Weldon's "advocacy" nets $95,000 to campaign

McClatchy Newspapers report of Oct 27, 2006 describes in detail the campaign contributions from companies that Curt Weldon helped and that employed his daughter Kimberly.

Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon, under investigation for allegedly trading his influence to get lobbying business for one of his daughters, also has helped corporations that have hired another daughter, a friend and some of his former aides.

Federal Election Commission reports show that within months of Weldon's advocacy on their behalf, three of these firms and their executives gave more than $95,000 in political contributions to the 10-term Republican.

Most of those donations were made in 2001 and 2002 to an obscure "soft money" account that helped foot unspecified travel expenses for Weldon and his top aide, according to the FEC filings.

There's more:

It's often difficult to tell where Weldon's official business ends and his family's and friends' personal business begins:

-Weldon's younger daughter, Kimberly, worked part time in 2003 for one of her older sister's lobbying clients, a foundation run by the family of two Serbian brothers for whom Weldon tried to help obtain U.S. visas. She now works for an Italian defense company that got Weldon's help in trying to reverse a Navy decision to buy deck guns from a U.S. competitor.

-Pennsylvania real estate agent Cecilia Grimes, who says she's a longtime family friend of Weldon, became a lobbyist in 2003 and has since landed at least 10 clients, several of whom Weldon has helped.

-On May 26, 2002, the president of International Engineering & Manufacturing Ltd., which owns a 26,000-square-foot plant in Glenolden, Pa., in Weldon's district, hailed the congressman as his company's "champion," a month after the firm's parent, a Virginia lobbying group, hired Weldon's chief of staff. The two companies have been Weldon's biggest campaign donors over the last six years.

Even more:

The biggest donors over the last six years have been a small company, International Engineering & Manufacturing (IEM), and its parent, the Arlington, Va., lobbying firm of Mehl, Griffin & Bartek (MGB).

Between Dec. 31, 2001, and Oct. 16, 2002, the two firms gave $76,603 in corporate checks - unregulated "soft money" of the kind that subsequently was banned in 2003 - to a non-federal account of Weldon's political action committee. Executives of the two companies also have given Weldon $15,000 in traditional donations over the last six years.

MGB President Molly Griffin said that the first of the donations "were requested" because Weldon was running for Armed Services Committee chairman. "We believed in the candidate," she said. She didn't identify who asked for the funds.

Can you say bought and paid for?