The Very Proactive Congressman: Curt Weldon deserves honorable mention on list of dumbest members of Congress

By Ken Silverstein

Radar Magazine has a story out on the dumbest members of Congress, and I'm relieved to see that the editors have belatedly added Congressman Curt Weldon to their list. The exclusion of the Pennsylvania congressman, who now appears to have some serious legal problems, would have cast doubt on the scientific integrity of Radar's research.

What is the evidence that Curt Weldon is a moron? Well, he launched his own hunt for WMDs in Iraq. He has suggested that he personally convinced Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to give up his nuclear program. He also claimed that a vast group of conspirators, in places ranging from the Defense Department to the 9/11 Commission, buried evidence that a secret Pentagon unit called Able Danger had identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist threat long before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And earlier this year, Weldon accused his democratic challenger, Joe Sestak, of being a carpetbagger, citing as proof the fact that Sestak's five-year-old daughter was receiving cancer treatment in Washington, D.C. rather than in Pennsylvania.

But the real proof of Weldon's mental frailty may be that he has managed to attract the attention of the FBI. That's a rare feat for a member of Congress and generally requires something as flagrant as hitting on teenagers (Mark Foley) or taking cash bribes (Duke Cunningham and, it seems, William Jefferson).

When I was at the Los Angeles Times in 2004, I co-wrote the article that led to the current FBI investigation of Weldon. I'd like to claim that the article was an astonishing feat of investigative reporting, but it would be more accurate to describe it as picking low-hanging fruit.

Consider the Weldon family's involvement with the Russian firm ITERA International (motto: “We bring warmth to people!”). In May 2002, Weldon led a congressional delegation to Moscow and toured ITERA's offices; Weldon also recommended the company as a “great source” for U.S. energy firms seeking partners for joint ventures. In early September of that year, ITERA paid for Weldon's lodging in New York so he could do an interview with Russian radio. Within a week, ITERA was hammering out details of a lobbying deal with Karen Weldon, the congressman's then-twenty-nine-year-old daughter. On September 24, Congressman Weldon co-hosted a dinner in Washington to honor ITERA's chairman. And six days later, ITERA concluded a $500,000-a-year contract with Karen Weldon's firm in exchange for “good public relations so in the future ITERA may sell goods and services to U.S. entities.”

Another one of Karen's clients is Saratov, a Russian aviation firm which sought to sell a drone it described as a “flying saucer.” A Saratov official recalled hearing from Rep. Weldon “quite unexpectedly” in early January 2003. Weldon, said the official, expressed “an acute interest” in the flying saucer. The congressman visited Saratov's plant later that month, accompanied by his daughter, and in short order the firm retained Karen Weldon's services.

After the Weldons returned from Russia, the congressman worked hard to jumpstart a saucer deal between Saratov and the Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, which is based near Washington. John Fischer, NAVAIR's director of research and engineering sciences, later credited Congressman Weldon with bringing Saratov to NAVAIR 's attention, calling him “a very proactive member of Congress.”

It's not clear what else the FBI is investigating about Weldon, but as I've detailed here, Weldon has basically been running an employment agency for family and friends. His real estate agent became a lobbyist who now represents a number of small defense firms with ties to the congressman, and Kim, another of his daughters, got a job with a company that Weldon has advocated for in Congress. One thing is for sure: the FBI would not have staged yesterday's raids if it didn't feel confident that it had compiled substantial evidence of wrongdoing.

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