Murtha makes the news again

[TheMercenary]

Murtha's Nephew Got Defense Contracts
Millions in Work Came Without Competition

The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building.

Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech's most striking feature is its owner -- Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department's spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews. He said Murtech's 17 employees "provide necessary logistical support" to Pentagon testing programs that focus on detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, "and that's about as far as I feel comfortable going." Giving more details could provide important clues to terrorist plotters, he said.

Murtha said he does not advertise being the nephew of John Murtha and considers it "unfortunate" that some will unfairly assume Murtech received its federal contracts because of his uncle's influence at the Pentagon.

"If we're not doing our job well, we wouldn't be doing our job," he said. "I'm successful at the work I do because of the skill sets I have. . . . You don't know how good someone is unless you work with them."

A spokesman at Murtha's office did not return calls seeking comment. The lawmaker, a former Marine, has said in the past that he is proud of his family's service to the military and the government.

Over the years, John Murtha has proudly claimed credit for using his Appropriations Committee seat to steer hundreds of millions in Pentagon work to companies in his district, many of them fledgling enterprises run by campaign contributors. His influence also may be seen in the military improvements at the Johnstown airport that bears his name. The little-used commuter airport doubles as a wartime preparedness facility for the Pentagon after $30 million in improvements.

Murtha's power has had beneficial effects within his family. His brother, Robert C. "Kit" Murtha, built a longtime lobbying practice around clients seeking defense funds through the Appropriations Committee and became one of the top members of KSA, a lobbying firm whose contractor clients often received multimillion-dollar earmarks directed through the committee chairman.

Robert C. Murtha Jr. of Murtech is Kit Murtha's son. He also is a former Marine who once served as a presidential security officer and aide to the president for White House functions. He worked for eight years for ACS, a defense and information technology contractor. When Lockheed purchased ACS in 2004, he started several companies, including Murtech, which he registered as a defense contracting firm.

Murtech received its contracts primarily from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., which has been generous to companies in John Murtha's district and enjoys a close relationship with the congressman through a mutual interest in breast cancer research. The Army command has won at least $200 million a year in federal funding for the cancer research, of which Rep. Murtha is a stalwart supporter. In a program called Missiles to Mammograms the command has collaborated with a contractor in Murtha's district, Windber Medical Center, in a multimillion-dollar project to explore using missile-tracking technology to detect breast cancer.

The command awarded its first storage contract to Murtech without competitive bidding, paying $1.4 million a year. Robert Murtha Jr. says the no-bid arrangement was "the government's choice" and occurred because the government "got itself in a bind." A contract with SA Scientific of San Antonio was about to lapse, and the command needed Murtech, then serving as a subcontractor to the Texas company, to store materials for the military's Critical Reagents Program. The program produces lab materials that can be used in handheld devices and sensors to detect the presence of biological toxins.

"We were uniquely qualified because we had already been doing that work," Murtha said.

I know I have heard that last statement somewhere...

[classicman]

from Haliburton?

He can join his House colleagues under investigation:

Don Young (R-AK)
Ethics violations stem from the misuse of his position to benefit family and friends and from steering millions of dollars in earmarks to corporations in exchange for contributions to his campaign committee and political action committee, Midnight Sun PAC (MSPAC)....currently under four separate federal investigations including an investigation into his role in securing a $10 million earmark for a road in Florida, assistance he offered to recently convicted VECO executive Bill Allen, his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and his financial relationship with recently indicted businessman Dennis Troha.

Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Ethics issues stem primarily from the misuse of his position as chairman of the appropriations committee (at the time) to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks to family and friends in direct exchange for contributions to his campaign committee and political action committee.

If guilty, they can all share a cell with former Congressmen Duke Cunningham (the Top Gun currently serving 8 years) and Rick Renzi (copped a plea on charges of fraud and extortion, awaiting sentencing)

Add:
I forgot William Jefferson (D-LA)....make room for him in that cell as well.

Jefferson’s ethics issues, for which he has now been indicted, stem from his business dealings and his misuse of federal resources...including bribery in the form of cash payments/stock, money laundering, racketeering...

[Cloud]

I thought you were referring to MRSA with a lisp.

(sorry, I got skin stuff on my mind)

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Murtha's Nephew Got Defense Contracts
Millions in Work Came Without Competition

So what? Halliburton and KB&R have been doing that since 2003.

Why is it a problem now?

[sugarpop]

I think it is a problem, on both sides. The people who do this kind of thing need to go to prison, period. It is unethical and it is a conflict of interest.

[classicman]

House Asks Ethics Panel for Report on Lobby Probe

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House approved by a wide margin an effort to force the ethics committee to report within 45 days on what actions, if any, it has taken to examine an escalating federal investigation involving at least one senior House Democrat and a defunct defense lobbying firm.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland offered the resolution Wednesday on behalf of Democratic leadership. It passed 270-134, but it was largely a symbolic move.
{Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) has offered eight resolutions to that effect, but each has failed on near party line votes with a majority of Democrats opposing his efforts.}
The vote referred the resolution to the ethics committee, which must independently approve it before it takes effect.

It is an unusual tactic for the majority party to force the ethics committee -- which usually operates behind closed doors -- to discuss investigations concerning members of their own party. But Democrats are under increasing political pressure to respond following a series of subpoenas issued last Friday to employees in both the congressional and campaign offices of Rep. Peter Visclosky (D., Ind.) regarding the lawmaker's relationship with the defunct lobbying firm, PMA Group.

Federal investigators are examining the lobbying operation, which closed its doors earlier this year, but it had close ties to both Mr. Visclosky and Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.).

Both lawmakers are senior members of the powerful Appropriations Committee and have directed millions in earmarks to PMA Group and its clients. Mr. Murtha has been the target of numerous news reports examining his ties to both PMA Group and other defense lobbying interests but he has continually denied any wrong-doing and has not been subpoenaed.

The resolution could provide political cover for House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who regained control of the chamber in 2006 in part due to campaign pledges to set high ethical standards. Both Messrs. Murtha and Visclosky voted in favor of the resolution.

Republicans have tried for months to force an ethics investigation into PMA Group and the lawmakers tied to it. Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) has offered eight resolutions to that effect, but each has failed on near party line votes with a majority of Democrats opposing his efforts.

[classicman]

Rep. John Murtha, Iraq war critic, dies at 77

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha, an influential critic of the Iraq War whose congressional career was shadowed by questions about his ethics, died Monday. He was 77.

The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.

In 1974 Murtha, then an officer in the Marine Reserves, became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. One of Congress' most hawkish Democrats, he wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.

Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.

Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.

Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989. The same year Paul Magliocchetti, a former subcommittee staffer, left Capitol Hill to found the now-defunct PMA Group. The lobbying firm, which specialized in obtaining earmarks for defense contractors, was one Murtha's biggest sources of campaign cash.

In 2007 and 2008, Murtha and two fellow Democrats on the subcommittee directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA's lobbyists and corporate clients, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.

Shortly after the 2008 election, the FBI raided PMA's offices as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a separate development in January 2009, FBI agents raided the offices of a defense contractor from Murtha's district—Windber-based Kuchera Defense Systems Inc.—that had received millions of dollars in earmarks sponsored by Murtha while contributing tens of thousands to his campaigns.

A year later, Kuchera was suspended from bidding on government contracts because of allegations that it paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to another defense contractor.

Around the same time, the House ethics committee was investigating the link between PMA-related campaign contributions and earmarks, but it had not named a subcommittee to look into possible violations by individual lawmakers.

Murtha's critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

"We do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested and maybe I won't," Murtha said on the tape.

Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.

RIP Mr. Murtha.

[classicman]

A lobbying firm with close ties to the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) — and a central player in some of the most questionable earmarks sponsored by Murtha — appears to have closed its doors.

KSA Consulting was at the center of a project that led to the first criminal convictions tied to a Murtha earmark. The firm at one point employed Murtha’s brother Kit as a lobbyist, as well as Carmen Scialabba, Murtha’s longtime Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense aide.

Plenty more here

[TheMercenary]

And the beat goes on...