Congresscrooks this blatant about their plundering are a disgrace even to THEIR profession (which is saying a lot)

Then-Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) in 2009, doing the people's business -- and, apparently, a certain amount of "sideline" business of his own

"Experts on Congressional earmarks said they could think of no previous case in which a former congressman stood to profit so directly from money that he personally allocated while in Congress."

-- from "Ex-Congressman Retreats on Energy
Project" by the NYT's Eric Lichtblau

by Ken

The words that pop out for me here are "stood to profit so directly." Puts me in mind of former CA Congressfelon Duke Cunningham, who was so brazen about his congressional influence peddling that he actually had a printed rate card for his "services." C'mon, guys, can't we at least expect a reasonable amount of discretion from our civic plunderers?

WASHINGTON -- A former congressman who became a lobbyist has abandoned his plans to collect $90,000 from working on an energy project that he helped finance through Congress.

The former congressman, Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, told officials in Hull, Mass., this week that he would do the consulting work at no charge rather than collect $15,000 a month as planned. The decision was first reported in The Boston Globe.

An apologetic Mr. Delahunt told town officials he wanted to eliminate the “black mark” created by questions of a possible financial conflict, Patrick Cannon, chairman of the Hull Light Board, said on Saturday.

“This was a great decision for the town, because it saves us a lot of money,” Mr. Cannon said.

Mr. Delahunt, a Democrat who retired from Congress last year, had faced criticism for the last week from legal and ethics specialists over the unusual lobbying arrangement he had struck with the town, which is seeking federal help to build an offshore wind energy plant at a cost of more than $60 million.

While in Congress, Mr. Delahunt earmarked $1.7 million for the same project, and he was to be paid 80 percent of his monthly consulting fees out of that same pot of money.

Experts on Congressional earmarks said they could think of no previous case in which a former congressman stood to profit so directly from money that he personally allocated while in Congress.

Both Mr. Delahunt’s lobbying organization, the Delahunt Group, and the Town of Hull had defended the planned contract, saying that Mr. Delahunt brought an expertise and familiarity with the wind energy project that could help move it along.

Mr. Delahunt and executives at his firm did not respond to e-mails Saturday seeking further comment on the decision.

The Energy Department, which provided the original $1.7 million in seed money through Mr. Delahunt’s earmarks, said this week that its contracting officials were reviewing his role in the wind project.

The general counsel’s office, which normally reviews ethical and legal questions in contracting work, is not involved in that review, said Bill Gibbons, an Energy Department spokesman.

It is not clear how Mr. Delahunt’s decision to provide his consulting services on a pro bono basis will affect the Energy Department’s review. A department spokesman had no immediate comment on the decision.

In Duke Cunningham's case, apart from the guy just not being terribly bright, it appeared that the Culture of Corruption in the Republican-controlled Congress had grown so pervasive that its most mindlessly greedy practitioners didn't even stop to think that they could get caught. In this schlepp Delahunt's case, I get the feeling that he was a low-enough-level bribe extractor that he just thought it was business-as-usual to engineer his own little pension-bonus scheme scam.

Note that in the earlier report to which Eric Lichtblau links in the above piece, "Lobbyist Helps a Project He Financed in Congress," he had written that Delahunt "retired last year as one of the leading liberals in Congress." Maybe he thought this particular, er, arrangement was OK(-ish) because his cut wasn't carved out of federal funds but out of the hide of the folks back home. Or possibly he actually thought he'd earned his cut (as I suppose he had), and no harm, no foul. Maybe especially compared with the shakedowns many of his colleagues were running.

Now, does anyone really believe that clamping down on earmarks has stopped this sort of thing from going on? If our boys and girls in Congress can't figure out other ways to lay their mitts on public moneys, they're a disgrace to their profession. Which is saying a lot.

Note that nobody seems to be talking about the former congressman paying any price for this episode except the abandonment of his "consulting" plunder.

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