September 24, 2003

Daschle Weasels

True to form Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) piled on:

Daschle said Cheney "needs to explain how he reconciles the claim that he has 'no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind' with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred salary payments he receives from Halliburton."

Senator Daschle needs to explain how he managed to leverage a $2 million home purchase with an annual gross income of $154,700.00?

Tom Daschle's new $2 million house on Washington's ritzy Foxhall Road. It's a great place to entertain Hollywood liberals, politicians and lobbyists."

Daschle and his wife, Linda H. Daschle, a corporate lobbyist, bought the home earlier this year.

A corporate lobbyist? Let's Google Mrs. Daschel shall we?

I'm Linda, Fly me
The real reason Tom Daschle didn’t run for president
by Doug Ireland

"Right after then-Congressman Tom Daschle dumped his first wife for a younger, prettier one, the former Miss Kansas Linda Daschle went to work as chief lobbyist for the Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s main lobby; she then became the senior vice president of the American Association of Airport Executives; and these days hangs her hat at the pricey top Washington law/lobby shop Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, headed by former GOP Senate leader and ex–Reagan chief of staff Howard Baker — where she peddles influence on behalf of a long list of lucrative aviation clients. The clients for whom Linda lobbied brought more than $5.86 million into Baker, Donelson in one three-year period, including Northwest Airlines ($870,000 from 1997 through 2001) and American Airlines ($1.26 million in fees). Northwest was already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy even before 9/11. American, which has had six fatal crashes since 1994 (not counting 9/11) and has been repeatedly fined by the FAA for a skein of safety violations, had the reputation as the most unsafe major U.S. carrier."

..."Before 9/11, Senator Daschle pushed through the sleazy deal in the backrooms of Capitol Hill that forced the FAA to buy defective baggage scanners from one of Linda’s other clients, L-3 International (from which Linda’s firm raked in $440,000 in the ’97–’01 period). Under a provision Linda’s husband had slipped into the 2000 budget for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA was required to buy one of L-3’s scanners for every one it purchased from the company’s competitors. The L-3 scanners were found to be substandard by DOT’s inspector general; FAA tests of the scanners showed high failure rates; and most have not yet been installed because of their defects (the one at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport — another of Linda’s clients — leaked radiation), which is a major reason DOT says it won’t be able to screen all luggage for explosives for years to come."

..."In one of those corporate-coddling moves for which the Clinton administration became infamous, President Bubba appointed Linda Daschle deputy administrator of the FAA, putting her in charge of regulating her once-and-future clients; and she wound up running the agency as acting administrator. This, of course, significantly boosted the Daschle family income by hyping the amount Linda could charge her clients when she left government service."

..."Linda Daschle has tried to pooh-pooh her obvious conflicts of interest as an influence peddler, telling The New York Times last August that the staff members she lobbies “are pretty junior and may or may not know who I am” — a mind-boggling, risible assertion. But her senator/leader husband has always refused to make public his and his wife’s tax returns, despite repeated press requests."

A list of Linda Daschle's clients all of whom have business and regulatory issues before Congress:

These are the companies and groups represented by Linda Daschle:
• American Airlines.
• American Association of Airport Executives.
• American Concrete Pavement Association.
• American Trucking Associations.
• Boeing.
• Centennial Airport, Englewood, Colo.
• Hopkins International Airport, Cleveland.
• L-3 Communications, makers of cockpit technology.
• Loral Space and Communications.
• Northwest Airlines.
• Schering-Plough, a pharmaceutical company.
• United Technologies, a defense contractor.

Schering-Ploug holds the parent on Claritin and sought an extension. Would Lynn Cheney receive a pass in similar circumstances? I think not.

The good senator should STFU as he couldn't recognise a conflict of interest if it were in bed with him.

Posted by feste at September 24, 2003 12:08 PM | TrackBack
Comments

i was in linda hall, her former name first wedding which took place in manhattan,ks and want know why this is never talked about......she married dan olson who was from manhattan kansas.

Posted by: mike davin at June 1, 2004 11:04 PM
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