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Apr 21, 2007

The Ledger-Enquirer - Similarities are adding up between Doolittle, Ney

WASHINGTON - The similarities are adding up.

When Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., stepped down from his position last week on the House Appropriations Committee because of the unfolding Abramoff investigation, he added yet another ominous similarity between himself and Rep. Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who is the only member of Congress so far to have been brought down by the scandal.

Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy in October and is serving a 30-month prison sentence for accepting gambling chips, luxury travel and other benefits in exchange for taking official actions that helped GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

Doolittle has not been charged. But FBI agents raided the suburban Virginia home he shares with his wife, acting on a search warrant that can only be issued by a judge based on agents asserting there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.

Consider:

Ney's plea deal had been preceded by months of denials of wrongdoing. Like Doolittle, Ney blamed the press for distorting facts and maligning his character. Doolittle said Friday that he would fight charges if the government brought a case against him.

In November 2005, when a federal grand jury subpoenaed Ney's testimony and records in the Abramoff investigation, Ney's office declared he had done nothing wrong and that the press was attacking him.

Two months later, Ney announced that he was stepping down as chairman of the House Administration Committee.

Again came the denials of wrongdoing, and Ney's protestation of "false allegations made against me."

The claims of innocence ended in August 2006, when Ney announced he was dropping out of his campaign for re-election. He pleaded guilty two months later.

For more than a year, since news reports first started to link Doolittle to the Abramoff corruption investigation, the California Republican has asserted that he had done nothing wrong and that the media was out to destroy him.

Even after he hired Virginia criminal defense lawyer David Barger 15 months ago, Doolittle aides said the congressman was merely trying to get advice on what he could say about the Abramoff inquiry as the election season was getting under way.

Later in the summer, after Doolittle hired a second lawyer, Doolittle aides acknowledged that the congressman's attorneys had begun conversations with the Justice Department about "clearing my name." They continued to insist through the fall election there was no substance to reports that the congressman was even under investigation.

Only with the execution of the search warrant at his house, where agents were searching for information related to Julie Doolittle's consulting business, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, has a more guarded tone crept into his public statements.

By the end of the week, a Doolittle strategy was beginning to emerge. He said he would have much more to say in the coming weeks about the raid at their home, suggesting he would try to put the Justice Department on the defensive for taking computers and records his wife needed to help clients with tax problems - a kind of intimidation he said was "quite shocking" given her history of cooperation.

There also are factual similarities between the Ney case and what's known about the Doolittle investigation.

Long before Ney surprised his supporters and pleaded guilty, his former chief of staff, Neil G. Volz, admitted his part in the political corruption scheme when he worked on Capitol Hill and after he had gone to work for the disgraced lobbyist.

In a guilty plea entered in federal court, Volz detailed how, when he worked for Ney, he had accepted favors from Abramoff, arranged meetings with the congressman that were helpful to Abramoff's clients, and then, after going to work for Abramoff in 2002, dictated to Ney what Abramoff wanted said in letters or on telephone calls on behalf of clients.

Doolittle also has a former aide, Kevin Ring, who went to work for Abramoff, sought help from the congressman on behalf of clients and now is believed to be talking to federal prosecutors.

Ring abruptly resigned from his job at the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg - ironically, the same place Volz worked after the Abramoff empire collapsed - at about the same time FBI agents were raiding the Doolittle home.

Legal experts said Ring likely is following the same path as Volz, agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators in an effort to minimize the consequences for himself. Ring, like Volz was for Ney, is in a position to know what Doolittle had done for Abramoff's clients.

"What typically will occur is that if they're putting you in a vice but you have information than can bring in a bigger fish, that's your hook," said Kenneth Gross, an attorney with the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm. "It can even bring you immunity, or a lighter sentence, or no sentence at all."

But unlike Ney, who admitted receiving gambling chips and free trips in exchange for helping Abramoff, it appears that prosecutors are focusing on Julie Doolittle's company as the likely payoff for favors through payments for phantom work.

Ring is shaping up as the Volz-like conduit and connector for Doolittle, the person who did the bidding for Abramoff's clients with Doolittle and who linked the lobbyist's multimillion-dollar checkbook to Julie Doolittle and, ultimately, the Doolittles' family budget.

Ring's attorney, Richard Hibey, has refused to answer questions about the case.