Roy Blunt - Ethically Challenged

It will be interesting to see if the mainstream media will ever reveal what so many people in Washington, D. C. already know about Roy Blunt's trail of ethical missteps during his climb to Majority Whip and interim Majority Leader. Here are a few questionable activities that the good folks here in God's Country probably don't want to hear about:

*Blunt divorced Roseanne Blunt, his wife of 31 years, in 2003 to marry Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist with Philip Morris tobacco, now owned by Altria.

*Altria is the largest single contributor to Blunt's Political Action Committee (PAC), Rely on Your Beliefs (ROYB), giving some $270,000 to his personal PAC.

*Just hours after taking the role of Majority Whip (Blunt was hand-picked by his mentor, slimeball Majority Leader Tom DeLay), and before anyone knew of his association with Ms. Perlman, Blunt attempted to secretly insert a last-minute provision to Homeland Security legislation that would have benefited Philip Morris at the expense of their competitors. Exactly how this was to further protect the homeland has yet to be explained. An aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert discovered the stealth insertion and Hastert immediately had it deleted from the bill. Blunt's bold move to aid a big campaign contributor without notifying House leadership surprised many in Washington, but little was said in the media.

*Altria also contributed $24,000 to Matt Blunt's gubernatorial campaign.

*Blunt's younger son, Andrew, landed a sweet lobbyist position with Altria in Missouri just a few years out of college. He is also a lobbyist for UPS in Missouri. Both UPS and Altria are major contributors to ROYB.

*In April, Blunt successfully inserted, once again without debate or Congressional review, a provision to a Senate bill that benefited UPS and FedEx shipping companies. The bill blocked expansion of a foreign shipping competitor. UPS and FedEx have contributed a combined $120,000 to Blunt since 2001.

*Blunt is the largest single contributor ($20,000) to the legal defense fund of Jack Abramoff's good buddy, Tom DeLay.

*Jack Abramoff's phony U. S. Family Network received $500,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which was later fined $280,000 for this under-the-table transaction. Blunt's future wife, Abigail Perlman, was the finance director for NRCC at the time.

*Blunt's ROYB fund operated out of the same townhouse suite with Abramoff's U. S. Family Network and, for a time, was run by Tom DeLay's buddy, Jim Ellis, who now faces indictment.

Oh what a tangled web this is . . . and our boy Roy seems to be right in the thick of it all. It's no wonder that he's been listed as one of the thirteen most corrupt members of Congress by Beyond DeLay.