Ridge close to lobbying firm's chairman [View All]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the Homeland Security Department was starting up, Secretary Tom Ridge twice stayed overnight at the Arizona home of a wealthy friend who ran a lobbying firm that was aggressively expanding its homeland security business.
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The Blank Rome firm, whose chairman is former Ridge fund-raiser David Girard-diCarlo, hired two of Ridge's aides to lobby the new department, and some of the firm's clients eventually landed lucrative contracts, according to documents and interviews.
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Ridge and Girard-diCarlo worked together in Pennsylvania to raise more than $400,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 1999 and 2000. Before that, Girard-diCarlo helped Ridge raise money as Pennsylvania governor.
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"This relationship does raise questions about the integrity of the government's process for awarding contracts," said Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/12/ridge.lobbyists.ap/index.html