Jim Moran Has Some Questions To Answer

Everyone who follows Jim Moran has seen the stories- too numerous to list over the years- of his close relationship with Congressman John Murtha (now deceased) and the controversy around them and other members of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in Congress.  For those of you who don't know all the background to this, I would suggest two articles from the Center for Public Integrity here and here that will catch you up. 

The gist of the controversy is what appears to be a direct pay-to-play relationship between lobbyists and members of this subcommittee.

Late in 2008 the appeared conflicts suddenly became more serious when the FBI raided the offices of the PMA group.  The head of PMA was a lobbyist by the name of Paul Magliocchetti, and one of the top staffers was former Moran Chief of Staff Melissa Koloszar. 

Who is the PMA group, and what do they have with Moran you might ask?

Paul Magliocchetti was a longtime donor and friend of Congressman Moran before his arrest.  His first donation to Moran came on May 2nd, 1994 for $250 and then another contribution was made on July, 29th for $1,000 that year.  Nothing eye catching or out of the ordinary there, and Magliocchetti didn't donate to Moran in the 1995/1996 cycle at all.

By the 1997/1998 cycle when PMA's business was picking up, Magliocchetti and the PMA group started becoming much more generous to Moran.  On December 31st, 1997, Paul donated $500, and his wife Nancy donated $500 on the same day to Moran.  On March 31st, 1998, Paul and Nancy both donated another $500 each to Moran- and then did another $500 each later on the same day.  PMA's PAC chipped in $2,000 and other PMA employees combined to give Moran $3,750- making a total of $8,750 donated to Moran for the 1998 cycle.  That made PMA the 6th largest donor to Moran in this cycle.

By 1999/2000 cycle, PMA was seriously stepping up its support for Moran.  Paul and Nancy both contributed on March 31st, 1999- this time for $1,000 each.  On April 4th, 2000 they were back with checks from both for another $1,000 each, but with a third check for $1,000 also attached from Mark Magliocchetti- their son.  The PMA PAC chipped in another $2,000 while other PMA employees chipped in another $7,500 between them- for a total of $14,500 for the cycle.  This moved PMA up from #6 to #2 in terms of funding Moran's campaign from the 97/98 cycle.

PMA continued to step things up in their support of Moran in the 2001/2002 cycle.  Paul, Nancy and Mark all chipped in $1,000 each on May 26th, 2001, with Mark and his wife Leslie chipping in another $1,000 each on June 6th, 2002.  The PMA PAC gave another $2,000 and employees combined for another $9,750 to Moran for a total of $16,750 for this cycle from PMA.  While this was their highest output to Moran to date, PMA fell from 2nd to 3rd in total funding to Moran this cycle because of another group moving up past them.

The 2003/2004 cycle was Moran's toughest to date because of the emergence of primary challenger Andy Rosenberg.  It was time for Moran's friends to step up, and PMA certainly did.  Paul, Nancy, Mark and Leslie each gave $1,000 to Moran on March 31st, 2003.  Mark was back with two more checks for $1,000 on June 4th, 2003. Paul and Nancy gave $1,000 each on June 20th, 2003 and then later in the day both wrote another check for $1,000 to Moran.  Two days after Moran was renominated in 2004 on June 10th, Mark wrote another check for $1,000 and Leslie wrote one for $2,000.  Once again the PAC chipped in $2,000 during this cycle and other PMA employees chipped in another $15,750.  That made the total for PMA this cycle at $30,750- back to #2 in overall donors to Moran and almost a doubling of output from the previous high contributions in one cycle to Moran.

Continuing into the 2005/2006 federal cycle many long time incumbent Democrats began to see an uptick in their fundraising with lobbyists seeing a potential Democratic takeover in the 2006 election.  PMA joined that trend in their support of Congressman Moran.  Paul, Mark and Leslie each contributed $2,000 on June 16th, 2005 to Moran.  On May 30th, 2006 Paul donated another $2,000 and soon after on June 6th, 2006 Jennifer, Mark and Leslie each contributed another $2,000. During this cycle the PMA PAC once again chipped in an additional $2,000- but the employees of PMA seriously upped their donations to Moran, chipping in another $34,500 themselves.  That brought PMA's total for this cycle to $50,500- making them Moran's #1 overall donor.

Finally, PMA continued to step up in the 2007/2008 cycle for Moran.  On June 8th, 2009 Paul donated $2,000, while Mark and Leslie donated $1,000 each.  On June 10th, 2010 Mark donated $1,000, Leslie donated $500 followed by Paul donating another $1,000 on June 16th, 2008.  This time the PMA PAC threw in another $10,000 and employees at the firm contributed another $31,500 for a total of $47,500.  This once again made PMA the #1 donor for Moran. 

Interestingly, after making very few political contributions to candidates in Virginia races- PMA suddenly became interested in the Governor's race in Virginia in 2009.  PMA supported a little-known dark-horse in the race, by the name of Brian Moran- donating over $92,000 in contributions from the corporation, PAC and individuals at the firm during 2008.  That put them PMA at $140,000 in total contributions to the Moran family during this time period.

But alas, all good things come to an end.  In November of 2008 the PMA Group was raided by the FBI.

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In order to understand what happens next, we need to go back in time again.  Back to 2000 when Moran was a few years into his second Chief of Staff Paul Reagan.  Nowadays Paul is the Chief of Staff to Senator Jim Webb.  Paul decided to go outside the office to hire Melissa Koloszar to be Moran's Legislative Director.  A little more than a year later Mark Warner was elected Governor of Virginia and Paul went to Richmond to work for Mark opening up Jim's Chief of Staff position for only the second time in the decade since Jim was first elected.  Melissa was promoted into the position that January as Paul left for Richmond.

As you can see on Legistorm, once Melissa became Chief of Staff she was moved off of Moran's office payroll and onto the House Appropriations Committee payroll.  This is a frequent occurrence on the Hill for members of the Appropriations Committee who all get extra staff members to help with that committee work.  Many of those members choose to pay their Chief of Staffs through the Committee since the committee salary is large and most Appropriations Committee members want senior staff handling that work.  After spending three years in that position helping Jim prepare his earmarks for defense contractors , Melissa found "greener" pastures and headed out to be the Vice President of a lobbying shop by the name of PMA.

I've interviewed a number of people familiar with legislative staff that moves into the lobbying industry with experience in the range of Melissa's.  With the exception of some very special cases (for example a close aide to the Speaker, Majority Leader or other very senior legislative leader), a staffer moving into the lobbying industry can expect to get a pay boost of no more than double what they are getting on the Hill.  In most cases, someone like Melissa who was making about $120,000 a year when she left the Hill is going to start in the $150,000-$175,000 range on K Street.  Let me explain why this is important.

After she left the Hill, having donated virtually nothing in politics as a Chief of Staff, Melissa suddenly donated $38,565 in the 2006 cycle.  Let's assume for a minute that Melissa started on the high end for salary after leaving the Hill and was making $175,000 right away.  After taxes she might have taken home $80,000 of her $120,000 salary on the Hill- and after taxes, she probably took home about $115,000 of her $175,000 salary as a lobbyist.  That means her take home pay that she could spend on anything she wanted probably only increased about $35,000 a year during this time period.  Yet Melissa found $38,565 to suddenly donate to federal campaigns this cycle.

Why do we care what Melissa's take home pay was?  Following the FBI raid of the PMA group, the charges brought against Paul Magliocchetti were that he illegally reimbursed family and employees of the PMA group in order to make political donations.  In federal campaigns reimbursements are illegal because of the donor limits- obviously there would be no reason to limit the amount of money any donor could give if they could reimburse others to continue donating.  

Those charges are why I noted the dates and amounts of the donations from Magliocchetti and his immediate family above.  So when Melissa made her first contribution to Moran after leaving his office and joining PMA, what was it?

$2,000 on June 6th, 2006- the same day and same amount that Magliocchetti's family was all donating to Moran.  In fact- almost all of Melissa's largest donations to candidates were matching information with the Magliocchetti family.

With just a little pressure and one federal charge against him, Mark Magliocchetti squealed on his father in August of this year- admitting his contributions had been made illegally. 

With the already clear evidence mounting Paul Magliocchetti pleaded guilty to the charges against him last Friday.  As Politico reported "Magliocchetti admitted to using his in-laws and children to funnel donations to lawmakers beginning in 2003. In 2005, he began using employees of his lobbying firm to move campaign cash to members of Congress." 

If you read this far already you are probably thinking "that was obvious".  But what about Melissa?

The feds decided not to charge the people making these illegal contributions with the exception of Magliochetti's son who they charged with one count in order to get him to testify against his father.  I'm assuming this was a resource decision made at the Department of Justice as they would have had to charge almost 20 family members and associates.

So Melissa, who we can assume from the plea agreement participated in a scheme with her employer to funnel illegal contributions to her former boss Congressman Moran (among others) gets to go free and avoids any jail time.

So what is she up to now?  Maybe a well deserved second career after this one turned out so badly?  Nope.  After the raid of the PMA Group Melissa formed her own lobbying group that included clients that PMA had been handling- and is continuing to seek and receive federal earmarks for her clients from Congressman Moran!  Repeat- she is continuing to do the exact same thing for the exact same clients- under a new firm she created!

Last week, I called Melissa for comment on this- and she hung up the phone on me.  Apparently transparency isn't her thing.

In part two of this series, I'll be going through all these earmarks that PMA or Melissa's new firm (MKG Consulting) have sought or received since she left Congressman Moran's office. 

Meanwhile, what about the over $200,000 in contributions that Congressman Moran received from the PMA Group?  What happened to those?  Here's the statement the campaign released in it's entirety after Paul plead guilty last week:

"Any donations that are determined by the court to have been contributed improperly will be promptly donated to charity."

Here's the problem with that.  The court isn't going through all the contributions that were made to determine which ones were legal and which ones were not- Paul plead guilty.  So instead of donating the entire sum of PMA contributions- many of which were donated on the same days for the same amount of money, and can clearly be inferred to be string donations- Moran is only promising to donate the money that the court specifically finds to be illegal- even though that isn't what the court is looking into!  All while the office continues to deal with clients that are represented by their former Chief of Staff who has clearly participated in an illegal donation scheme!

Jim Moran has a lot of questions to answer about what happened here. He has questions to answer about what happened in the years before the raid- but he also has questions to answer about what he is doing right now with his campaign coffers still having hundreds of thousands of dollars from the PMA Group in them- and continuing to secure earmarks for Melissa Koloszar's clients.

I asked Congressman Moran's office twice last week for an opportunity to interview him about this.  Both times his current Chief of Staff Austin Durrer responded to other questions in the email and ignored my request for an interview.  Do they really think that's going to work? 

More coming in part two.

Comments

[Not Hussein (formerly Not Ben)]

Interesting story, although I think any former chief of staff from a senior defense appropriator is going to command a bare minimum of the top end of the salary range you noted as a lobbyist, and with that salary will come an unspoken expectation that the new lobbyist be very generous with their political contributions. That doesn't bolster or harm your story, but I'd be cautious in suggesting that the amount of contributions that Ms. Koloszar made necessarily proves anything.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Sure- I think the guilty plea from Paul that says he did this through staff also proves a lot more than just the contribution amounts.

[Spock]

I don't care, he is better than some crazy right wing t-bagger who is going to pay to play for the Koch brothers.

[What about the campaign money?]

NLS, you left out an important fact. Moran hired his daughter to manage his campaign this year. She has no expeirence doing so, but by hiring her Moran is able to give his daughter the money he illegally raised from PMA. Between Magliochetti using his family to give the illegal money to Moran paying his family with it, this feels more like a mob story than a Congressman.

[Valley Indie]

What is a candidate's duty to investigate and authenticate campaign donations?

[Not Anonymous]

TOO LONG DID NOT READ

[NotJohnSMosby]

Ben,

If you haven't figured it out by now, most Dems in the state 1) don't like you and 2) consider this site to be a gossip column and your personal grudge list more than anything else.

Your chances of actually getting an interview to ask your questions is about zero.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Even if this is a tl;dr, it's a great post. This is good reporting and it's something Moran needs to answer for.

What I find frustrating is that even with this clear evidence of wrongdoing and some kind of odd-dealing with Moran, the voters in the 8th District aren't going to care and they're going to reelect him, even in this potential wave year for Republicans.

This is what happens when you have congressional districts that are non-competitive. You get things like this.

Great work, Ben.

[Tom]

I want to take this opportunity to throw a complement/suggestion your way. First of all, I agree with you on a scant few issues. I do however, hold your abilities as an investigative journalist/ analyst in very high regard. I really enjoy reading this kind of article because it showcases your ability to "unravel the sweater" so to speak.
Likewise, I hope that you stick to this type of article more in the future and avoid the "(insert name here) is disgusting" articles and the ones that begin with "Our Governor is a Cowardly Pussy." Those types of articles undermine your legitimacy as a jounralist.

[Sam]

NJM,

While I agree with you that Ben has pissed off a lot of people in the Democratic establishment over the years, and most Democrats would have good reason to ignore an interview request from him, Moran is different. While many Democrats (myself included) have turned against Moran over the years for a spate of absurdities on his part, Ben has stuck of for Moran frequently over the years. If core supporters of his, like Ben, are turning against him now, Moran has real reason to worry about a stronger primary challenge in the future. He would be well-served to respond to Ben here.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Sam- thanks for pointing out the obvious to anyone paying attention- I've never been a Moran basher, and I'm still going to vote for him next month. If they have to circle the wagons with their own supporters, they have big problems.

NJSM- is that why all three Democratic campaigns for Governor asked me to moderate a nationally televised debate for them last year? It's easy to throw lies like that out there when you are anonymous.

[12]

Ben- did they decline your request for an interview or just ignore it while answering other things? From the way you wrote this it sounds like the latter. If so, Austin is incredibly immature and ought to be fired. No constituent should have a request ignored. Declining is fine, ignoring is not.

[Not Larry Sabato]

12- You read it correctly, he responded to some stuff and ignored that part.

[LeeHinAlexandria]

Moran openly lies like he did recently in Reston.

http://www.leehernly.com/?p=1277

For that matter, Al gore recently lied about Congresssman Moron's challenger - http://www.leehernly.com/?p=1302

[Glen Tomkins]

Great job straining at gnats.

How them camels taste?

[Jill Forlines]

Ben, Once again you show your excellence in what you do.

But, your readers would appreciate your thoughts on whether Congressman Moran is more sleazy than Congressman Connelly or vice-versa.

[Not This Again]

Does this mean Moran is more corrupt than Connolly? .....perhaps a topic for an NLS online poll.

[NoVA Moderate]

I'm shocked, yes, shocked that campaign contributions could be equated to legal bribes. That's Washington's open secret. Everyone knows it's the case. You can put any Congresswoman/man under the microscope and you'll see the same thing. Maybe Moran isn't too much more elegant, but look at every other Virginia federal rep - not just Virginia or Dems. They will all stink from the campaign cash conflicts between them and former staff members.

If the Dems lose the house next month, where do you think half the Democratic staff is going to end up?

[still waitin']

I'm still curious to know Ben's thoughts on the VDOT audit. Or is he still "looking into it?"

[Loudoun Insider]

This is an awesome post, Ben, looking forward to part two.

still waitin', please don't try to assert that somehow NLS is covering for Tim Kaine, he's thrown plenty of dirt at Timmy.

[YKW]

So Ben, does this mean that Brian Moran isn't going to pay you anymore? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

So let's see . . . even after Moran has done all these financial misdeeds (not the first time), beat his wife, beat up on a black kid, brawled on the floor of the House of Representatives, made worse Jew-baiting remarks than Rick Sanchez ever did, you are still supporting him? Can he also murder someone in cold blood on the street and still get your support?

[Gretchen Laskas]

At this point, I'm so cynical about our ability to control lobbyists and special interest money pouring into the coffers of both parties and our elected officials, that as thorough as this post is, it's hard to get worked up about it. (I'd say the same if it were being posted about a Republican.)

And while this doesn't change any of Ben's salient points, I'm thinking that someone who owns her own consulting firm that had ready-made clients and known connections to public officials makes more than 175K.

But again, that might be the cynicism talking.

[Chris]

Good thing we Republicans kicked the evil homo to the curb to nominate Pat Murray. I'm sure he'll exploit this on his certain ride to victory.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Brian Moran paid me? News to me. His campaign paid to advertise here as did Mark Warner's, Jim Webb's, Creigh Deeds, Steve Shannon, etc.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Gretchen- I never said she made 175K right now. Please read the post. I said she made about 175K when she left the Hill in 2005. The point of her salary is to point out what she making when she made these illegal contributions.

I'm sure she's cashed in to well above 500K or more now that she took the PMA clients after the FBI raid.

[Not Ben]

You KNOW that she made illegal contributions? Sure seems like you're ASSUMING that she did. And you're doing it based on the flimsiest of evidence.

[Not Larry Sabato]

If you read this post and the links you will see that he plead GUILTY to these string donations- and admitted that he did so through family AND STAFF. It's no longer a question what happened.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

NoVA Moderate, I disagree. For the most part that simply isn't true. The reason why this is so egregious is that it isn't the norm. In my experience, most members of Congress aren't going to be swayed on the vast majority of issues by a couple of campaign contributions.

[Not Hussein (formerly Not Ben)]

The other Not Ben should be banned. He not only stole my former moniker, he stole a really unoriginal moniker.

[YKW]

Nice dodge, Ben. But we would still be interested to know what would make you not support Jim Moran, given all his other despicable antics.