Illegal Earmark From Don Young (R-Alaska) Draws Criminal Inquiry

He steathily inserted an earmark into a bill after it had already been passed by Congress but before it arrived on the President's desk for his signature. Unless the president's men went through the previous version of the bill to compare it to the version of it that appeared on his desk (I have no idea if that is done; given the slapdash manner of Washington, I rather doubt it), there would be no warning that the bill he was signing differed from the actual bill passed by lawful means.

He admits, he says, to "correcting" the bill.

And what about that pork he inserted? Oh, probably something that can be explained away rather easily, like some pork for his local district that the locals wanted but makes little sense being included in a congressional spending package. That sort of pork smells like corruption, but they always get away with it, because they can claim, somewhat plausibly, non-corrupt reasons for desiring the pork. After all, his constituents wanted the spending; he's just serving his constituents.

Except that's not the sort of pork it was at all.

Young, who represents Alaska, says that this project in Florida is “entirely worthy”, but that depends on definition. Local officials didn’t want the project, and have tried three times to cancel it. Unfortunately, since the money comes from a Congressional earmark, they can’t apply the funds anywhere else. However, Young got $40,000 from developers who will benefit from the highway extension at a fundraiser hosted by these same interests. In terms of campaign donations, the fraudulent earmark has certainly proven “worthy”.

The change involved transforming the earmark from general highway projects in Florida to this specific development. It took months before Young would admit that he had changed the earmark after the passage of the bill, but he claims that it had nothing to do with the $40,000 he got from the Florida developers. Young says that he always intended on making the earmark specific to this project — but for some reason corrected it only after its passage into law.

By referring this for a criminal investigation, the Republicans have at long last finally taken some action against this guy. But only because this was so egregious their hands were forced.

I'm afraid this cocksucker is just (as far as we know) the worst of our corrupt politicians. We need jailtime, and we need a lot of it.

Whoops! Utterly unintentional brainfart. I deliberately put his affiliation -- "R" -- right in the headline, to show the MSM how it ought to be done, but I brainfarted and wrote "D" instead. As the end of the passage suggests, I knew he was a Republican.

Man is my face red.

posted by Ace at 11:33 AM

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