Scandal Firm Earned Big Till The End

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Tom DeLay’s former aides continued to make millions off their access to the onetime majority leader even after major scandals broke, new filings show.

Alexander Strategy Group may be no more, but they had their biggest year ever in 2005 — before abruptly closing their doors in January of this year due to the Jack Abramoff probe.

The small firm, known for its unrivaled access to Tom DeLay, pulled down $8.13 million in 2005 from big-time clients like Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), UPS, RJ Reynolds, and the U.S. Telecom Association, making 2005 the firm’s biggest year yet, according to lobbying disclosure records filed last week.

$170,000 of that came from Brent Wilkes, one of the defense contractors fingered for bribing Duke Cunningham in the congressman’s guilty plea.

The Cunningham scandal broke in June last year, but that didn’t stop Wilkes from plying his trade through the end of 2005. He paid ASG $80,000 in the second half of last year for lobbying on “defense appropriations” — Wilkes’ livelihood was based on earmarks from members of Congress like Cunningham, whom he rewarded with political contributions (or according to him, he was forced to give contributions in order to win earmarks). In November of 2005, Cunningham pled guilty.

The two lobbyists listed on Wilkes’ account were Tony Rudy and Ed Buckham, both former aides of DeLay who are in legal trouble. Rudy has already pled guilty to accepting bribes and conspiring to bribe Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) and other lawmakers; and Buckham, who founded and ran ASG, has long been rumored to be getting pressure from prosecutors to plea out because of his close ties to Abramoff. And the two have turned on one another — Rudy himself fingered Buckham in his guilty plea.

Virtually all of the firm’s revenue was generated by clients of Jack Abramoff in its first full year, 1998, and Buckham and Abramoff shared clients for a number of years, such as the Northern Mariana Islands.

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