CURT WELDON CRACKING UP?

Although I mentioned Curt Weldon's little massive problem with the law earlier today in my Pennsylvania congressional update, and although DWT has been covering Weldon's record of criminal activities all year, I thought today, as Weldon's name penetrates the consciousness of more and more Americans as yet another example of a corrupt Republican congressman gone insane with greed, avarice and the arrogance of power, would be a good time to bring everyone up to date about why Weldon is about to lose his seat.

Today's Washington Post chronicles the story of FBI raids on the homes of Weldon's lobbyist/bagwoman daughter, Karen, and on one of his closest political cronies, Charles Sexton. This kind of thing almost never happens during an election campaign. "Yesterday's raids of six locations in Pennsylvania and Florida were moved up in part because of leaks about the investigation late last week, according to two of the sources. Top federal prosecutors supervising the inquiry concluded early this month that they were progressing significantly on another front in the investigation and did not want to make their work public too soon by conducting searches, especially so close to the Nov. 7 elections." Weldon's massive bribery case is anything but routine.

A grand jury, impaneled in Washington in May, has obtained evidence gathered over at least four months through wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers and has scrutinized whether Weldon received anything of value, according to the sources. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.

The investigation focuses on Weldon's support of the Russian-managed Itera International Energy Corp., one of the world's largest oil and gas firms, while that company paid fees to Solutions North America, the company that Karen Weldon and Sexton operate.

The congressman, for example, intervened on Itera's behalf when U.S. officials canceled a federal grant to the company. He also encouraged U.S. companies to do business with Itera at a time when its reputation had been sullied by accusations of Russian corruption.

Weldon has not started the plea-bargain phase yet and is still denying everything. Many question is mental balance as he has been seen ranting and raving like a complete madman around the district yesterday making bizarre and absurd claims that labor unions are supporting him. (The national, state and local AFL-CIO, as well as non-AFL unions have, of course, endorsed and are actively working for Joe Sestak. Weldon is clearly in the middle of a mental breakdown.) Even before the investigation and raids became public, Weldon was given only a slight chance of beating his Democratic challenger, Joe Sestak, whose views are far more in sync with the moderate suburban voters of PA-07.