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"Capuano has funds linked to lobbyist; He had vowed to donate it all" by Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | October 25, 2009
US Representative Michael E. Capuano tried to distance himself in March from a potential Capitol Hill scandal, donating to charity $64,500 his campaign committee had collected through a high-powered lobbying firm that is the subject of a federal pay-to-play investigation.
But Capuano has failed to return or give away at least another $47,500 that employees of the firm, PMA Group, and its associates, had given to a separate political action committee that he created in 2005, MASS PAC, according to a Globe analysis.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Capuano the Crook
Defense Lobbyist Had Ear of Congress
Asked about the discrepancy, a spokeswoman for his US Senate campaign, Alison Mills, said the failure to scrub the PAC account was an oversight.
It STILL STINKS!
She said his political staff is now going through records to identify PMA-related contributions to MASS PAC, an entity known as a leadership PAC, which many politicians operate to raise and donate funds to further their political careers and causes they support....
PMA Group, one of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms, disbanded earlier this year after its fund-raising activities came under the scrutiny of federal prosecutors. The firm, which the FBI raided in November, specialized in securing earmark funds for its clients, most of whom are defense contractors.
That is what the FBI SHOULD BE DOING!
The firm in 2006 successfully persuaded lawmakers to earmark $100 million for their clients, according to a study by the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Among lawmakers who had received PMA-related donations, Capuano, by his amount collected, was ranked 10th earlier this year by another nonpartisan group, the Center for Responsive Politics.... By adding the $47,500 Capuano raised for his PAC from those connected with the firm from 2006 to 2008, Capuano would rank fourth out of more than 125 lawmakers listed.
Capuano’s earmarks to the firm’s clients in or near his 8th Congressional District totaled $4.4 million in the past two years. He has defended those funds as “perfectly appropriate,’’ and said the process for awarding them was transparent.
PMA’s employees and its own political action committee have given to several members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, though in smaller amounts. US Senator John F. Kerry got $6,000; the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, $2,500. US Representative Stephen F. Lynch pulled in $19,000, and another member of the House, John F. Tierney, received $2,000.
The New York Times reported earlier this year that PMA is being investigated for allegedly using front donors to give, in excess of campaign contribution limits, on behalf of Paul Magliocchetti, who founded the lobbying firm in 1989 and is a focus of the probe. Magliocchetti has been a close associate of US Representative John P. Murtha, a powerful Pennsylvania Democrat who has also been a target of controversy.
Related: War Looter's Wednesday: The Mirth of Murtha
Amazing how these guys just keep rolling along despite the conflict-of-interest and corruption.
Capuano, since launching his campaign to succeed Kennedy in the Senate, has not shied away from Murtha - a close colleague who chairs a powerful defense appropriation subcommittee - even as the controversy swirls in Washington. Capuano attended a Murtha fund-raiser in Boston in September, though other members of the Massachusetts delegation stayed away.
