Noose May Finally be Tightening for the Corrupt Florida Congressman
BRAD BLOG HELPS FBI: Lists a Few More Feeney Matters They May Wish to Inquire About...
By Brad Friedman on 4/24/2007, 1:11pm PT  

Orlando Sentinel has some fresh details and Politico has some observations on the papers filed yesterday by the FBI concerning the guilty plea by Mark Zachares in the Abramoff affair, as we discussed yesterday in our item covering the FBI interview of the corrupt Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL).

In addition to what looks like trouble in the case for at least two other GOP Congressmen, it looks like Feeney is being fingered as "Representative #3" in yesterday's filing...

1) Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who went to St. Andrews in Scotland with Abramoff in August 2003, finally made the case as "Representative #3." This is not good news for Feeney, and the FBI is reportedly looking into his dealings with Abramoff, according to the St. Petesburg Times. At the direction of the House ethics committee, Feeney has already agreed to pay a fine of $5,643 for improperly reporting the trip.

That can't be seen as good news for Feeney who, we'll remind readers, is a very close friend of the Bush family, having run (unsuccessfully) as Jeb's Lieutenant Governor during his first run in Florida in '98, serving as point man in the FL House during the 2000 Election Debacle (when he promised to give the state's Electors to GWB no matter what the Supreme Court ended up deciding), and much, much more.

We'll also remind readers that the imprisoned Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) was once designated as "Representative #1" before being indicted in the Abramoff affair himself....

Orlando Sentinel adds a few details in their report on Feeney today:

Feeney deflected most questions about his dealings with federal authorities, noting that his attorneys have advised him not to go into much detail.

The former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives would not say how recently Justice officials contacted him or what they asked.

"The Justice Department is wrapping up its investigation and they want to talk to everyone who has been mentioned in a newspaper article," Feeney said.

Yes, that's it. Just talking to everyone who has been mentioned in a newspaper article. :-)

In his Sentinel blog item on the matter, reporter Scott Maxwell --- who has been asked for Feeney-related documents by the FBI --- writes today:

As for Feeney, he told us yesterday that he doesn't believe he's a target [of the FBI investigation]. I'm not sure he knows that for sure. I mean, it's pretty safe to say that I haven't been writing about any of the other people connected to the Abramoff mess. So one would assume that the FBI is at least interested enough in Feeney to want information about him and his office from people other than him.

While the Feds are "not targeting" Feeney in his connection to Abramoff as the only unindicted/unconvicted Congressman (so far) who went on the now-infamous "VIP GOP Players Tour" golf junkets to Scotland with Jack, might we also recommend the also "not" look into:

  • Feeney's efforts in covering up for his former colleague at Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI), Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, an "illegal alien" who pled guilty to espionage charges related to illegally shipping Hellfire anti-tank missile chips to Communist China, as well as;
  • Feeney's lies about his relationship with the Yangs, his long time friends and campaign supporters, as well as;
  • The lie-detector tested and Congressional testified and video-taped claims by computer programmer Clint Curtis who has alleged via sworn affidavit [PDF] that Feeney asked the company to create vote-rigging software when he was their general counsel and registered lobbyist and the Speaker of the Florida House all at the same time, along with;
  • a litany of other alleged improprieties on behalf of Feeney's very close friends the Yangs, including his alleged participation in offering Curtis $1 million to get the hell out of Tallahassee after he'd taken a job at the Florida Dept. of Transportation, where documents existed showing that YEI had over-billed on state contracts.

There's more, but we don't have time to repeat our more than two years of reporting in this one blog item. If the FBI would like to contact us, we'll be happy to point them towards where the bodies are buried (literally, in at least one case.) Otherwise, you can peruse many more details and documents for yourself on our Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/YEI Special Coverage page.

Feeney has spent more than $23k on legal expenses so far this year, according to his campaign finance disclosures, more than on any other expenditure. Does Feeney really think he'll get away with it all? Or is he just crazy?

For more info on The BRAD BLOG's continuing investigative series on
The Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney/Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal series, please see:
- A Quick Summary of the story so far.
- An Index of all the Key Articles & Evidence in the series so far.
- Curtis eventually ended up running for U.S. Congress against Feeney in 2006.
For more info, see: www.ClintCurtis.com
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Article Categories: Jack Abramoff, Tom Feeney, Clint Curtis