J.D. Hayworth, John McCain and the Jack Abramoff Scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Disgraced former Rep. J.D. Hayworth recently dismissed Democratic chances in the general election, i.e., that it will be a re-run of 1976 when a similarly young and unknown Democrat, Dennis DeConcini of Tucson, took the U.S. Senate seat after a brutal primary left the Republicans embittered and divided.

"If you're looking for a historical analogy, I'd say it's closer to 1994," Hayworth said, harking back to the year Republicans swept control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. "I think we'll see 1994 to the tenth power."

Right. 1994 was the year that the State of Maricopa first elected this corrupt loser to Congress. Wishful thinking on his part or just unable to think outside the context of his own personal experience? Either way, only a fool would turn to J.D. Hayworth for in-depth political analysis. That's a shallow pool the politically astute do not dive into.

"1994" is just the GOP talking point dujour, detached from reality and any historical relevancy. It won't be a "re-run of 1976" either. No two elections are ever alike. They are like snowflakes. These pseudo-historical comparisons are just short-hand reference points for the lazy media villagers and Beltway bloviators to provide "context" — and more often than not, to simply repeat the talking points of the major political parties like good little stenographers. The All Propaganda (AP) is expert at this.

Since J.D. has managed to irritate me with his gas-bag blowhard bravado, let's take a closer look at this Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.

Let's begin with the Jack Abramoff scandal. John McCain would have you believe that this is his silver bullet against J.D. Hayworth, but the Jack Abramoff scandal is also a black mark on John McCain, who was chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee at the time, and who used his chairmanship to cover-up much of the evidence to prevent possible indictments of Republican figures like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and yes, even J.D. Hayworth. Jack Abramoff was made the "fall guy" by the Bush Injustice Department which looked no further.

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice wrote a detailed analysis of the Abramoff scandal and cover-up in the context of the McCain-Hayworth senate primary awhile back. Balloon Juice » The Grifter and the Coward…

As some may have heard there is an interesting primary shaping up in Arizona. Long-time Senator John McCain is being challenged by J.D. Hayworth, a disgraced former Congressman who lost his seat in 2006 in no small part because of his involvement with Jack Abramoff and that major corruption scandal named after him.

Hayworth is the Grifter and McCain is the Coward in this race. (Yes, I know that we are all supposed to be aware of reports that as a young man John McCain was a courageous POW, but history is filled with tales of men who were courageous heroes in their youth and craven cowards in their later years. John McCain’s story is one of those stories).

Both men are also linked to the Abramoff scandal. It will be fascinating to see if McCain will decide to release details about the Abramoff scandal that he has kept covered up for years in a desperate effort to hold onto his Senate seat…

Hayworth is a classic backbencher low level Congressional grifter who wants to take his skills of selling out his constituents to lobbyists, corporations and special interests from the House to the Senate. At one time, he was under investigation by the DOJ for his involvement in the Abramoff Scandal but the Feds decided to stop chasing him after he lost his House seat in 2006. This was not a surprise as the Bush DOJ did everything they could to slow-walk the Abramoff investigation and it was a ploy that kept most co-conspirators like Hayworth safe from any legal jeopardy (Republican do tend to take care of each other—especially when a scandal is involved).

* * *

The relationship between Hayworth and Abramoff goes back to the beginning of Jack’s superstar lobbyist career in 1996. One quick example. In the fall of 1996 Abramoff was trying to get Congress to kill Legislation that would give the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (a US Territory in the Western Pacific) a Delegate to the US Congress. Jack and his sweatshop owning pals did not want the corrupt Governor they controlled from the Territory to have competition in Washington. In August of 1996 Jack and his sweatshop pals went to the GOP National Convention to meet and greet folks. In September Jack made a number of calls to Congressmen on the Resources Committee to lobby for defeating the effort. On 9-18-96 Jack directly lobbied Hayworth. A donation was made. The effort was defeated (Hayworth voted with Jack). And on 11-21-96 Jack made a “thank you” call to JD.

The Abramoff related records release to date show that this pattern was repeated (with Hayworth and many, many others), and that as time went by the way Abramoff moved money to a given Congressman or Senator was laundered with greater and greater sophistication to hide the connection to Jack and his clients (this was why some folks thought what Abramoff and his pals in Congress were doing was a scandal).

Only a small fraction of the millions of pages of emails, billing records and other evidence linking Abramoff to his co-conspirators has been released. Most of these documents are under wraps and that lets many of Jack’s old Congressional grifter buddies run for office again in 2010. In an ironic twist, a grifter like Hayworth can thank John McCain for the fact that he is out of jail and able to scam gullible voters once again. You see, John McCain had the goods on Hayworth but did not have the courage to put Country over Party or the integrity to let duty trump his ambitions.

In 2004 as the Abramoff scandal broke John McCain launched an investigation of the scandal from position as Chairman of the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee. In that investigation McCain collected ALL of Abramoff’s emails, billing records and the same for many of Jack’s other associates. For McCain it was personal, back in the 2000 Election it was Abramoff and his pals Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed who led the effort to smear McCain in South Carolina. At first, McCain went after these guys with gusto and during a November 17, 2004 Hearing on the scandal, John McCain made a promise:

I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told.

It turns out that McCain did not have the courage to keep that promise. Before that same hearing was over, McCain started to backtrack as it became clear just how big and deep the scandal was and how much harm exposing the details of the scandal would do to McCain’s Party. By March 10, 2005, Roll Call was reporting that McCain met with his colleagues and promised them protection from their crimes:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assured his colleagues that his expanding investigation into the activities of a former GOP lobbyist and a half-dozen of his tribal casino clients is not directed at revealing ethically questionable actions by Members of Congress.

He made his self-directed impotence and casual regard for justice clear in a December 2005 interview with Terry Gross on NPR (emphasis added):

Sen. McCAIN: We’re going to write a report, and there may be additional information we may have to look at, but we’ve pretty well wrapped it up. [snip]

We’ll be making legislative recommendations and other things. But it’s not the job of the Indian Affairs Committee to investigate members of Congress. That’s the Ethics Committee and other committees to do that.

And then he really explained his cowardice to Tim Russert in another 2005 interview:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you said you’re going to follow the money, but are you also going to investigate which legislators may have taken money and used that to influence legislation, to write into law what you’re suggesting…

SEN. McCAIN: Tim…

MR. RUSSERT:…the behavior of senators, your colleagues? Are you going to investigate them?

SEN. McCAIN: The—I will not, because I’m a chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. This was brought to our—this whole thing started—was brought to us—attention by some disgruntled tribal council members in a small tribe in Louisiana, and we took it as far as we thought was our responsibility, which is where the money ends up. I’m not as—we are responsible for Indian affairs. We have an Ethics Committee. We have a government—we have other committees of Congress, but we also have a very active media. And believe me…

MR. RUSSERT: Does the Ethics Committee work?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t think…

MR. RUSSERT: In all honesty?

SEN. McCAIN: I don’t think the ethics committees are working very well. The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by anyone here…

MR. RUSSERT: Duke Cunningham, the congressman from California.

SEN. McCAIN:…in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that some legislators have committed a crime?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I don’t want to—everyone deserves the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. I’m not a judge and jury.

MR. RUSSERT: But there’s strong evidence to suggest that.

SEN. McCAIN: There’s strong evidence that there was significant wrongdoing, but I’m not a judge or jury.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think some legislators may be indicted?

SEN. McCAIN: All I know is what I read in the media. We stopped in the Indian Affairs Committee with where the money went, and that was our—the extent of our responsibilities.

At one point McCain had Grover Norquist in his sights. He was on the verge of issuing a subpoena for Grover’s financial records and urging the Senate Finance Committee to investigate the front groups like Americans for Tax Reform that Abramoff used to launder money. Then McCain dropped it, made peace with Grover, got Norquist’s support for his run for the White House and helped to bury the evidence linking Norquist to Abramoff. The Senate Finance investigation released a report that left more question unanswered than answered and that seemed like it stopped half-way through the process.

McCain’s investigation of the Abramoff scandal collected over 750,000 pages of documents. He has sent these documents to the National Archives where they will sit under seal for the next twenty years—it is a great way to sweep the largest Congressional scandal in decades under the rug. Still, it looks like he has kept a copy of these documents for other uses as McCain told the conservative National Review in an interview published yesterday (emphasis added):

“When the tea partiers take a close look at Mr. Hayworth’s record and see all of his earmarks and all of his ties to Jack Abramoff, they’ll find a record that demands scrutiny,” McCain says. “We have the letters and legislative records to prove it. And we will.”

Too bad McCain didn’t keep his promise to “not stop until the complete truth is told” that he made back in 2004. If he had then Hayworth, Norquist, Reed and a host of other grifters would be in jail and/or discredited. Instead, McCain let his cowardice and ambition conceal crimes that he knew they had committed. McCain actively hid evidence of corruption from the American people, but it looks like he kept a copy of that evidence readily at hand just in case he ever needed it. This is most likely why Norquist is still supporting McCain—John has the goods on him. And now, McCain is suggesting that he’ll dig into these hidden documents to release selective attacks on JD Hayworth. While this should make for an entertaining GOP primary in Arizona, it is just more evidence of John McCain’s failure to place justice and the needs of his Country before his ambition and his fear of exposing the corruption in his own Party. If McCain had a courageous bone in his body he would release all the documents and let the chips fall where they may. He doesn’t and so the bulk of these documents will be kept hidden for another twenty years.

J.D. Hayworth has only the Jack Abramoff scandal and his own gas-bag blowhard personality with which to be concerned about in this primary. J.D. took Jack's dirty money; John McCain covered up the crime and locked away the evidence to protect other Republicans. That's potentially obstruction of justice. John McCain has several other scandals in his past as well that I have previously posted about but will reexamine in future posts.