Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Politics

Lawmaker tied to 2 bribery scandals

Many of Rep. John Doolittle's friends are in jail.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - Rep. John Doolittle's associations with some notorious scoundrels have him uniquely tied to both congressional bribery scandals that have sent other Republican lawmakers to jail.

Justice Department investigators are focusing on the California Republican's dealings with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including $5, 000 monthly checks from Abramoff to Doolittle's wife.

Then there's $37-million in federal funds Doolittle secured for a defense contractor accused of bribing now imprisoned ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Brent Wilkes, a benefactor of both Cunningham and Doolittle, is awaiting trial in San Diego on charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

'I'm the one that's left'

There's no indication prosecutors are investigating Doolittle in connection with Wilkes or Cunningham, and the nine-term lawmaker may be guilty of nothing more than a poor choice of friends. But his favors for and from Abramoff leave him the only sitting member of Congress still under investigation in a scandal that netted a dozen convictions, including a guilty plea from former Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.

"I'm the only one of the congressmen mentioned that hasn't retired or left and therefore the focus seems to be on me, " Doolittle, 56, said recently on a talk radio show in Sacramento. "If you really want to get a congressman, I'm the one that's left."

In April the FBI raided the Doolittles' Oakton, Va., house with a search warrant for Julie Doolittle's home bookkeeping and fundraising business, which had done work for Abramoff. The congressman denied wrongdoing but was forced to relinquish his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, where Cunningham was once one of his colleagues and where both did favors for Wilkes.

After the Associated Press reported last week that his former chief of staff had complied with a document subpoena and another former aide planned to talk voluntarily to prosecutors, Doolittle said he welcomed a widening of the probe.

"To have this dragged out for over three years is ridiculous, " he said.

Abramoff is cooperating with the government's continuing investigation after admitting to taking millions of dollars from Indian tribe clients he derided as "morons" and "troglodytes."

Doolittle had arrived on Capitol Hill as a brash young conservative, joining the "Gang of Seven" freshman Republicans who broke open a House banking scandal. He ran for a second term in 1992 on the slogan "Taking on Congress, " and complained that "the system ... has lulled people into unethical conduct."

Old friends wondering

Even some onetime allies wonder now if that's the effect it's had on him.

"Unfortunately, with him being in elected office for so long, he's bound to have gotten away from his district and what started out as his core principles, " said Glenn Buberl, Doolittle's legislative director during his first years in Washington.

Doolittle says he doesn't recall Abramoff ever asking him to do anything, but he involved himself repeatedly in issues that helped Abramoff's clients and had nothing to do with his Northern California district.

Doolittle accepted $14, 000 in campaign donations from Abramoff and tens of thousands more from his clients. While other politicians rushed to get rid of Abramoff's money once the lobbyist came under suspicion, Doolittle never did, arguing he'd done nothing wrong in taking it.

[Last modified July 7, 2007, 01:34:13]