Americans for Campaign Reform has a fact sheet to put the scandal of Magliocchetti campaign dough for earmark dollars in a broader context. Paul Magliocchetti and his family have funneled $1.5 million to members of Congress over the past twelve years, and that’s a significant outlay compared to what your family or my family could manage. In return, clients of Magliocchetti’s lobbying firm received hundreds of millions of dollars of in federal contracts last year alone, doled out in earmarks by the same members of Congress who got cash from the Magliocchetti family and Magliocchetti’s PMA Group employees.

A million and a half to members of Congress. Hundreds of millions back to lobbyist clients. It sounds like a significant problem, and it is. But the scope of the problem is minimized when we look at just one instance of payola and leave out any mention of the substantive policy impact. Across all politicians, the millions of campaign contributions tick off like an accountant with OCD. Across all earmarks, the spending runs to many billions of dollars — $47 billion in 2006 alone.

It’s not just the money that matters. The policy field of funding and lobbying and earmarking on which Paul Magliocchetti and John Murtha romp is consequential. Paul Magliocchetti lobbies for private corporations who build weapons systems. The earmarks doled out by Rep. Murtha are military contracts to design and build weapons of war. In the end, the M that matters is not Murtha and it’s not Magliocchetti. The M stands for Military, and the Murtha-Magliocchetti case is surrounded by many others. The scandal of Virgil Goode and MZM involved allegations of corruption: campaign cash for military contracts. The scandal of Randy “Duke” Cunningham involved allegations of contributions and bribes for, you guessed it, military contracts. These scandals tend to burst into public consciousness in connection with some associated tawdriness involving drugs, sex or gambling; in the meantime, less flamboyant politicians like Steny Hoyer quietly pull in campaign contributions and dole out military contracts, year after year after year.

Billions and billions of dollars in military contracts following millions and millions of dollars in campaign contributions. That’s part one of the story. Consider part two of the story: what the political corruption in military contracting leads to. It leads to weapons. Big, destructive weapons. Big, destructive weapons that kill people. The money funneled to politicians is meant to influence our representatives in Washington; it’s meant to push them into supporting more money for more weapons, bigger money for bigger weapons. The best way to keep the money for weapons going is to use them. Who cheered on the idea of a war of choice against Iraq? Who made money? Who died?

People are getting killed while others make money and use that money to make sure more people get killed. That’s why nailing down the details of the transactions between the Murthas and Magliocchettis and MZMs and Hoyers and Cunninghams and Goodes of the world matter.

Federal investigations into the financial activities of Paul Magliocchetti, his family, and his PMA Group lobbying firm are proceeding apace, chugging onward with the slow velocity but strong momentum of a freight train toward the destination of prosecution. The allegations are considerable: that the lobbyist Magliocchetti used his employees and his family as puppet contributors to members of Congress, especially those sitting on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. In exchange for those puppet contributions, members of Congress are alleged to have supported earmarks and other legislative action providing benefit to the corporations gaining big, fat military contracts from the government. Those military contractors, completing the circuit, gave ample compensation to Magliocchetti’s lobbying firm, the PMA Group.

Participating members of Congress got a disproportionate benefit: for just a few votes or insertions of language into bills, they got considerable cash for their campaigns. According to Federal Election Commission data, Magliocchetti’s family alone contributed $1,487,603 over the years to a small number of members of the House and Senate. No, I wasn’t slipping a decimal: that’s one and a half million dollars we’re talking about, and that’s “hard money” only, not counting possible soft money contributions off the FEC radar screen. The PMA Group received disproportionate benefit, nabbing much more than that in fees for its services. Military contractors received disproportionate benefit, gaining more still in government contracts. All that disproportionate benefit had to come from somewhere: from you and me, the taxpayers who foot the bill for the whole thing.

You wouldn’t know that such a bubbling pot of corruption existed, or that investigators were about to pull the lid off the pot, if you only paid attention to the diarists at dailyKos. Throughout the Jack Abramoff scandal on the Republican side of politics, you could find dozens of diaries a week detailing the nefarious goings-on and listing the names of all those involved. But as the story has broken out into the big wide open over the last two weeks, there’s only been one diary posted on the subject, to little attention. Why the silence? You know why.

I give credit to Kos himself for writing two articles on the subject of Magliocchetti and the PMA Group in the last month, both of them firmly in favor of investigation. In one of those articles, focusing on Magliocchetti’s connection to Rep. John Murtha, Kos wrote:

I’m not the biggest Steny Hoyer fan, but we dodged a bullet when Murtha lost his race for Majority Leader. Had he won (which Pelosi pushed hard, by the way), the parallels with DeLay would’ve been painful.

But did the Democratic Party really dodge a bullet when congressional Democrats elected Steny Hoyer as House Majority Leader? Two different ways of looking at campaign contribution data on the Magliocchetti family place Rep. Hoyer on the suspicious list.

Magliocchetti Family Connections

When it comes to politics, the Magliocchetti family matters. In a namedropping post, I listed the ten members of the Magliocchetti family who appear to have participated in coordinated campaign contributions to members of Congress. They are:

Paul Magliocchetti, Pater Familias
Nancy Magliocchetti, Ex-Wife
Edwin Kreger, Ex-Father-in-Law
LeWanna Kreger, Ex-Mother-in-Law
Joseph Welch (of Burke, VA), Ex-Brother-in-Law
Sandra Welch (of Burke, VA), Ex-Sister-in-Law
Jennifer Magliocchetti, Daughter
Mark J. Magliocchetti, Son
Leslie Magliocchetti, Daughter-in-Law
Rebecca DeRosa, Current Wife

$1.5 million is a lot of money for one family to give, but some political contributions might be more indicative of corruption than others. How might we tell which of the politicians on the Magliocchettis’ contribution list might have been swayed? The simplest indication is the dollar amount given to a politician by the Magliocchettis. A $250 contribution isn’t likely to sway a vote, but $50,000 in payouts represent a big favor and should make us suspicious. A second indication is the amount of overlap in giving by family members. The more members of the family that donate to a politician, the more it looks like we’ve got some conspiring and coordination on our hands.

The following are the past and present members of Congress who have received $10,000 or more in campaign contributions (either as individuals or through the Political Action Committees set for their benefit) from the Magliocchetti family:

David Obey: $10,000
Lindsey Graham: $10,000
Robert Matsui: $10,000
Christopher Carney: $10,500
Jerry Lewis: $13,000
John Mica: $13,250
Bob Graham: $14,000
Judd Gregg: $14,500
Alan Mollohan: $16,000
Timothy Ryan: $18,500
Zach Wamp: $20,700
Carolyn McCarthy: $21,700
Chet Edwards: $25,000
Steny Hoyer: $26,500
John Larson: $26,850
David Hobson: $32,500
Timothy Holden: $33,500
Bill Nelson: $36,163
Bill Pascrell: $39,450
Michael Capuano: $40,500
Mike Doyle: $46,900
Norman Dicks: $50,700
Loretta Sanchez: $50,800
John Murtha: $72,800
John Sununu: $74,350
James Moran: $87,750
Peter Visclosky: $120,000

And the following are those who have received campaign contributions from five or more members of the Magliocchetti family:

Melissa Hart: 5
Constance Morella: 5
Ben Nelson: 5
Randy Cunningham: 5
Jason Altmire: 5
Patrick Casey: 5
Allyson Schwartz: 5
Ron Klink: 5
Thomas Davis: 5
Robert Matsui: 5
Christopher Carney: 5
Timothy Ryan: 5
Steny Hoyer: 5
Paul Kanjorski: 6
Alan Mollohan: 6
Stephen Lynch: 7
Zach Wamp: 7
Carolyn McCarthy: 7
Chet Edwards: 7
David Obey: 8
Bob Graham: 8
Bill Pascrell: 8
Robert Torricelli: 9
John Larson: 9
Timothy Holden: 9
Bill Nelson: 9
Peter Visclosky: 9
David Hobson: 10
Michael Capuano: 10
Mike Doyle: 10
Norman Dicks: 10
Loretta Sanchez: 10
John Murtha: 10
John Sununu: 10
James Moran: 10

And here are the past and present members of Congress who make it onto both lists:

David Obey: suspicious
Robert Matsui: suspicious
Christopher Carney: suspicious
Bob Graham: suspicious
Alan Mollohan: suspicious
Timothy Ryan: suspicious
Zach Wamp: suspicious
Carolyn McCarthy: suspicious
Chet Edwards: suspicious
Steny Hoyer: suspicious
John Larson: suspicious
David Hobson: suspicious
Timothy Holden: suspicious
Bill Nelson: suspicious
Bill Pascrell: suspicious
Michael Capuano: suspicious
Mike Doyle: suspicious
Norman Dicks: suspicious
Loretta Sanchez: suspicious
John Murtha: suspicious
John Sununu: suspicious
James Moran: suspicious
Peter Visclosky: suspicious

Although this information provides no proof that the above members of Congress did anything corrupt, their contribution connections to the Magliocchettis are significant enough to merit some examination of their records. When it comes to the receipt of coordinated campaign contributions, this is clearly not just about John Murtha. The net of suspicion surrounds more than twenty members of Congress, it sweeps back for a number of years, and yes, it includes House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Hoyer’s hundreds earmarks include millions and millions of special military contracts. What’s in those contracts, and who do they benefit? Wait for the news or find out for yourself.

Yesterday’s New York Times reports on the cresting FBI investigation into coordinated campaign contributions and lobbyist favors to lawmakers on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. The Chicago Tribune and Associated Press deliver less recent background on the investigation, and Politico gives some legislative twists on implications for intra-Congressional dynamics. Were military contractors and militaristic members of Congress in on a corrupt pay-to-play scheme?

The New York Times article, which is being centrally cited by other posts, offers up one spiffy graph relating contributions by associates of lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti and earmarks dedicated to associates of lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, but only for three members of that subcommittee. It also identifies a number of eyebrow-raising political sequential couplings, such as Julie Giardina with Rep. John Murtha and Julie Giardina with Paul Magliocchetti (through the PMA Group)… but these are done in an anecdotal, storytelling fashion rather than in a systematic, analytical way.

As a resource for those who are interested in picking away at the flaky exterior of the Magliocchetti/Defense Appropriations story to see what connections do and do not lie underneath, I’ve decided to assemble a list of names of people, groups, and sources of information from which muck can be raked. The listsshould not be read as a list of the guilty, or even the implicated. Rather, they are lists of associated individuals and groups who may or may not have anything to do with corrupt schemes of favors, gifts and contributions for military kickbacks. If you look through these lists, check out connections between them, what will turn up? Take a look and find out.

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Members, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense
Sanford Bishop (D)
Allen Boyd (D)
Norman Dicks (D)
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R)
Kay Granger (R)
Maurice Hinchey (D)
Marcy Kaptur (D)
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D)
Jack Kingston (R)
Jerry Lewis, Ex Officio (R)
James Moran (D)
John P. Murtha, Chair (D)
David Obey, Ex Officio (D)
Harold Rogers (R)
Steven R. Rothman (D)
Todd Tiahrt (R)
Peter J. Visclosky (D)
C.W. Bill Young, Ranking Member (R)

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Major Non-Congressional Players Identified by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Associated Press
Patrick Dorton, PMA Group Spokesman
Julie Giardina, staffer for Rep. John Murtha, PMA Group employee
Marvin Hoffman, PMA Group employee
Richard Kaelin, staffer for Rep. Pete Visclosky, PMA Group employee
Melissa Koloszar, staffer for Rep. James Moran, PMA Group employee
Paul Magliocchetti, head of PMA Group
John Pugliese, neighbor to Paul Magliocchetti, PMA Group employee
Ermanno Tonizzo, Owner, The Alpine restaurant
Jon Walker, neighbor to Paul Magliocchetti, PMA Group employee

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Financial Leadership of PMA Group, according to Federal Election Commission statements of organization
Kaylene H. Green, Chief Operating Officer, Senior Associate, Vice Chairman and Assistant Treasurer 1993-2008
Joseph S. Littleton, III, Treasurer 2001-2008
Mark J. Magliocchetti, Vice President Assistant Treasurer 2008
Paul Magliocchetti, Treasurer 1993
Matthew L. Miller, Treasurer 2008-2009

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Family Relations of Paul Magliocchetti according to Muckety and Citizens for Ethics
Edwin Kreger, Ex-Father-in-Law
LeWanna Kreger, Ex-Mother-in-Law
Mark J. Magliocchetti, Son
Jennifer Magliocchetti, Daughter
Leslie Magliocchetti, Daughter-in-Law
Nancy Magliocchetti, Ex-Wife
Rebecca DeRosa, Current Wife
Joseph Welch, Ex-Brother-in-Law
Sandy Welch, Ex-Sister-in-Law

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Groups Hiring the PMA Group, 1998-2008:
Already assembled by Open Secrets

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Lobbyists Working for PMA Group, 1998-2008:
Already assembled by Open Secrets