As the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff scandals merge into a giant MegaScandal, I’ve been watching its tendrils creep into Virginia. A year ago, Charlottesville’s Questerra was indicted as one of the companies who illegally made contributions to DeLay’s TRMPAC. I’ve been curious how long it would take for elected officials in Virginia to be tied into the scandal. It looks like I can stop waiting.
It’s not clear to me whether Del. Bob McDonnell should be pitied or condemned. The Republican nominee for attorney general here in Virginia, he’s had the misfortune to have had his House of Delegates campaign managed by a pedophile, Robin Vanderwall, who is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence for attempting to lure a little boy to a park for sex. McDonnell has based a significant portion of his campaign on his ability to stop these child predators, so one would think he’d start by looking at his own campaign staff. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just chalk this up to an unfortunate oversight on the part of our intrepid crime fighter.
Unfortunately for McDonnell, he’s batting .000 with Mr. Vanderwall. It seems that this gentlemen isn’t just interested in having sex with children, but also laundering money for indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
It seems that Abramoff was hired by a gambling business to persuade rather a large number of conservative Republicans to vote against a bill that would prohibit internet gambling, Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999. He had the business — eLottery — write a check to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist’s group then wrote a check to the Faith and Family Alliance, who turned around and wrote a check to Ralph Reed’s Century Strategies. In the Washington Post, Susan Schmidt and James Grimaldi described the transaction as follows:
According to the e-mails, Reed provided the name and address where Norquist was supposed to send the money: to Robin Vanderwall at a location in Virginia Beach.
Vanderwall was director of the Faith and Family Alliance, a political advocacy group that was founded by two of Reed’s colleagues and then turned over to Vanderwall, Vanderwall said and records show.
Vanderwall, a former Regent University Law School student and Republican operative, was later convicted of soliciting sex with minors via the Internet and is serving a seven-year term in Virginia state prison.
In a telephone interview, Vanderwall said that in July 2000 he was called by Reed’s firm, Century Strategies, alerting him that he would be receiving a package. When it came, it contained a check payable to Vanderwall’s group for $150,000 from Americans for Tax Reform, signed by Norquist. Vanderwall said he followed the instructions from Reed’s firm — depositing the money and then writing a check to Reed’s firm for an identical amount.
“I was operating as a shell,” Vanderwall said, adding that he was never told how the money was spent. He said: “I regret having had anything to do with it.”
Perhaps Vanderwall didn’t know that he was laundering money, perhaps his relationship with Reed was limited to this one interaction, and perhaps he really is regretful. Or perhaps he’s a convicted child molester.
When the story was just that McDonnell employed a guy who turned out to be a pedophile, the simplest explanation would have been that he’d hired some schlub to be his campaign manager — reasonable, on a House of Delegates level — after which they parted company, and, hey, it turns out Vanderwall likes little boys. But the discovery that Vanderwall was the head of the Faith and Family Alliance shows that he’s no low-level campaign monkey. Let’s look deeper, though.
The Faith and Family Alliance was a 527, established as a supposed non-partisan, tax-exempt organization. It was created by Tim Phillips. Phillips was the vice president of Ralph Reed’s Century Strategies. The official incorporator of the Faith and Family Alliance was James Bopp. Bopp was the attorney for Grover Norquist’s Americans Taxpayers Alliance. After the group was established, it was handed over to Robin Vanderwall, who was selected to operate it. Vanderwall’s implication that he was just a patsy starts to crumble when it become clear that his organization was an arm of both the organization from which it received the money, and the organization to which it delivered the money.
But wait, there’s more.
The Faith and Family Alliance got nailed for a dirty mailer in June of 2000. Now-Representative Eric Cantor was up against VA Sen. Stephen Martin for the Republican nomination in Central Virginia’s 7th congressional district (where I live, only I’ve since been redistricted into the the 5th). Republican Rep. Tom Bliley had retired, leaving Cantor and Martin to fight it out for his seat. Sen. Martin’s prospects didn’t look good, so he hired Tim Phillips (of Ralph Reed’s Century Strategies), who had the Faith and Family Alliance attack Cantor. Vanderwall sent out an attack mailer four days before the June 12 primary, accusing Cantor of being a a “millionaire lawyer” who “didn’t pay his own [taxes]. He got caught. He got fined. And he finally was forced to pay $31,527.17 in back taxes.”
The Daily Progress looked into the mailing, and Vanderwall would only say that it cost $15,000, went to 40,000 voters, and was paid for by an anonymous donor. He described himself as Tim Phillips’ friend, pointing out that they’d worked on campaigns together in the past. Phillips, on the other hand, claimed to have nothing to do with the attack mailing. The attacked candidate, by the way, went on to eke out a win, by 263 votes.
A curious thing emerges in the story of Robin Vanderwall. The recurring cast of characters are all Virginia Republicans. The gambling bill was introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte. The attack was on Rep. Eric Cantor. The attack was paid for by Stephen Martin. Vanderwall had worked for Del. Bob McDonnell immediately prior to his role in the Cantor attack and the DeLay/Abramoff money laundering.
Now, it’s not clear to me exactly when Vanderwall took over the reins of this organization, but given that attack mailer went out in June of 2000 it would have been, at the latest, just a few months after he ended his employment with Del. Bob McDonnell. So there are not years that separate McDonnell from Vanderwall — it’s months at most, perhaps mere days. Although it’s possible that Vanderwall had a rapid ascension in power, going from a nobody working on a HoD race to a major cog in the Republican power machine in a matter of a few weeks or months, it strikes me as vanishingly unlikely.
It’s also very clear that Vanderwall was a part of a powerful network of front organization created by the most famous, and most corrupt, of Republican leaders: Rep. Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, and Jack Abramoff. His working for McDonnell seems, if anything, like a curious exception to the rest of his career as a top man in the Republican network.
Let’s add something new into the mix. As Bob Gibson wrote in the Daily Progress two days ago, McDonnell refuses to disclose the source of nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions, money that was funneled into his campaign by first passing it through a 527, Republican State Leadership Committee — the same legal entity used in the whole DeLay/Abramoff/Vanderwall/Reed money-laundering scheme.
I’m left with more questions than answers. What was Vanderwall doing working for a small fish like McDonnell? Was McDonnell utterly unaware of the power and influence wielded by the man that he hired to manage his campaign? Or did McDonnell hire Vanderwall precisely because of Vanderwall’s connections? Is it possible that McDonnell was not aware that Vanderwall’s organization was nothing more than a front, used to launder money? Did McDonnell ever benefit from Vanderwall’s connections? Is McDonnell’s money coming to him via the same money-laundering scheme used by Vanderwall and his allies in order to fund other candidates?
I can’t answer these questions. But I do know that this looks extremely bad for Del. McDonnell. After all, his former campaign manager has been caught laundering money in the precise manner by which he’s now received a half million dollars for his campaign for not just any office, but attorney general.
Looks to me like Del. McDonnell has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But it’ll require smarter people than I to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.
Looks like you put a lot of work into this post. If it’s accurate, it’s bad stuff.
One sentence bothered me and I read it over and over and over: “Perhaps Vanderwall didn’t know that he was laundering money, perhaps his relationship with Reed was limited to this one interaction, and perhaps he really is regretful. Or perhaps he’s a convicted child molester.” That sentence makes no logical sense. Could you explain what you were trying to say? I’m not trying to make a point or anything, I’m just honestly confused as to what you are trying to say.
Hans — I think the point Waldo’s making is that, bein’ as how the man is a child molester, let’s not give him the benefit of the doubt regarding suspicious money-laundering activities. He’s obviously not a man of sterling character.
I’m sorry about that obfuscated line, Hans — Duke is right regarding the implications of it. I was torn — should I be clearer, or clever? Once again, I chose cleverness over meaning. Story of my life. :)
Thank you. Finally, a Dem/liberal who can give it to the GOP as hard as they dish it. Great work, Waldo. Keep digging and connecting.
— Conaway
Waldo, you rock!!!
Remarkable stuff! The vast Republican money-laundering machine may begin to come apart, but there are so many pieces… It’s hard even for political junkies like me to to take in, so I worry about voters in general getting lost. And when that happens, they tend to take the line of “they all do it”.
We need a vivid image of the big picture. (‘Vast money-laundering machine ‘ is probably not it…)
Oh my good lord! this is like opening that one present on Fitzmas eve!
it’s the hap-happiest season of alll
sing with me!
No doubt about it — this Vanderwall dude is one serious schmuck, assuming your facts are straight.
And his tie-in to Bob McDonnell is that he ran his HoD race 5 years ago, right? (which, according to my calculations, was before everything you’ve blogged about).
Was there something else that you forgot to add?
You’ve really got to start reading my blog entries before you comment on them. This is tiresome.
I.Publius, unfortunately, is the ultimate apologist for any and all Republican misdeeds, no matter how heinous. But I guarantee you that if the Democrats were ever caught in one-hundredth of the corruption exhibited by McDonnell, DeLay, Kilgore et al, “I.Publius” and his pals would be calling for them to be drawn and quartered at high noon the next day. Total hypocrites. And what does this have to with “conservatism,” by the way, except for blind obedience to the Republican Party, no matter how corrupt?
By the way, don’t you love how people like “I. Publius” love to mouth off, but never reveal their true idenities. “Aononymity is the last refuge of the scoundrel?”
Well, since I don’t fit that definition, I’ll “mouth off”.
If one of my employees works for me for a while and then quits or I fire him, then goes on to, later, molest some kids, launder some money, run some drugs, murder some people, etc, I am in no way responsible. It’s really quite simple.
Hans,
Legally, as a private citizen, you are absolutely right. However, if you are running for Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, then it’s a different story. Especially if you are a member of a political party which has, of late, been frequently compared to organized crime and has the indictments, dead bodies and assorted federal investigations to go along with it. The people who a candidate chooses to professionally associate himself with have become EXTREMELY important. I do believe that there are still honest Republicans around who despise and reject the entire Abramoff organized crime network. But McDonnell no longer passes the sniff test.
Not only do I agree with Jack, Hans (that McDonnell seems to have an unusually strong association with known criminals, particularly for an AG candidate), but I think there are two additional points.
The first is that the big question here isn’t what the deal is with Vanderwall, but where is McDonnell’s mystery $465,000 coming from? We can see that there’s a path by which money has been laundered into and through Virginia before, and it was via the exact same mechanism be used by McDonnell for this half-million dollars. And that laundering was done by his former campaign manager. Surely you’ll agree that this is a remarkable coincidence that warrants further exploration.
The second is that we don’t know what the overlap is here. When did Vanderwall begin his relationship with the Faith and Family Alliance? When did he begin his employment with the Faith and Family Alliance? When did he begin his employment with McDonnell? When did he end his employment with McDonnell? The more time that elapsed between the two, the less likely that a connection is. If, for example, Vanderwall lost his job as McDonnell’s campaign manager in July of 1999 and didn’t meet or in any way associate with any of the other characters in this scheme until, say, June of 2000, that makes it a great deal less likely that McDonnell is implicated in this. OTOH, if there was an overlap or an extremely close abutment, McDonnell has a great deal of explaining to do.
It’s absolutely no different. Both relationships are that of employer and employee.
Joe Sixpack’s wife turns out to be a hooker, his best friend her pimp, his brother a hit man, and his children coke dealers, that’s nothing more than sad. But if Joe Sixpack is, in fact, a candidate for public office, that speaks to his judgment, his understanding of the world, and his ability to manage those around him. In fact, there’s no way that Mr. Sixpack is going to be elected, and he probably shouldn’t be.
wife != employee
Why don’t you ask your wife if she thinks that it would be a good idea if you knew your employee(s) as well as you know her?
*sigh*
Joe Sixpack’s business partner turns out to be a hooker, his CFO her pimp, his secretary a hit man, and his board members coke dealers, that’s nothing more than sad. But if Joe Sixpack is, in fact, a candidate for public office, that speaks to his judgment, his understanding of the world, and his ability to manage those around him. In fact, there’s no way that Mr. Sixpack is going to be elected, and he probably shouldn’t be.
Waldo — You are just too funny …. and patient. Ahhhh…*big sigh* … You’ve done some great reporting on this. Impressive. Powerful!
Just realized what you’re doing… and I understand. It’s cool. After all, it’s a knife fight, right? Only way you can win is to play dirty and make shit up.
No worries.
Yeah, that’s right — I made all this up.
Keep telling yourself that.
Damn, Waldo, you made all this up?!? Wow, you are SO creative I can’t believe it. Congratulations. Maybe you could be a successful fiction writer, and I.Publius would buy your books!
While amusing, let’s not attack people’s names, self-aggrandizing pseudonyms though they may be.
Who said anything about all? It’s enough that you’re playing the dishonest soundbite, ludicrous spin, tortured logic game. But like I said — that’s ok. You set the stage a couple weeks ago, and now you’re taking your own advice. More power to ya.
To: Waldo
Re: I.Publius
Puer est stultissimus omnium!
To: I.Publius
Re: Adolescent comments cum tantrums
Non Gradus Anus Rodentum!
Braccae tuae aperiuntur.
Wow – pass the kool-aid – so i can have another snort. This must be some of that new math they’re always talking about in school these days. You’ve completely gone off the deep end this time my friend. Nothing beats basing your entire argument on innuendo, unrelated facts, and half truths.
Posts like this one are what make blogs a) so entertaining; and b) not respected as accurate.