Wreckage On The Hill The Body Count Begins

Damage-control teams could barely keep up with the wreckage. As the House prepared to release the names of the 24 top cheek bouncers this week (and the remaining 331 overdrafters next week), the scandal metastasized dangerously. Three cabinet members including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney admitted they had written bad checks while in the House. Texas Democratic Rep. Charles Wilson said he wrote a $10,000 overdraft to his 1990 re-election campaign-a loan that possibly violated federal election laws. The muck slopped over onto the House post office, the scene of embezzling and alleged cocaine dealing by employees. With Minority Leader Robert Michel saying there was evidence of “money laundering” at the facility, postmaster Robert Rota resigned-the second House officer in a week to do so under a cloud.

The House leadership did its best to play down talk about criminal wrongdoing, but there was one nasty little word in the air: indictment. At the weekend, Attorney General William Barr named a former federal judge, Malcolm R. Wilkey, as a “special counsel” in charge of investigating the House bank. (He couldn’t name a “special prosecutor,” the usual procedure in similar cases, because Congress exempted itself from such probes.) What will Wilkey uncover? Speculation has included, among other things, tax avoidance, wire fraud and illegal campaign contributions. In past investigations involving administration officials, special prosecutors have made broad use of a statute outlawing a “conspiracy to defraud the United States government”-leaving open the option of accusing check bouncers of a conspiracy to defraud taxpayers. “Look,” said former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, “when you see wild and woolly banking like the abusers were engaged in here, you’re likely to find anything.”

The lawmakers’ problems were compounding daily. Federal investigators are trying to discover whether the House post office was a money laundry for legislators. According to one theory, some members paid for large numbers of stamps out of their House office operating accounts and then used the stamps for political mailings-an illegal conversion of public funds. Alternatively, the post office might have redeemed stamps for cash, in effect allowing legislators or their staffs to steal public money. With the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., on the case, Speaker Thomas S. Foley could well declare that “the era of patronage is over.” Promising to put a professional financial officer in charge of House transactions, Foley said he would eliminate some perks and impose real-world fees on others, like the free pharmacy and the nearly gratis gym.

As panic swept the Hill, Republicans and Democrats dropped all pretense at collegiality, and even intraparty bickering was rife. Democratic Rep. Vic Fazio accused Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, who had compared his stand against the Dems with Lech Walesa’s defiance of the Communists, of “reckless behavior…fits of rage and paranoia, delusions of grandeur.” A House committee said it would question Foley’s wife, Heather, an unpaid aide, about rumors she had tried to hush up problems at the post office-a charge the Democrats dismissed as “Newt’s spin.”

Mostly, though, the politicians were trying to save their seats. A look at some stratagems for surviving the scandal:

After Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer hastily admitted to four overdrafts, he drew the spotlight to himself, he’s now considered vulnerable in the fall. “Don’t get out early,” says Democratic consultant Mark Mellman. “If yours is the only blood in the water, all the sharks will be there. If there’s a lot of blood, at least the sharks will be confused.”

Ex-Ohio Rep. Michael DeWine a challenger to Sen. John Glenn, helpfully released a blizzard of paper, including all 3,500 cheeks he wrote as a congressman and his high-grades (including a D in golf). DeWine hopes his bounced checks will get buried.

Republicans can hope to ride the House bank to victory in the fall, even if it means throwing a few of their own on the funeral pyre. The Democrats, says GOP consultant Eddie Mahe, have “a hundred more bodies out there that will feel the pain.”

The Dems rushed through a middle-class tax cut last Friday in an attempt to beat Bush’s deadline for an economic-recovery plan; the president promptly vetoed the cut.

The checking scandal dealt Charles Hayes the final blow, but it didn’t kill his career all by itself Considered an ineffectual legislator, he repeatedly failed to bring home the pork. Political analysts believe that the least vulnerable incumbents are those who have served their constituents well. Forget about them, and there’s a good chance they’ll forget about you.

title: “Wreckage On The Hill The Body Count Begins” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-08” author: “Elizabeth Guerrero”

Damage-control teams could barely keep up with the wreckage. As the House prepared to release the names of the 24 top cheek bouncers this week (and the remaining 331 overdrafters next week), the scandal metastasized dangerously. Three cabinet members including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney admitted they had written bad checks while in the House. Texas Democratic Rep. Charles Wilson said he wrote a $10,000 overdraft to his 1990 re-election campaign-a loan that possibly violated federal election laws. The muck slopped over onto the House post office, the scene of embezzling and alleged cocaine dealing by employees. With Minority Leader Robert Michel saying there was evidence of “money laundering” at the facility, postmaster Robert Rota resigned-the second House officer in a week to do so under a cloud.

The House leadership did its best to play down talk about criminal wrongdoing, but there was one nasty little word in the air: indictment. At the weekend, Attorney General William Barr named a former federal judge, Malcolm R. Wilkey, as a “special counsel” in charge of investigating the House bank. (He couldn’t name a “special prosecutor,” the usual procedure in similar cases, because Congress exempted itself from such probes.) What will Wilkey uncover? Speculation has included, among other things, tax avoidance, wire fraud and illegal campaign contributions. In past investigations involving administration officials, special prosecutors have made broad use of a statute outlawing a “conspiracy to defraud the United States government”-leaving open the option of accusing check bouncers of a conspiracy to defraud taxpayers. “Look,” said former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, “when you see wild and woolly banking like the abusers were engaged in here, you’re likely to find anything.”

The lawmakers’ problems were compounding daily. Federal investigators are trying to discover whether the House post office was a money laundry for legislators. According to one theory, some members paid for large numbers of stamps out of their House office operating accounts and then used the stamps for political mailings-an illegal conversion of public funds. Alternatively, the post office might have redeemed stamps for cash, in effect allowing legislators or their staffs to steal public money. With the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., on the case, Speaker Thomas S. Foley could well declare that “the era of patronage is over.” Promising to put a professional financial officer in charge of House transactions, Foley said he would eliminate some perks and impose real-world fees on others, like the free pharmacy and the nearly gratis gym.

As panic swept the Hill, Republicans and Democrats dropped all pretense at collegiality, and even intraparty bickering was rife. Democratic Rep. Vic Fazio accused Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, who had compared his stand against the Dems with Lech Walesa’s defiance of the Communists, of “reckless behavior…fits of rage and paranoia, delusions of grandeur.” A House committee said it would question Foley’s wife, Heather, an unpaid aide, about rumors she had tried to hush up problems at the post office-a charge the Democrats dismissed as “Newt’s spin.”

Mostly, though, the politicians were trying to save their seats. A look at some stratagems for surviving the scandal:

After Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer hastily admitted to four overdrafts, he drew the spotlight to himself, he’s now considered vulnerable in the fall. “Don’t get out early,” says Democratic consultant Mark Mellman. “If yours is the only blood in the water, all the sharks will be there. If there’s a lot of blood, at least the sharks will be confused.”

Ex-Ohio Rep. Michael DeWine a challenger to Sen. John Glenn, helpfully released a blizzard of paper, including all 3,500 cheeks he wrote as a congressman and his high-grades (including a D in golf). DeWine hopes his bounced checks will get buried.

Republicans can hope to ride the House bank to victory in the fall, even if it means throwing a few of their own on the funeral pyre. The Democrats, says GOP consultant Eddie Mahe, have “a hundred more bodies out there that will feel the pain.”

The Dems rushed through a middle-class tax cut last Friday in an attempt to beat Bush’s deadline for an economic-recovery plan; the president promptly vetoed the cut.

The checking scandal dealt Charles Hayes the final blow, but it didn’t kill his career all by itself Considered an ineffectual legislator, he repeatedly failed to bring home the pork. Political analysts believe that the least vulnerable incumbents are those who have served their constituents well. Forget about them, and there’s a good chance they’ll forget about you.