It’s bad enough to be implicated in a Washington scandal, but being reduced to a letter or a number is really a slap in the face in a town that prides itself on vanity.
Indeed, it’s getting hard, perhaps even inadvisable, to be on a first-name basis these days. In Plamegate, there’s “Official A,” seemingly understood to be Karl Rove, President Bush’s deft political adviser. What a slap in the face!-“Official A.”
Then, in Lobbygate, you have “Lobbyist A”-perhaps not the best chosen pseudonym since the last name of the embattled lobbyist associated with the mangled moniker-Jack Abramoff-begins with the first letter of the alphabet. A tad cleverer disguise is “Representative No. 1.” Who would ever figure this might be Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio). Ney votes nay. He claims he’s done nothing wrong.
It’s true: You have to be careful whom you speak to these days. You’re just a conversation away from being subpoenaed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or a federal judge. These are truly exciting days for reporters.
It’s not all peaches and cream for anonymous sources, either. They’re being interviewed by the feds and hauled before grand juries. At least one, former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby, has been indicted.
Also indicted was lobbyist Michael P.S. Scanlon, who last week pleaded guilty to conspiring with “Lobbyist A” to bribe public officials-believed to include “Representative No. 1”-with money, meals, trips and things of value in return for official acts benefitting Scanlon, “Lobbyist A” and others.
One official act referred to in Scanlon’s indictment and plea agreement involved “advancing the application of a client of `Lobbyist A’ for a license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives”-a reference to the $3 million House contract for an in-building antenna system awarded to MobileAccess Networks. MobileAccess, founded in 1998 and formerly known as Foxcom Wireless, is an Israeli firm that was represented by Abramoff’s former law firm Greenberg Traurig. Mobile Access won out over San Jose-based LGC for the House indoor antenna contract. MobileAccess also won the Senate contract.
News coverage of the lobbying scandal prompted Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Sprint Nextel Corp. to clarify press statements such that they now say they favored Foxcom over LGC, rather than expressing no preference in vendor selection. So just about everyone is getting dragged into the mess.
However, the real tragedy is the bad name it has given to hard-working legislative aides in Congress. Seems that when push comes to shove, just say you got the goods from a former Hill staffer. They are now fair game, too.
