Following the Money, part IV

Rep. Fossella is suddenly getting some very unwanted attention. The New York Daily News ran three articles on the endangered Republican, linking him to the general culture of corruption plaguing his party. While it is amazing to see first a newspaper other than the Staten Island Advance covering this race and second to find someone other than this blogger looking into the possibility of corrupt money influencing him, both are a welcoming change.

Jet-set Vito flyin' on campaign cash, via the New York Daily News

The News investigation also found that Fossella routinely fails to identify the nature of the expenses and sometimes does not disclose who's paying for his trips, as required by law.

SNIP

Records show that a June 2002 $1,000-per-ticket fund-raiser for Fossella at a Yankees-Orioles game in Baltimore was hosted by Abramoff and aide Tony Rudy. Both Abramoff and Rudy have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the FBI.

SNIP

After the Daily News submitted written questions to Rep. Vito Fossella about the reporting of his campaign spending, the Staten Island Republican amended 18 disclosure forms with the Federal Election Commission, dating back to 2000.

There are two key points to be noted from this article. The NY Daily News is the first, to my knowledge, to publicly report that Jack Ambramoff and Tony Rudy hosted Fossella’s fund raising in 2002. While the NRCC posted this information on their website, Fossella’s campaign has denied this claiming Abramoff was never there and never commenting on Tony Rudy’s presence. The DCCC to their credit have run this story, however some may claim that they are a little partisan.

Second, the last paragraph in the quote goes to show what a little prodding and questioning can do to a campaign. This is why we need to be running a strong opponent who has the ability to publicly question who Fossella really represents and guilt him into giving back chunks of his ill-gotten campaign contributions. Every day that there is a new indictment or new name in a corruption probe I wander on over to the FEC filing reports to see if there is any connection to Rep. Fossella, and occasionally to my surprise I find a Neil Volz. The more money his campaign has to return, the more this is news worthy and will be capturing local headlines. The question is how much corruption is going to be exposed by November, and how much time will there be to find the connection back to Rep. Fossella?