A House Democrat from Indiana has conducted an extensive audit of his political committees, after a lobbying firm that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaigns closed down amid a federal investigation.
Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, whose ties to the PMA Group have come under scrutiny since the FBI raided its offices in the fall, amended half a dozen reports recently filed with the Federal Election Commission in an effort to properly identify contributors. But Visclosky’s review has not answered a key question in the PMA investigation: the rationale for thousands of dollars in donations to him and other lawmakers from a golf marketing director and a sommelier at a Florida resort, each of whom was once listed as a PMA official on FEC reports.
Meanwhile, Congressman Jerry Lewis of California, who had reported no significant legal fees for nearly a year, shelled out nearly $50,000 in legal fees in the first quarter of 2009. Something’s up.
