Don Young Gets His Due

Over at TPM Cafe, Paul Kiel reports on a Roll Call piece about Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) getting tied in to the Abramoff sleaze:

In September 2002, two House members, Young and Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), wrote letters to Stephen Perry, head of the General Services Administration, about the GSA's development of the Old Post Office. The letters asked him to grant a contracting preference on the project that would have given Abramoff's tribal clients a competitive advantage in a bid to lease and develop the building, the second tallest in Washington - a potentially very lucrative deal....

[Young's] leadership political action committee, the Midnight Sun PAC, received $7,000 from two of Abramoff's tribal clients, the Aqua Caliente of California and Mississippi Choctaws, on Oct. 17, 2002, just five weeks after he wrote to Perry.

All together, the Midnight Sun PAC received $12,000 from Abramoff's tribal clients during the 2001-02 election cycle.

In addition, one of the Alaska Republican's former aides, Duane Gibson, went to work for Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig several months before Young intervened with the GSA on the Old Post Office site."

Roll Call also points out that Young (who called the timing of the letters and contributions a "coincidence") has a history of going to bat for Abramoff clients, especially the Northern Mariana Islands.

Reading this brought back memories of watching Rep. Young on C-Span a good 10 or more years ago.

The bill being debated at the time was fairly minor and seemingly non-controversial: the (revenue-neutral) transfer of several military surplus airplanes to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The USFWS fights a continuous battle to stop poachers, against whom they are overwhelmingly outmanned and outgunned, from killing off rare or endangered wildlife. The purpose of the bill was to give them air cover, and even the playing field a little.

Rep. Young was speaking against it.

I don't recall his rationale for opposing the bill (I think it had something to do with maintenance costs); I do recall thinking: this guy is on the side of the poachers. This was a guy who had such contempt for the possibility of government having a positive impact, for positive environmental measures in particular, that he thought nothing of hamstringing it in a crucial fight against ruthless organized criminals.

So I'm not the slightest bit surprised to see him actively involved in the massive corruption that epitomizes Republican contempt for government. This is where he's been heading for the last 10 years. This is where they've all been heading, the whole Republican side of the House. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

[That's all, folks]