US Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Connected to Money Laundering!!!

<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medawar18feb18,0,3663093.story?coll=la-headlines-california>

...Records and interviews show that Rohrabacher was instrumental in helping Medawar promote the show because the Huntington Beach congressman thought it would bring positive attention to the Department of Homeland Security.

At the time of fundraising for the show, Medawar and Heruth had meetings with top GOP officials to discuss the show and touted that access to entice dozens of investors. The meetings included one 2004 gathering in Washington, D.C., with Rohrabacher and at least five other Republican congressmen and staff members from the House Homeland Security Committee.

"As the indictment alleges, Medawar used fraudulently obtained investor funds to buy access to government officials and others in an effort to promote this scheme," Assistant U.S. Atty. David Willingham said after the latest indictment.

On Friday, Rohrabacher said he still thought Medawar's idea for a television series had merit and he reserved judgment on the new charges facing the producer. "He is either a fraud or an incompetent producer, and Hollywood is filled with incompetent producers," Rohrabacher said. The congressman also denied that Medawar gained special access to government personnel by purchasing his 30-year-old script....

<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13901190.htm>

...The new charges include allegations that Medawar's company laundered money he received from investors for the bogus TV show by paying $23,000 to a Southern California congressman for a movie script the lawmaker wrote.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, introduced Medawar to at least five Republican congressmen and staff members at the House Homeland Security Committee in 2004. He told The Associated Press the script deal was approved by a House of Representative's ethics committee and that he believed the proposed show "was a great idea and is still a great idea."

"He convinced myself and a lot of people that he was planning to do this series, and do one ... patriotic movie a year," Rohrabacher said. "My script was going to be the first one."

Rohrabacher declined to comment further until a jury decides Medawar's fate. "If he's found guilty, I'll certainly return the money that was raised fraudulently," he said.

From "The Nation"
article | posted February 2, 2006 (February 20, 2006 issue)
Exile on K Street

Jeremy Scahill

In January the powerful Alexander Strategy Group shut down its public operations faster than merchants peddling pirated DVDs on Canal Street who hear the cops are on the way. The well-connected Republican lobbying firm, founded and run by former senior staffers of embattled ex-House majority leader Tom DeLay, explained that the publicity from the Jack Abramoff mega-scandal had fatally damaged its business. On the surface, it appears to be the fall of a major player in the GOP's K Street Project, which has made lobbying a highly partisan industry. But don't count out ASG: Already, according to the Washington Post, most of its lobbyists are setting up a "successor firm...."

(clip)

...While Abramoff, DeLay and Randy "Duke" Cunningham dominate the headlines in the current "lobbying scandal" media reports, ASG deserves to be heavily scrutinized for its role in each of those scandals and others not yet on the mainstream radar.

Just a few months ago it would have been difficult to predict ASG's downfall. The firm was enjoying a prosperous 2005, ranked as a top 25 lobbyist by National Journal, with revenues on a serious rise--up 34 percent in one year, to $8 million. In addition to powerhouses like PhRMA, Enron, TimeWarner, Microsoft and Eli Lilly, ASG counted among its clients over the years several evangelical Christian causes and organizations--among them, right-wing media operations like Salem Com munications, the National Religious Broadcasters and Grace News. ASG was also a quiet workhorse in procuring lucrative military contracts for some of its clients. Recently, ASG was on the cutting edge of one of the fastest-growing industries within the military world--private security. With the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, mercenaries have found themselves in high demand, scooping up lucrative contracts from the occupation forces, local politicians and foreign corporations. After Blackwater USA had four of its operatives killed in Falluja, in March 2004, it hired ASG to manage its newfound fame. This past September Blackwater forces were among the first to arrive in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, snagging profitable federal security contracts. Blackwater's press contact for its New Orleans operations was none other than Anne Duke, one of ASG's fourteen lobbyists. In other news stories it was Paul Behrends, a partner at ASG and a friend of Blackwater found er Erik Prince. Behrends, as it happens, was a longtime national security adviser to Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who incidentally has emerged as one of Abramoff's biggest defenders. A few months after hiring ASG in 2004, Black water's Prince and the company's president, Gary Jackson, both longtime GOP donors, made their first-ever contributions to DeLay. They also began contributing to several other ASG-favored lawmakers....

(more at link above)

<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/scahill>