Pallone and Pascrell highlight DPA invoices

By Matt Friedman | June 25th, 2009 - 3:50pm
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WASHINGTON – When Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie exited the congressional committee room at 1:30 this afternoon, most of the press and spectators left with him.

The subsequent  lower-profile testimonies U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) and Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), whose pending legislation regulating the way deferred prosecution agreements are assigned was the ostensible reason for today’s hearing, did not attract the same attention.  

After a panel of experts and a Justice Department official dismissed the need for their legislation in earlier testimony, the two argued for it by exhibiting two sets of invoices.  

One, a couple inches thick, was from Deborah Yang, a former U.S. Attorney from California who was hired by former U.S. Attorney Christie to monitor one of the medical implant companies accused of giving kickbacks to doctors.  It exhaustively detailed even the most minute expenditures made in the process of monitoring

The other, less than a centimeter thick, was for Ashcroft Group Consulting – a firm led by former Attorney General John Ashcroft that was also hired by Christie to monitor another medical implant company, Zimmer Holdings, LLC.  The Ashcroft invoices  contained only a bank account number to wire payment to, dates of services rendered and an amount owed – anywhere from $750,000 to $2.2 million in each one.  

“This is a ransom note, not a billing statement,” said Pascrell.  

Yang, the men argued, voluntarily disclosed what should have been required by law.  

“Without a legislative fix, basically U.S. Attorneys will continue to write their own rules, and that leads to a broad spectrum of practices – often bad practices,” said Pallone.  

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Don't Pallone and Pascrell have anything better to do

Submitted by UseSomeLogic on June 25, 2009 - 2:55pm.

Idiots!!!!

All about Lautenberg

Submitted by gorednj on June 25, 2009 - 3:45pm.

These two dopes are doing this to kiss up to Corzine. Their hope is that Corzine wins---Lautenberg retires and Corzine names either one of them. This is a disgraceful waste of taxpayer time and money.

Close GORED, Close

Submitted by Kissenger on June 25, 2009 - 6:08pm.

Actually, they are sucking up to Corzine, figuring that if he wins re-election, and Lautenberg retires mid-term, Corzine will fill that seat with himself, and elevate one of them to be his successor.

Pascrell has wanted to be Governor for the last 20 years, and Pallone, for at least 10.

What a waste of taxpayer dollars!

Chris Chistie for President in 2012!!!  Let's clean up Capitol Hill.

To "UseSomeLogic"

Submitted by Mensa on June 25, 2009 - 6:12pm.

Go get a refund for your lobotomy!

pallone

Submitted by truth on June 26, 2009 - 8:05pm.

pallone should join lance in a gay reunion.
pallone has done nothing for this state or district and neither has his gay buddy lance

how do nj voters keep this morons in office.
i guess it is not what you know but who you
bl..

Reasonable

Submitted by Bill Brennan on June 28, 2009 - 9:55am.

Perhaps I missed it, please explain. The billing records of 2 appointees were starkly different. The Ashcroft bills fail to detail what we the taxpayers are getting for the millions at issue. The other bills give specific detail on where and why the money was spent. Instead of attacking the reasonableness of the legislation you ascribe motives to the sponsors and then attack the sponsors. Anytime you want to tell us what is wrong with accountability please do so. Next time you want to attack good law by calling the sponsors bad people, take a look in the mirror. You don't want good law passed because you want Christie elected. Your motives are quite obvious.

Corrupt On It's Face....

Submitted by Nick Lento on June 29, 2009 - 12:13am.

The substantial differences in the two invoices speak volumes to anyone who isn't ethically tone deaf.

What Christie did was likely "perfectly legal" but it was also clearly corrupt....and after the Pascrell/Pallone bill becomes law.....Christie's modus operandi should be jailworthy!

If the perpetrator of this activity was a Democrat I am very confident that the same folks rising to Christie's defense here would be hammering the Dem's ass to the wall....and justly so!!!

This isn't going away folks.

All Christie had to do was own up to a bad judgment call and to how it created a strong appearance of impropriety (a quid pro quo in this situation is almost impossible to prove) that sure as hell smelled corrupt.

Instead, Christie is digging in his heals in an untenable situation as he stupidly and stubbornly persists in defending that which is foul on its face!

As more and more folks get to know and undertstand what Christie did here; they will be less likely to see him as some kind of "crusader" for clean government, quite the contrary!

As I've said for a long time now, Chris Christie is a petty partisan hack....and this episode simply adds weight to that case.

 

 

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