelated fronts, said this week that he has discussed the Caribbean trip inquiry with the ethics panel.

Taxpayers Pay for Bennie Thompson's Trips to Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Panama

The Wall Street Journal responds with an investigation showing that Bennie Thompson and collegues traveled on the taxpayer dime to Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Panama. Thompson claims they were studying Homeland Security.

Good Job WLBT

WLBT reports on the ethics investigation of Congressman Bennie Thompson, the first original report we've seen in Mississippi.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) and four other Democratic lawmakers are under investigation for possibly receiving improper gifts.

Thompson was in Jackson Monday speaking before the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership.

The Committee on Standards of Conduct is looking into whether Thompson's trip to a business conference in the Caribbean last November was paid for by lobbyists.

Thompson says the committee approved the trip before he left, but they received a complaint after he returned home.

"The law requires me to say if I'm invited, to submit the info, and whether or not the trip was approved is subject to the ethics committee," Thompson told WLBT. "I did it, they sent me a letter back in writing saying it's fine. I followed the law absolutely."

His pleas of ignorance are not congruent with the papers he filed and signed showing corporate sponsors of the sessions he spoke at.

Good Job CL

The Clarion Ledger ran the AP story about Bennie Thompson, Chairman of Vacation Security.

Will Mississippi press report on Ethics investigation into Bennie Thompson's travel?

Will Mississippi press report on Ethics investigation into Bennie Thompson's travel? Find out tomorrow. But for today, here is some national press on it.

The Associated Press: Ethics committee investigating lawmakers' travel

The House ethics committee is investigating whether five Democratic lawmakers, including two committee chairmen, received improper gifts in travel to Caribbean conferences 2007 and 2008.

The committee said it was investigating: Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; Carolyn Kilpatrick of Michigan; Donald Payne of New Jersey; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and Donna Christensen, the delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Avant, Thompson's top aide, said "Neither chairman Thompson nor I have any knowledge of any corporation or private entity that funds the Caribbean News Foundation. "The only sponsor, the sole sponsor of the trip Chairman Thompson took was the Caribbean News Foundation, to his knowledge."

Really? Then how do you explain the original trip forms signed and filed by Bennie Thompson (link to the PDF provided on this page)? The ones that list corporate sponsors of Thompson's appearances? One sponsored by HSBC and one sponsored by Macy's. Other corporate contributors included AT&T, Verizon, Pfizer, and American Airlines. We posted those documents at this post.

More journalists reporting on this:

The Hill - Ethics launches probe of CBC Caribbean trip

Politico - Caribbean trips under investigation

CQ Politics - House Ethics Panel Opens Probe of Lawmakers’ Caribbean Trips

Ethics Committee Asks Bennie Thompson about Carribean Trip

Y'all Politics posts a story from Roll Call confirming the Office of Congressional Ethics contacted Congressman Bennie Thompson regarding his Carribean Trip. Long time readers know we've been watching that story.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the OCE [Office of Congressional Ethics]contacted him regarding the trip.

Childers Demands Stanford Answers...in Harshly Worded Group Letter

Travis Childers is "demanding answers from the Securities and Exchange Commission about its handling of the alleged Ponzi scheme at Stanford Financial." (He should ask Bennie Thompson about Allen Stanford.)

But seriously, one of Stanford Financial's primary locations is in Childers' district. And Childers serves on the Financial Services Committee. Shouldn't he just be a little more involved than signing on to a mass letter? I mean, in this economy, an epicenter of a billion dollar ponzi scheme is the home district of a congressman whose committee oversees this kind of thing, and all he does is sign on to a letter? Really?

Travis says on his web site about the Financial Services Committee:

The committee has primary jurisdiction over the nation's financial sectors that
include banking, insurance, real estate, public-housing, and securities.
On a routine basis, the committee hears testimony from various international
finance experts that include the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the
Secretary of the Treasury. With the increasing strains on the American
economy, I certainly look forward to offering my experiences as a small business
man in order to find effective solutions to the financial obstacles every day
American's face on a daily basis.

Uh yeah. You signed a letter. Good job with the economy and all that, Travis.

(And it is "Americans" not "American's" - I'm sure his office will correct after this post.)

House Ethics Committee Investigates Bennie Thompson Caribbean Trip

The Hill reports the House Ethics Committee is investigating a Caribbean Trip made by several Congressmen including Bennie Thompson that may have violated House Ethics Rules against corporate sponsorship.

The House ethics committee is reviewing a trip Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and several other members took to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten last year.

Ethics committee Staff Director Blake Chisam and Todd Ungerecht, counsel to the panel’s ranking member, have asked for information from a conservative group that has raised questions about a November 2008 conference at the St. Maarten Sonesta Maho Bay Resort & Casino.

Earlier, the new Office of Congressional Ethics interviewed staff members to some lawmakers who attended an event at the sun-swept resort billed as the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference.

Besides Rangel, Democratic Reps. Carolyn Kilpatrick (Mich.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Donald Payne (N.J.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and Virgin Islands Del. Donna Christensen attended the event.

The conservative National Legal and Policy Center’s president, Peter Flaherty, traveled to St. Maarten and found evidence that corporate sponsors paid for the conference.

House rules imposed by Democrats after they took back the House in 2006 bar lawmakers from accepting travel lasting more than two days if corporations that “employ or retain a registered lobbyist” are underwriting or organizing any part of them.

Lawmakers who attended listed the New York Carib Foundation, a non-profit group affiliated with a newspaper aimed at New York City’s U.S. Caribbean immigrant community, as the sponsor.

But photos and transcripts taken by Flaherty show evidence of corporate involvement. Several banners above and below the main podium included corporate logos of Pfizer, Citigroup, IBM, Verizon, AT&T, Macy’s and American Airlines. Flaherty also heard Kilpatrick and Payne thank business “sponsors.”

Chisam and Ungerecht contacted the conservative watchdog group on May 22 to request information on the conference. Flaherty replied with a letter to the ethics committee on Friday, along with 18 photos, a transcript of the morning conference sessions, including Kilpatrick’s remarks, notes of Payne’s remarks, and a copy of the conference program.

Flaherty also filed a formal ethics complaint calling for full-fledged investigation into the trip.

“My characterization of the trip as a ‘junket’ is based on my observation that the sessions were lightly attended,” Flaherty wrote in the complaint. “Most attendees spent significant time at the beach or the pool. Members of Congress attended the sessions when they had a speaking role.”

Democrats imposed stricter limits on corporate-sponsored travel to prevent the type of abuse unearthed during the Jack Abramoff scandal. Lawmakers who attended Abramoff-organized golf junkets to London and Scotland, as well as other luxurious locales, listed several nonprofits as having paid for the travel even though corporations footed the bill.

We've been talking about this for a while here, starting with a report from Kingfish, then this story about how the a complaint had been filed with the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for a formal review of the sponsorship by Citigroup of the Caribbean junket, and then a piece from - believe it or not - the Clarion Ledger. A New York paper described the trip as "shameful" and the Madison County Journal made connections between Bennie Thompson's Caribbean trips and Allen Stanford. Still, the story has yet to get much attention in Mississippi.

Thompson Spends Contributions in Las Vegas, Miami

In regards to our post from yesterday, if the Clarion Ledger or others in the Mississippi media reviewed Bennie Thompson's quarterly filing to look at his campaign travel expenses, they would see that the man who represents a district with one of the highest poverty rates in the country spent thousands of dollars in campaign contribution dollars on travel to locations like the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada; the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia; the Myrtle Beach Marriott in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami, Florida. That is just in the first four months of this year alone.

Thompson #2 Traveler

According to a Detroit newspaper, U.S. Rep. John Conyers' campaign committee spent the most on travel and transportation in the first three months of 2009. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Chairman of Vacation Security, came in second.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers' campaign committee spent more on travel and transportation in the first three months of 2009 than other senior members of Congress, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Detroit News said the Detroit Democrat's campaign spent nearly $46,000 on travel, transportation and lodging. That's nearly double the amount spent by any of the other 60-plus members of Congress reviewed by the newspaper including House leadership, committee chairs, ranking Republicans and members of Michigan's delegation.

The Conyers committee also bought $14,000 worth of tickets for this year's Super Bowl held in Tampa, Fla.

Conyers is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. His campaign said every item was a legitimate campaign expense.

Federal Election Commission rules give wide latitude on how candidates' campaigns can spend money donated by political contributors, and the newspaper said there is no proof of wrongdoing in Conyers' financial report.

Campaigns can pay for campaign-related trips by the candidate, staff, spouses and dependent children. Campaign money also can pay for travel related to a candidate's role as a federal officeholder.

The rules bar spending on personal travel such as vacations or for expenses that a candidate would incur even if not an officeholder.

But the newspaper said the spending raises questions about whether the Conyers' campaign is mixing campaign and personal affairs, particularly with the Super Bowl trip.

"That's something people might be inclined to see as personal use in the guise of official duties," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money and influence in government.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and the House Homeland Security Committee chairman, spent about $23,000 on travel and transportation during the first three months of 2009 to finish second on the list of those surveyed.

The newspaper analyzed Federal Election Commission data to come up with the list.

Will the Clarion Ledger do a similar analysis?