BILL MINOR: Big money rules in the political world

10/6/2005 5:03:55 AM
Daily Journal

<snip> First reported by The New York Times, and substantiated by a report to a special Katrina state legislative committee, was that a Florida-based company with political ties to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had been given a $568 million no-bid contract by FEMA for debris removal.

The company, AshBrit Environmental, as The Times first reported, has been a client of the potent Washington lobbying firm Barbour headed until he ran for Mississippi's governorship in 2003.

AshBrit, according to the Times, paid $40,000 in the first half of 2004 to Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, the Mississippi governor's old lobbying firm, which he had founded after leaving the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. <snip>

Meantime, Gov. Barbour has installed his nephew, Henry Barbour, as executive director for the 40-member Katrina recovery commission he had appointed two weeks ago. <snip>

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=203413&pub=1&div=Opinion