John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

Loyal Edwards Fundraiser Killed Ethanol Initiative In Wisc.

Scott Tyre, a Wisconsin lobbyist who sits on John Edwards’ national finance committee, has worked to kill ethanol mandates in Madison. In fact, Tyre’s own firm, Capitol Navigators, advertises his efforts to tank that bill next to quotes from longtime Edwards loyalists Ed Turlington and Nick Baldick praising Tyre’s “work ethic” and “brain power.”

“Scott is regarded as one of the top contract lobbyists at the Capitol. When it comes crunch time and you need votes as we did during the ethanol mandate debate in the 2005-06 session, Scott was one of the first persons I called for help. His contacts and lobbying skills are certainly one of the reasons we were able to kill the bill in the Senate.”
–Erin Roth, Executive Director of Wisconsin Petroleum Council/Division of the American Petroleum Institute

Tyre is an Edwards bundler, according to Public Citizen.

Edwards has said on the campaign trail that ethanol is one key to moving the country toward energy independence.

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But Tyre’s anti-ethanol efforts — his firm has also represented the American Petroleum Institute — contradict Edwards’ campaign trail pitch for expanded production of renewable energy sources. And Edwards, as we all know, slams lobbyists at every diner, community center, debate and school rally. It seems perplexing at best then that he’d have one on his team who is fighting his very policies.

Hotline 12/21/07

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, another Democratic candidate for president, has also gotten unwanted publicity from a bundler.

Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger and a partner were indicted in August on charges of breaking campaign laws for contributions made in 2004. They had raised $127,000 for Edwards, but are charged with reimbursing employees of their law firm, family members and others for the donations — effectively giving the money themselves in violation of contribution limits.

The major concern with bundling is about influence.

Bundlers’ work is usually closely tracked by the campaigns and “gives individuals a way to be much more important than their personal campaign contribution,” said Taylor Lincoln, the research director at the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen, which discloses known bundlers on its Web site, www.whitehouseforsale.org.

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“The public has no idea who the candidates are leaning on for these vast sums of money,” says Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. “The person who gives $2,300 looks just like the person who has raised $200,000.”

Lawrence Norton, former general counsel for the FEC, said there is much more emphasis on these “uber-fundraisers” than ever before, in part because of new restrictions in how other political committees can raise money.

“From a regulatory perspective, what you have are lots of people who are really critical to the campaign but are not part of the campaign, and are not necessarily trained or educated in terms of what they can or cannot do,” said Norton, an attorney in the Washington office of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice.

“Either they are tripping over campaign finance laws, or the campaign is exposed to criticism or potential violations because of these volunteers who are effectively their agents.”

Edwards released a list of 669 “solicitors” through the first three quarters of 2007. He releases the names of everyone who has collected money, regardless of amount.

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“This is 100 percent about transparency and electing someone who is open and honest to the presidency; that’s why we, unlike our opponents, release the names of everyone who fundraises for Senator Edwards,” his spokeswoman, Colleen Murray, said.

Lincoln disagrees with Edwards’ characterization of full disclosure because he does not reveal how much money each person is responsible for.

“You can disclose nobody or disclose everybody — they’re two different ways of being opaque,” he said.

McClatchy Newspapers 11/19/07
http://lakeexpo.com/articles/2007/11/19/top_news/08.txt

Edwards went negative on Clinton long before Obama, questioning Clinton’s integrity and her role as a Washington insider. Edwards’ campaign has made statements like: “After seven years of George Bush, the American people deserve better; they deserve the truth.” They consistently conflate Bush and Clinton.

Edwards’ history, however, hasn’t been particularly consistent. In 2004, he notably presented himself as a nice guy and refused to attack his fellow Democrats. I guess that pledge is gone.

Edwards has often chosen not to release information when silence suited his purposes. In the 2004 race, he was one of the few candidates not to disclose his bundlers. More recently, he refused to disclose how much money he was paid by Fortress Investments until required to do so by law. Nor did he come forward with information about the $800,000 he was paid for his book by Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house.

Edwards has made poverty a big issue in the campaign. In 2005, Edwards founded the Center for Promise and Opportunity to study poverty. The center raised $1.3 million dollars that year. A New York Times analysis reported that the center benefitted Edwards by reimbursing him for travel and hiring his political staff. Donors had no monetary limits and could remain anonymous, unlike in a presidential campaign.

The Street 11/8/07
http://www.thestreet.com/s/everyone-has-secrets-so-quit-bothering-hillary/markets/marketfeatures/10388967_2.html

Geoffrey Fieger’s law partner and co-accused, Ven Johnson, wants to be tried separately on criminal campaign finance charges, saying Fieger’s celebrity could hurt his chances for justice if they are tried together.

Fieger, 56, of Bloomfield Hills and Johnson, 46, of Birmingham were indicted in August on conspiracy, illegal campaign contribution and false statements charges.

They allegedly made $127,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat John Edwards by reimbursing employees, employee family members and law firm vendors.

Detroit News 10/27/97
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071027/METRO/710270359

Donor Bundling Emerges As Major Ill in ‘08 Race

WASHINGTON — The bundling of political donations once was an innocuous play in the game book of Washington political operatives. Now, the fund-raising practice has grown so widespread, and some of its practitioners so brazen, that bundling has become the chief source of abuse in the American campaign-finance system.

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Bundlers raised at least $109 million for the presidential candidates during the first nine months of the 2008 campaign. That figure is based on the number of bundlers that Public Citizen says raised money for each campaign, multiplied by the minimum amount that campaigns and fund-raisers say they are required to bring in to be considered bundlers. The actual share contributed by bundlers is likely higher, because top practitioners raise far more than the minimum — nearly $1 million in Mr. Hsu’s instance.

The funds bundled so far this election cycle represent at least 28% of the record $379 million raised overall for this campaign. By comparison, figures compiled by Public Citizen show bundlers accounted for 18% of funds raised in the 2004 contest, and 8% in 2000.

A name-by-name analysis of bundlers reveals that this year’s operatives are drawn from the same pools as fund-raisers past. Lawyers account for about 27% of the bundlers named by Public Citizen, according to an analysis of that list conducted for the Journal by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. Another 11% work in securities and investment and 8% in real estate. Lobbyists account for about 3% of these fund-raisers. The Center for Responsive Politics said it couldn’t determine the occupations of 15% of the bundlers named by Public Citizen.

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“Bundling by its very nature has the potential to be coercive,” says Craig McDonald, the executive director of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit organization that tracks bundlers for Mr. Bush. “The money often comes from people who don’t want anything except to please their boss.”

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Mr. Edwards has been burned twice by fund-raisers at law firms, who account for at least 54% of his bundlers, according to the analysis conducted for the Journal. The Edwards campaign considers anyone who raises money outside of their families a bundler.

This year, in Michigan, attorney Geoffrey Fieger was indicted for illegally reimbursing employees for $127,000 in bundled campaign contributions to Mr. Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign. Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Fieger and a law partner reimbursed 60 employees and associates for donations to the campaign by disguising the reimbursements as bonuses or other payments.

Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined the Edwards campaign $9,500 as part of a separate instance of straw donations from a Little Rock, Ark., law firm. The FEC also fined the law firm and partner Tab Turner $50,000 for reimbursing low-level employees for donations to Mr. Edwards. Mr. Turner says he has settled with the FEC. The Edwards campaign declined to comment.

Wall Street Journal 10/18/07
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119267248520862997.html?mod=politics_first_element_hs

Last year, the firm was indicted on federal charges of fraud and bribery. But the political partnership has not been entirely severed. Since the indictment, 26 Democrats around the country, including four presidential candidates, have accepted $150,000 in campaign contributions from people connected to Milberg Weiss, according to state and federal campaign finance records. And some Democrats have taken public actions that potentially helped the firm or its former partners.The recent contributors include current and former Milberg partners who had either been indicted or were widely reported to be facing potential criminal problems when they wrote their checks. One of them, William S. Lerach, was a fund-raiser for John Edwards’s presidential campaign until his guilty plea last month. Melvyn I. Weiss, a founder of the firm, gave the maximum $4,600 to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in June. Other firm members contributed to the presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr.

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In the current campaign, the race for cash has led to several embarrassments for the Democrats, including the indictment of a trial lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, who was accused of using straw donors to make illegal contributions to Mr. Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign, and the arrest of Norman Hsu, a businessman accused of fraud who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mrs. Clinton.

In addition to the kickback charges in the Milberg Weiss case, federal agents have investigated allegations that the firm funneled campaign contributions through plaintiffs and expert witnesses in the 1990s, said two lawyers familiar with the inquiry. The guilty plea entered by Mr. Lerach hinted at that, but it also specified that prosecutors would not pursue campaign finance violations, in exchange for Mr. Lerach’s admission that he had conspired to obstruct justice by concealing the kickbacks.

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More recently, Mr. Edwards, a trial lawyer who became wealthy pursing personal injury cases, joined labor unions and consumer groups last May in pressing securities regulators to intervene in a lawsuit against banks brought by Mr. Lerach on behalf of Enron investors. His campaign said Mr. Edwards’s actions had nothing to do with Mr. Lerach, and were consistent with the candidate’s longstanding defense of working people.

Still, Mr. Edwards’s willingness to be seen doing anything that could benefit Mr. Lerach and allowing him to raise money provided fodder for critics. At the time the Edwards campaign took on Mr. Lerach as a fund-raiser, it was already widely reported that Mr. Lerach, who left Milberg Weiss in 2004, was one of the unnamed co-conspirators cited in court documents related to the firm’s indictment.

In all, Mr. Edwards collected about $16,000 from people connected to Milberg Weiss, including Mr. Lerach and two other former Milberg Weiss lawyers who had joined him at his new firm, Patrick J. Coughlin and Keith F. Park. Federal authorities agreed not to prosecute them as part of a plea deal with Mr. Lerach. (Mr. Lerach also raised $64,000 for Mr. Edwards from members of his new firm who were not named in the Milberg case.)

“With Edwards, he has associated himself with people in his campaign that don’t represent the face that even the trial lawyers want to put forward to the country,” said Walter K. Olson, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research group, who has written extensively on the American legal system.

New York Times 10/18/07
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/us/politics/18milberg.html?ref=politics

In addition to convincing CEOs to open their wallets, the candidates are also eager to score rides on their corporate jets. Private jets are as much a part of the American upper-class landscape as a sports car is for German business executives. The American Porsche is made by Learjet or Gulfstream.

Many of the presidential candidates are having themselves chauffeured through the air like tourists taking a taxi through the streets of New York. None of them is as fond of flying as John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and now one of the Democratic presidential candidates. Fred Baron, a prominent attorney and friend, has provided Edwards with the use of his Hawker 800.

Spiegel Online 10/9/07
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,510248,00.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ campaign has donated $4,600 to charity that came from a supporter who pleaded guilty this week to a federal conspiracy charge.

Records show William Lerach and members of his law firm contributed about $81,000 to the former North Carolina senator’s campaign during the first six months of the year.

Lerach raised money for Edwards while Lerach was under indictment on charges that his former firm, Milberg Weiss, paid kickbacks to plaintiffs in class action lawsuits.

Edwards sided with unions and consumer groups this year in pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission to intervene in a suit against Wall Street banks on behalf of shareholders represented by Lerach Coughlin.

The Edwards campaign has denied any connection between the contributions from firm members and Edwards’ stance in support of the shareholders.

WWAY TV3

http://www.wwaytv3.com/edwards_divests_money_from_tainted_lawyer_keeps_money_he_raised/09/2007

Democrat John Edwards’s list of bundlers includes well-known fellow trial lawyer William S. Lerach, who raised $80,000 from his family and law firm partners for the candidate after a government probe had begun of Lerach’s wrongdoing, campaign aides confirmed yesterday. Lerach pleaded guilty this week to a conspiracy charge, prompting Edwards to announce that he will give back Lerach’s personal donations but not the money Lerach raised from others.

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In recent weeks, Edwards has sharply criticized a “corroded and corrupt” Washington system in which politicians raise money from special interests, which then seek their help on government matters. His campaign’s latest statement on that subject came on Tuesday, the day of Lerach’s plea deal. Top strategist Joe Trippi sent out a mass e-mail criticizing Clinton’s campaign for hosting a fundraising event with companies and lobbyists seeking the government’s multibillion-dollar homeland security business.

“Too many in office have fallen under the spell of campaign money at any cost — and do not see that when they defend the system, they are protecting those that have rigged the game that puts corporate profits ahead of the interests of working Americans,” Trippi wrote.

In May, Edwards issued a statement urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to weigh in with the Supreme Court on behalf of an effort by Lerach’s clients — who had invested in Enron — to sue banks associated with the energy giant. “The question for all Americans is whether their government will be on the side of those big banks or regular families,” Edwards said in a statement released by his presidential campaign. Lerach posted the statement on his law firm’s Web site.

Edwards’s campaign declined to discuss how much it knew about Lerach’s legal problems while Lerach raised money. Campaign officials also said they do not consider the statement about the Enron case a favor to a major donor and fundraiser.

“This position is consistent with John Edwards’s long-standing support for protecting the retirement savings of middle-class families and is shared by many others, including the New York Times editorial page, Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd, and a coalition of consumer groups, to name a few,” Edwards spokeswoman Colleen Murray said.

Lerach is the second Edwards fundraiser to face legal troubles in the past year. Lawyer Geoffrey Fieger was indicted in August on federal charges of conspiring to route more than $125,000 in illegal contributions to Edwards’s 2004 presidential bid. Fieger has pleaded not guilty.

Edwards’s campaign has said it knew nothing about Fieger’s alleged scheme and has cooperated with the Justice Department. But the campaign has declined to refund the donations in question, waiting for the outcome of Fieger’s trial to avoid influencing jurors. If he is convicted, the campaign has said it plans to send his donations to charity.

Washington Post 9/20/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091902508.html?hpid=topnews

John Edwards’ presidential campaign has donated to charity $4,600 in contributions from William Lerach, a top fundraiser and a well-known trial lawyer who pleaded guilty this week to a federal conspiracy charge.

Lerach and members of his law firm, Lerach Coughlin of San Diego, contributed about $81,000 to Edwards’ campaign during the first six months of the year, according to Federal Election commission records. Lerach raised money for Edwards while the lawyer was under indictment on charges that his former firm, Milberg Weiss, paid kickbacks to plaintiffs in class action lawsuits.
Earlier this year, Edwards sided with unions and consumer groups in pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission to intervene in a suit against Wall Street banks on behalf of shareholders represented by Lerach Coughlin.

The Edwards campaign denied any connection between the contributions from firm members and Edwards’ stance in support of the shareholders, who were suing the banks for damages over the collapse of Enron.

snip: Lerach’s criminal case cast unwanted attention on Edwards, a former trial lawyer whose campaign has relied heavily on contributions from attorneys. Edwards is not returning any of the money raised by Lerach; the new law firm was not implicated in the kickback case.

The Associated Press

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-Co3gJPkDVEY-vxsG0J6W2r4w5A