The group going after Tom Delay in the latest Post and New York Times articles is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit, progressive legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions.
Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics
In Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a new government watchdog group. CREW brings legal cases exposing government officials who betray the public interest by serving special interests. CREW's cases target not only such officials, but also the special interests supporting them. CREW is nonpartisan and is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.
Executive Director Melanie Sloan, Sloan was formerly an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, from 1998- early 2003.
Before becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Sloan was Minority Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 1998 where she worked for Ranking Member Congressman John Conyers, specializing in criminal enforcement issues, including the Independent Counsel law. In 1994, Ms. Sloan served as Counsel on the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, working for then Representative Charles Schumer. In 1993, Ms. Sloan served as Nominations Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under then Chairman Senator Joseph Biden, where she researched the backgrounds of nominees to high level Department of Justice positions and to the federal courts.
· According to The Hill, GOP research also revealed that Mark Penn, a formed pollster for President Clinton, and Daniel Berger, a major Democratic donor, serve on CREW’s board. Spokeswoman Naomi Seligman refused to reveal the membership of CREW’s board, although she admitted that Penn and Berger are members.
Last year, Berger made a $100,000 contribution to America Coming Together (ACT), a 527 group that was dedicated to defeating George W.Bush in the presidential election, according to politicalmoneyline.com, a Web site that tracks fund-raising. According to records released by the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, March 21, 2005, and obtained by NewsMax.com, Soros Fund Management/George Soros gave the group a whopping $7.5 million in the 2004 election cycle.
· Democracy 21, headed by longtime liberal activist Fred Wertheimer, who once headed the left-wing group Common Cause. The group's board of directors has given "tens of thousands to Democrats,” the GOP research showed. A survey by The Hill of fund-raising data on politicalmoneyline.com showed that three members of the group’s board, including Dick Clark, a former Democratic senator from Iowa, gave nearly $20,000 in contributions to Democrats since the beginning of the 2000 election cycle while Republicans received not a cent from board members, according to the survey by The Hill.
Lexa Edsall, a consultant to the group, served in the Clinton administration, and Amanda Lewis, the communications director, worked for former New York Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo, according to the GOP research.
Democracy 21’s education fund also received a $50,000 grant from Soros’ institute in 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, according to a 990 form filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The GOP research paper states that the group has received $300,000 in total from Soros' Open Society Institute.
· Joining in the lynch mob, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called for a bipartisan panel to review the chamber’s ethics procedures.
· Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill., the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a Clinton White House aide, has put together a scheme to use alleged ethics violations as an issue in races against DeLay and Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, The Hill reported last week.
Republicans told The Hill that the evidence reveals a coordinated effort between House Democrats and the liberal pressure groups to damage DeLay and the GOP leadership politically.
wow! nice work.
Gee ... And wasn't it not too long ago that we saw on C-span ... Hellary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Bob Bryd, Dick Durbin, Harry Reid and other get in bed with Moveon.org ???
Great Research kcvl!!