On the front page

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

On the front page of tomorrow’s Washington Post, Jeffrey Smith has a lengthy and detailed article about how Tom Delay’s one-time Chief of Staff and later lobbyist/advisor, Ed Buckham, used the US Family Network as a front group for the purpose of laundering money from Jack Abramoff’s clients into Buckham’s own hands.

The broad outlines of the story aren’t different from what we already knew — largely from Smith’s December 2005 piece on the same subject. But he provides copious new detail about the audacity of Buckham’s own methods of personal enrichment and fairly brazen violation of at least the US tax code.

For my money, the most shocking relevations are still those uncovered in Peter Stone’s recent (print only) piece in National Journal (summarized here by Paul Kiel). Using the US Family Network front, DeLay and Buckham arranged officials favors for shadowy Russia ‘energy and security’ executives in exchange for large cash payments laundered through US Family Network.

One nugget to consider. Like Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY), Buckham siphoned off funds off of political contributions and converted them into personal income by having his wife take ‘commissions’ for a nominal role as fundraiser. Her cut was 10%.

In 1997, for instance, on $524,975 contributed by a handful of Abramoff clients, Wendy Buckham pocketed $43,000 in ‘commissions.’

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: