Got a scandal? You a friend of Gore? Who ya gonna call? Stan Brand, of course. Stan the Man is the go-to guy for Dems in decline. Brand helped Tennessee developer Franklin Haney escape unscathed from the FCC-Portals probe. Now Brand is trying to work his legal magic for Gore campaign chairman Tony Coelho, who left Congress in 1989 under a cloud of questions about his personal finances.
A new State Department audit finds numerous spending and hiring irregularities by Coelho as commissioner general for the U.S. pavilion at the World’s Fair in Lisbon, Portugal, last year.
Among other things, State’s inspector general says Coelho approved the hiring of two stepsons of Gerald McGowan, U.S. ambassador to Portugal, at inflated salaries. McGowan, a former D.C. wireless lawyer, is an old Clinton chum from Georgetown and a valued Dem fund-raiser. He’s married to former Clinton White House lobbyist Susan Brophy.
Tony & Co. have left K Street and are headed down I-40 for Nashville. Who knows, if Bradley keeps gaining on Gore, we might get a sad country song from Al and the Money Men.
Heads up, there could be dropped calls along the way. The state of Tennessee, pointing to “unforeseen restrictions and other complexities in state laws,” canceled a request for proposals for a major wireless tower contract.
… Signals coming from Capitol Hill last week suggest House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) has come around and will embrace the Senate 911 wireless bill. The wireless lobby and lawmakers have been pressuring Bliley to give House leadership the go-ahead to schedule the bill for a vote. Look for that vote and congressional passage this week.
… Republicans, still foaming at the mouth over alleged satellite technology transfers and Chinese nuclear spying, led the way last week for House passage of a bill providing a five-year extension of indemnification authority for commercial space launch and re-entry.
… A big winner in the $129 billion MCI WorldCom Inc.-Sprint Corp. merger is Nextel Communications Inc., operator of the last independent nationwide wireless system. Nextel’s stock got a big boost from the blockbuster deal.
The big loser is Nextel, which lost its best-chance, would-be suitor and whose increased capitalized value could put it out of reach of anyone looking for a wireless play but unwilling to shell out big bucks for a firm with a weak spectrum position and heavy debt. That is, a firm that doesn’t have the right stuff to cut it in Broadband Land. Always the bridesmaid …
