The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the conference.
Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet nation, according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House. . . .
The Post reported about the trip at the time, in an article noting that three former Obama political advisers — Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plouffe — spoke at the conference, which was attended by current and former members of Congress. Politico also wrote about the trip and the Houston Chronicle reported that SOCAR had been a sponsor of the conference and raised questions about the nonprofits involved. Only one Western news organization covered the event, the Washington Diplomat, a monthly that writes about the diplomatic community in the nation’s capital.
But no information surfaced at the time about the alleged $750,000 payment from SOCAR to the nonprofits. Ethics investigators obtained a wire transfer showing that SOCAR sent the $750,000 to AFAZ. SOCAR’s legal counsel told the investigators that the money was “dues” that were “intended to be used as funding for the Convention.”
The lawmakers who took the trip were Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Ted Poe (R-Tex.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.).
Clarke is a member of the Ethics Committee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...-b4732caefe81_story.html?tid=trending_strip_1
Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet nation, according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative arm of the House. . . .
The Post reported about the trip at the time, in an article noting that three former Obama political advisers — Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plouffe — spoke at the conference, which was attended by current and former members of Congress. Politico also wrote about the trip and the Houston Chronicle reported that SOCAR had been a sponsor of the conference and raised questions about the nonprofits involved. Only one Western news organization covered the event, the Washington Diplomat, a monthly that writes about the diplomatic community in the nation’s capital.
But no information surfaced at the time about the alleged $750,000 payment from SOCAR to the nonprofits. Ethics investigators obtained a wire transfer showing that SOCAR sent the $750,000 to AFAZ. SOCAR’s legal counsel told the investigators that the money was “dues” that were “intended to be used as funding for the Convention.”
The lawmakers who took the trip were Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Ted Poe (R-Tex.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.).
Clarke is a member of the Ethics Committee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...-b4732caefe81_story.html?tid=trending_strip_1
