Wail, wail, wail, another damn Democrat has been caught with his hand in the campaign fund till ... as well as in the crotch of his male staffers. Sumbich pays off the lease on his personal car with campaign funds and gives a staffer $40K right at the same time he announces he is not going to run again (cuz he's a Democrat and Democrats are in for a huge ass-whomping in November).

Crap, come November, the Congress is going to be a landslide victory for Republicans.

And, Obama's Healthcare Plan and wild and reckless spending sprees will be over.

Is it 2012 yet, or what?

Heh heh heh


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042103814.html?hpid=topnews

Eric Massa scandal: FBI, Justice Dept. open probe of payments

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post staff writer
Wednesday, April 21, 2010; 4:30 PM

Federal authorities have launched a public corruption investigation into events surrounding former representative Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The FBI and Justice Department prosecutors appear to be focusing their preliminary inquiry on large payments Massa's campaign made last month to his top aide and to renew the lease for the congressman's personal car -- within days of his announcement he would not seek reelection.

Federal prosecutors served a former Massa staffer with a Justice Department request to preserve all his phone records, e-mail and BlackBerry accounts and other documents relating to Massa's campaign and congressional office.

On March 3, Massa announced that he was retiring amid reports that the House ethics committee was investigating allegations he sexually harassed and groped his young male staffers.

The following day, Massa's campaign paid $40,000 to his chief of staff, Joe Racalto, a critical witness in the ethics probe, The Post reported last week. The campaign also paid $39,000 to renew a car lease for a campaign vehicle he drives.

Massa has said he did not authorize the $40,000 payment, and he has accused Racalto of telling the campaign comptroller, incorrectly, that the fee had been approved. Racalto has said he was owed the $40,000 under a long-standing agreement to be paid for ongoing political work on the campaign.

Also Wednesday, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct announced that it was establishing an investigative subcommittee to look into alleged misconduct surrounding the Massa case.

The Post reported Monday that a conservative watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission seeking an investigation into the $40,000 payment to Racalto.

Because the committee cannot investigate former members, the panel will look into what other House members, staff, and officials knew and did about Massa's behavior.

The House in March called for the ethics committee to reopen its investigation of the Massa scandal. The probe was originally closed because Massa, no longer in office, was beyond the committee's jurisdiction. But Republicans argued that the actions of other Democrats who knew of Massa's conduct needed scrutiny.

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Here's the details of Massa's Campaign Finance Report filed with the Federal Election Commission:

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00411306/462591/sb/17

Look at the payments to GMAC ... he pays monthly car lease payments of $605.68 in January 2010 and again in February, then he prepays the remainder of the lease ... a whopping $31,896.42 on March 3 ... from campaign funds ... the same day he announces he is not going to run again ... and terms the expenditure "Campaign car lease".

The next day, he pays staffer Joseph Angelo Racalto (note the Mafioso name) $40,000 ... wonder how much kickback Massa got from that?

Then, he is being investigated by the House ethics committee involving allegations he sexually harassed and groped his young male staffers.

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http://www.rollcall.com/news/44107-1.html

House Calls for New Massa Investigation
By Jennifer Yachnin
Roll Call Staff
March 11, 2010, 1:40 p.m.

Updated: 4:52 p.m.

House lawmakers on Thursday referred a resolution to the ethics committee that calls for a new investigation related to allegations that ex-Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) sexually harassed his aides, including a review of when Democratic leaders and their staffs learned of the accusations and their responses.

The resolution, which the House voted to refer to the ethics panel in a 402-1 vote, was sponsored by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and echoes one introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was then Minority Leader, in 2006 after allegations surfaced that then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) sent sexually explicit e-mail messages to a House page. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) was the lone “no” vote.

“I think given all the other challenges that the Congress has to deal with, millions of people unemployed, a major health care reform bill on our plate, a couple wars, this is nothing more than a distraction,” Fattah said in a voice mail message. “I thought it was politically motivated. I voted against it.”

Massa, who announced last week he would not seek re-election citing a recurrence of cancer and then resigned Monday, denied harassing his aides in two national television interviews Tuesday night, even as he acknowledged having used profane language and an incident in which he aggressively tickled a male aide.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has said he first learned of the accusation from his aides in early February after one of Massa’s staffers contacted his office.

The Maryland lawmaker has said his aides gave Massa’s staffer 48 hours to report the allegations to the ethics panel before they would do so themselves.

Pelosi has said she was unaware of the ethics investigation into Massa’s actions until he announced his retirement last week, but media reports Wednesday indicated members of Pelosi’s staff may have been alerted to other concerns about Massa’s behavior, including his decision to live in a Capitol Hill townhouse with several aides, as early as October.

A Pelosi spokesman did not immediately return a telephone call for comment Thursday.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which lost jurisdiction over Massa when he resigned, closed its inquiry into the New York Democrat on Wednesday.

The resolution would direct the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, known as the ethics committee, to form an investigation subcommittee within 10 days. The resolution would set a June 30 deadline for the committee to complete its investigation.

The resolution states the investigation would cover “which House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs had knowledge prior to March 3, 2010 of the aforementioned allegations concerning Mr. Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer having any such knowledge took after learning of the allegations.”

But the ethics committee does not have to establish an investigative subcommittee, or even respond to the resolution. To order an investigation, the House would be required to approve the resolution itself, rather than refer the resolution to the ethics panel.

In the first half of the 111th Congress, the House referred another resolution to the ethics panel, seeking an inquiry into the now-defunct lobbying firm PMA Group and its relations with Members. The ethics committee took no action on the resolution, stating in a February report that it did so because it had already begun its own investigation at the time it received the resolution.

Boehner did not discuss the resolution Thursday other than to introduce the matter and request that it be read.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said only, “This is a matter that properly belongs before the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.”

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Democrats are a joke these days.

Hee hee!