CNN showed a clip of Senator Harry Reid from couple of days ago as he launched a pre-emptive strike on the Bush State of the Union speech scheduled for this Tuesday at 9:00pm. He called for the President to come clean.
"In his 2000 campaign, George Bush promised to bring 'dignity' to the White House, but we've since found that he brought Jack Abramoff instead," said Reid, D-Nevada. He spoke at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, in remarks previewing Democratic criticism of the presidential speech on January 31.
"President Bush needs to quit stonewalling about his White House's connection to corruption, and finally tell us how he's going to reform Washington," Reid said.
Speaking of connections to corruption, AP reported back in November that several lawmakers went to bat for Abramoff's Native American clients, whose appreciation was expressed in material ways.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002, that also was signed by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second tribe represented by Abramoff sent an additional $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004...
Congressional ethics rules require lawmakers to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in performing their official duties and accepting political money.
There must be a Democrat exemption to those Congressional ethics rules. How else would Reid be permitted to raise funds in this manner? Or maybe he's convinced that Democrats are incapable of corruption, therefore the appearance of it is logically impossible in his case.
This comes in a roundabout way from Daily Kos and A.J. Strata.
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