Murtha-backed charity involved in questionable activities
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Charity for the disabled spending donations on voter registration
When Carmen Scialabba, the longtime aide to controversial U.S. Representative Jack Murtha, D-PA, was quizzed about his role with the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals with Disabilities (PAID), he snapped at the Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman that "everyone's trying to make this a political thing, and it makes me very mad.”
But a review by the Majority Accountability Project (majorityap.com) of records PAID is required to file with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) suggests much of the group’s activities are in fact political, and they could very well directly benefit Murtha.
Read on . . .
The controversial charity, ostensibly formed to aid disabled individuals find employment, has come under increased scrutiny since it was reported by the Post in December, 2006, that “PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha's defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha.”
PAID “is a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the employment needs of individuals with disabilities through unique programming, education, and partnership opportunities with business and industry,” according to the group’s website.
GuideStar, an organization that tracks charitable organizations, reported the group’s accomplishments were “construct(ing) a new Website to accommodate diverse client needs in conducting a search for employment,” and “recruit(ing) new employer partners committed to interviewing and hiring individuals with disabilities.”
But neither PAID, GuideStar, nor any other organization tracking charitable organizations has reported on what appears to be major part of PAID’s mission: voter registration.
As a tax-exempt charitable organization, PAID is required to file an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990, “which provides the public with financial information about a given organization, and is often the only source of such information. It is also used by government agencies to prevent organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status.”
PAID’s tax documents report the organization spent a total of $600,138 between 2003 and 2005 for “training and securing employment for disabled individuals,” as well as “assisting disabled individuals with voter registration.”
Because of the nature of the IRS forms, it’s impossible to determine how much of the $600,138 " $104,353 in 2003, $228,249 in 2004, and $267,536 in 2005 " was spent on job training versus voter registration. The group’s 2006 forms reportedly indicate a similar spending pattern.
According to a report in Roll Call earlier this week, PAID has had questionable success as a job training and placement organization. Disability advocates in Pennsylvania told the paper they had never heard of PAID.
“Since its creation, PAID claims to have helped 237 people with disabilities obtain permanent jobs,” they reported. “But the organization has never been mentioned in a local newspaper and it does not appear to have ever been awarded any of the myriad citations given by agencies that employ people with disabilities.”
PAID’s inability to demonstrate success in its core mission make the expenditures on voter registration - an activity the group never publicly promoted - all the more suspicious.
The IRS allows charitable organizations to participate in voter registration activities only “if they are carried out in a non-partisan manner.” Since PAID did not publicly disclose or publicize its voter registration program, it is unclear whether they did so in a “non-partisan manner.”
PAID’s website claims their activities are limited to an eight-county area in Pennsylvania, five of which are represented by Murtha. That would make Murtha the single largest benefactor of any voter registration effort.
For this story and more, visit the Majority Accountability Project at www.majorityap.com
John Murtha-The Prince of Pork?
Pennsylvania Congressman, John Murtha has spent over 20 years in Congress, following a military career in which he was a combat veteran. Unlike his military record, Murtha's congressional record is steeped in controversy. In the past year or so, he has incurred the wrath of the Bush Administration and its supporters with his strident opposition to the Iraq War, even making comments that seemed to condemn the conduct of the troops fighting in that country. Of course, Murtha's military record gives him some creds when it comes to speaking out against any war, and his military experience must be respected.
Aside from his war opposition, however, Murtha's political record over time has left him wide open to criticism. Specifically, there are two areas in which the Congressman from Johnstown, Pa. is most vulnerable-his role in the Abscam bribery scandal in the early 1980s and his record of bringing in the pork for his home district of Johnstown. Were it not for Senator Robert Byrd of WVa, for whom half of all concrete structures in that state are seemingly named after, Murtha would probably be known as the "King of Pork". With proper deference to Senator Byrd, however, Murtha must be content to be "Prince of Pork".
During the early 1980s, the FBI launched "Operation Abscam", in which an undercover agent, posing as an Arab sheikh, met with several members of Congress and paid them bribes , obstensibly to affect public policy. Several Washington politicians were subsequently prosecuted and sent to prison for accepting such bribes. In this scandal, Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator. The facts are that Murtha also met with the undercover agent and was offered a $50,000 bribe. The meeting was videotaped. What saved Murtha from prosecution is the fact that he refused the bribe. What remains troubling, however, is the fact that Murtha-again on tape-was recorded stating that he "was not interested-at this time" The congressman went on to tell the undercover agent that perhaps he would be interested later on, after they had had more dealings together. (I am paraphrasing).
To anyone who has ever engaged in these kinds of negotiations (as I have as an undercover DEA agent in my first career) that kind of language is typical among 2 crooks who are dealing with each other for the first time. For example, in a large drug deal, the buyer would usually be reluctant to "front" the money (pay in advance) for drugs for fear of being cheated-meaning the drugs would never be delivered. A buyer would often decline this demand with the proviso that fronting the money might be a future possibility once a couple of deals were completed and mutual trust was established. Is this what Murtha meant? Was he merely being cautious, fearing he might be talking with an undercover agent? I don't know, but I can make my own inferences, especially after having seen the videotape, which I have.
Murtha's involvement in pork barrel politics is also something that I observed during my DEA career, at least from a distance. In 1990, the Congressman was responsible for the establishment of the National Drug Intelligence Center in---Johnstown, Pa. The purpose of this center was to have a centralized center staffed by various Federal Law Enforcement agencies involved in narcotics suppression-a place where intelligence could be received, coordinated and disseminated. Good idea, right? The only problem was that such a center already existed in El Paso, Tx-The El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC). It would seem that this was a clear duplication of effort. Yet, since the White House went along with the idea, it became a reality. Agencies like the DEA, who already had people at EPIC, now had to assign agents to Johnstown as well. To this day, both entities remain. In fact, the Johnstown facility has just recently been involved in an earmark controversy in Congress, with Murtha right in the middle of the infighting. Other examples of pork which Murtha has brought home to Johnstown abound. Not surprisingly, he has been rewarded with one reelection after another by his grateful constituents.
Many feel that this ancient history ought not to be forgotten since there are many-especially young people- who look to Murtha as a hero for his opposition to the war and may have no idea of the congressman's past history. As principled as his opposition to the war may well indeed be, there is another side to this man that is open to question.
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk