IF NOT KATHERINE, WHO?
The plea agreement negotiated by Mitchell Wade,
the founder of defense contractor MZM, Inc., presents more than
additional embarrassing material in the case of disgraced former
Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who was the focus of
the federal investigation. It now appears Wade’s plea will also
impact the Florida Senate race, though perhaps in a good way for
Republicans.
In Wade’s plea agreement, he admits to pressuring employees to
donate campaign funds to two unnamed GOP House members in order to
ensure that a provision worth millions of dollars to MZM would be
inserted in an appropriations bill.
The two House members identified in press reports are Reps.
Virgil Goode of Virginia and Katherine
Harris of Florida. Hotline and the San Diego
Union both identified the House staffers of the two
Republicans as the possible conduit for the approps bill insertion,
though neither Republican was aware that Wade had pressured
employees to give to their campaigns.
There were good reasons for MZM to be focused on Goode and
Harris. One of MZM’s largest clients, the Army National Ground
Intelligence Center, is based in Goode’s district, where MZM also
has a facility. Press reports had MZM looking to open a facility in
Harris’s district, even though its two clients in the area, the
U.S. Central Command and the Special Operations Command, are
actually in a neighboring congressional district.
Harris has probably collected more than $50,000 in MZM
contributions, and seemingly aware of where this story was going
announced that all of MZM’s donations to her campaign were being
handed over to charity.
That Harris has been drawn into the MZM scandal caps off what
was a pretty bad week for the candidate who is seeking the
Republican Senate nomination to take on Sen. Bill
Nelson. Earlier in the week, she was running away from
stories that both her finance chairman and campaign treasurer had
resigned their positions.
It is at the point now where Democrats in the state are crowing
about a Nelson landslide in the fall, with few prospects for
Republicans to find someone to match up with Nelson this late in
the game.
But some Republicans in Washington and down in Florida are
talking about organizing a “Draft Jeb” campaign in the coming days.
“The Governor is the only one who would be able to enter a race
this late in the calendar and have a legitimate shot at knocking
off Nelson,” says a GOP political consultant, who does work
throughout the South. “But getting Jeb to walk into this mess is
probably a fantasy. A fantasy for Republicans, a nightmare of
him.”
For months, Republicans in Florida and Washington have been
looking for some way to push Harris over the side. Now, with her
ongoing campaign problems and the MZM scandal, which will dog her,
some see an opening they hope they can talk advantage of.
FRIST AND TEN
Any questions about where Senate Majority Bill
Frist sees himself in a few years is being answered very
quietly both inside and outside the Beltway.
The two clearest examples were played out this past week, where
according to Senate leadership sources, Frist engineered the new
45-day review timeline between the U.S government and Dubai Ports
World to address security concerns as the UAE firm takes over major
operations at five U.S. ports.
Part of the deal Frist fashioned requires that DP World create
an American subsidiary that would function independently of
executives in Dubai, and that during the 45 day waiting period an
American citizen would serve as the chief security officer during
that period, the company said.
Frist’s leadership on the port issue takes yet another White
House miscue out of the hands of Democrats, who have become
increasingly eager to beat Republicans of all stripes over their
respective heads with every communications failure coming out of
1600 Pennsylvania.
“At some point, someone in the White House has to look at the
communications shop and just say, ‘Enough is enough. We need
professional help,’” says a former Bush White House staffer. “It
wasn’t great in the first term, and it’s just gotten progressively
worse. A number of us have pointed this out, but the folks at the
top just don’t get it.”
Instead, the senior White House communications folks lash out
even at folks who are helping them outside of the building, whether
it be Frist or Boehner staff or former Administration types working
behind the scenes.
“They [current White House communications staff] don’t want the
blame, and they don’t want to share the credit. I hate to compare
our team to the Clinton White House, but if the Clinton team had
blown the Dubai port story, the deck chairs would have been
re-arranged,” says another former White House aide.
As for Frist and his team up in the Senate, they have to be
looking at this latest White House debacle and wondering how many
more lives they have before their quiet political maneuvers run out
of gas. That may be another reason why Frist remains a hard charger
out on the road, fundraising and clearly campaigning for a higher
office.
Early last week — on the day that he was announcing his
opposition to the Dubai deal as it was then structured — Frist was
on the West Coast, including a fundraiser in San Francisco with the
city’s five or so Republicans. According to those in attendance,
Frist was on top of his game, focused and clearly looking ahead to
2008. While the fundraiser was intended to seed money to his VolPAC
leadership account, Frist isn’t sitting back and letting Sens.
John McCain and George Allen sop
up all the GOP backing for the nomination race that begins in
earnest nine months from now.
CLOSING IN
Word out of the Defense Intelligence Agency and law enforcement
sources has the FBI and the Department of Justice comparing notes
and dates on who in the U.S. Senate received national security
briefings on both the overseas terrorist prisons and the NSA
overseas terrorist monitoring programs, and when those briefings
took place.
“The number of Senators who received briefings is not as large
as people think,” says one law enforcement source. “These were
programs with a limited ‘Need to Know” list on Capitol Hill.”
Federal investigators looking into the leaks of both those
programs to the press are zeroing in on the Senate, and are
expected to continue to hold interviews of both Senators and their
senior staff in the coming days. “This investigation is moving
forward at a pretty fast clip,” says the law enforcement source.
“We’re not looking at a two-year probe. We’re talking about moving
fast.”
As yet, cooperation from the media outlets — the Washington
Post and the New York Times has been minimal, but
investigators aren’t sure they will need full cooperation to make
the case. “The Hill may be all we need,” says the source.
Focus of the investigation remains on the staffs of two
Senators, Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Sen.
Dick Durbin, as well as committee staff for the
Senate Intelligence Committee and career intelligence staff
detailed to U.S. Senate offices and committees. Last week, it was
revealed that on February 17 Senator Rockefeller had sent a letter
to the White House claiming that the Bush Administration had
illegally leaked classified materials to Washington Post
reporter Bob Woodward for a book project he was
working on with cooperation from the Bush White House.
A number of people of Capitol Hill and in the intelligence
community interpreted the letter as an attempt by Rockefeller to
play defense should it be revealed that his office or staff tied to
him on the Intelligence Committee are somehow involved in the
serious leak cases.
