Rick Cohen

Goodbye Bob Ney: You Can’t Hide Behind Charity and Philanthropy

The first Congressional casualty of misuing and abusing charity and philanthropy has been revealed. It's Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney, who we discussed in the DMI Blog on April 4th as unindicted "representative no. 1" in the guilty plea offered by Tom DeLay associate Tony Rudy for his illegal machinations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

After mightily protesting his innocence and ignorance of Abramoff's corrupt plans, unintentionally imitating the Claude Rains scene from "Casablanca" in which Captain Renault expresses his "I'm shocked, shocked to to find that gambling is going in here" line, Ney has finally succumbed and scuttled his reelection campaign.

As the Washington Post correctly noted today, August 8th, Ney's electoral demise doesn't mean the end of the system that he and Abramoff and others picked at like crows dancing around a carcass. But it is the first instance of recent vintage where a good part of the lawmaker's felonious activity under investigation was cloaked behind the good works of charity and philanthropy, in this case, Abramoff's unbelievably corrupt Capital Athletic Foundation, and wearing the toga of charity didn't protect Ney from the conseqences of his actions.

Jack Abramoff went down not because of his philanthropic depredations, and we have criticized the IRS for its laxness in examining what was crystal clear in the scam foundation he ran ostensibly to benefit sports-underprivileged kids. Despite Tom DeLay's dubious charity, the DeLay Foundation for Kids, his retirement from the halls of Congress involved investigations that unfortunately didn't include his philanthropic activities. Others like Rick Santorum's Operation Good Neighbor Foundation and Mike Leavitt's version of a Type III supporting organization, both discussed here in the DMI Blog, haven't triggered investigations or indictments and perhaps, because they danced along the edge of legality, may never do so.

But a good part of the Ney controversy involved his acceptance of a tax exempt golf trip to Scotland where he, Ralph Reed, and GSA felon David Safavian (the federal government's procurement chief) did a lot more than just hit the links. Our initial research into Ney's golf trip revealed Ney's influence over awarding wi-fi contracts for Capitol Hill, Abramoff's lobbying on behalf of an Israeli firm that wanted the wi-fi franchise, the firm's $50,000 "charitable" contribution to Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation, and then the trip to Scotland paid for by the Foundation.

Cloaking himself with the angel wings of charity and philanthropy simply didn't save Bob Ney. His trip, explained to Congress as a speech to the Scottish parliament, a speech that never occurred, couldn't be justified even if you thought of Ney as a sports-underprivileged politician. Ney, Safavian, and Abramoff were playing footsie with political favors and special interests, hiding behind charity and philanthropy to protect them from scrutiny. For Bob Ney, it didn't work. Maybe he'll be the first of several political leaders to bite the dust as a result of their misuse and abuse of charity and philanthropy.

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Posted at 12:06 PM, Aug 08, 2006 in Government Accountability
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