The Shaker Museum and Library near Powers' Columbia County home, which was recently put up for sale at $3.25 million, received a grant from Sweeney while Powers represented the museum, according to a watchdog group and public records.
Powers' wife, Judith, is a long-time member of the museum board and both she and her husband have been strong "supporters," said David Stocks, museum president. State records show Powers lobbied for free but it is unclear if he was paid for representing the museum in Washington.
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Sweeney and Powers are longtime friends. And the then-future congressman served as the executive director of the state Republican party when Powers ran the organization. Powers put Sweeney's wife, Gaia or "Gayle," on the payroll after Sweeney got to Washington.
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Other people familiar with the investigation said federal authorities are exploring the circumstances by which Sweeney helped obtain federal funding for groups that had hired Powers' firm for lobbying.
And Liz at the Daily News adds some details of what the scene of the raid was like. Apparently, the feds even seized the BlackBerries of Powers' staff.
The agents herded members of Powers' staff into a conference room and confiscated their BlackBerries, a source said.
The agents focused on millions of dollars in earmarks Sweeney gave a number of Powers' clients, the source said.
So, we have a the longtime head of the state GOP who is now a power-player lobbyist in Albany (and who has been awfully tight with Uncle Joe Bruno for a long, long time). His long time pupil and padawan Sweeney gets elected to Congress. Powers then hires Sweeney's wife to work at his firm. Then all of a sudden a number of clients at that firm, clients who are paying quite a pretty penny for their services (The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts was paying $180K a year, folks) start getting earmarks from DC sponsored by Sweeney. Powers gets paid, Gayle and John get paid and the public funds flow. Nice work if you can get it.
But the best part? That would be that it looks pretty apparent to me that it was Sweeney's other benefactor, Jack Abramoff, who most likely tipped the feds off to this profitable little arrangement. See, Abramoff pleaded guilty over two years ago but has not yet been sentenced. He struck a deal with the feds for a reduced stint in the big house in exchange for cooperating with the rather large federal investigation of public corruption that was spawned by their investigation of Abramoff himself. Well guess what is about to happen? Abramoff is about to finally be sentenced.
You think maybe Jack threw the feds one more juicy bone before he finds out just how long he'll be cooling his jets in federal custody?
I do. |
