| Pete Session has some serious explaining to do.
According to a Politico and Washington Monthly article, Session earmarked $1.6 million to a company he may or may not have questionable ties to.
[Sessions] steered a $1.6 million earmark for dirigible research to an Illinois company whose president acknowledges having no experience in government contracting, let alone in building blimps.
What the company did have: the help of Adrian Plesha, a former Sessions aide with a criminal record who has made more than $446,000 lobbying on its behalf.
Sessions has referred to earmarks in the past with unquestioning and unequivocal opposition. Saying earmarks are "a symbol of a broken Washington to the American people."
Of course, Pete Sessions staff member and spokeswoman Emily Davis defended the project before looking at a map. According to Politico, Davis said the airship project is a worthwhile use of federal funds and says it could eventually lead to thousands of new jobs in Sessions's Dallas-area district.
As mentioned above, the company is based in Illinois with a branch office in San Antonio.
Washington Monthly sums up the bizarre situation:
While lawmakers routinely support earmarks for their home district and/or state, this particular measure has nothing to do with Sessions' Dallas-area district. The company, Jim G. Ferguson & Associates, is based in a Chicago suburb. It has an office in Texas, but it's 300 miles from Sessions' district.
What's more, when Sessions submitted the earmark, he used a Dallas address for the company, but it was actually the address of a friend of one of the company's executives.
It looks a little suspicious. The leaders of Jim G. Ferguson & Associates admit they have no background in aviation or defense, and no expertise in engineering or research. It's why it seems odd that Sessions would direct $1.6 million to the company, most of which would go towards research and engineering on a dirigible project.
We use words like hypocrisy on this site a lot to sum up the Republican Party in Texas, but this extends well beyond a complex idea like hypocrisy. This seems, at the very worst, corrupt and at the very best, unethical.
Sessions is the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman (NRCC). He is in charge of both representing and electing Republicans to Congress. |
