Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is a five-term senator from Kentucky. He is the minority leader in the 111th Congress and sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Sen. McConnell’s ethics issues stem primarily from (1) earmarks he inserted into legislation for clients of his former chief of staff in exchange for campaign contributions and (2) the misuse of his nonprofit McConnell Center for Political Leadership at the University of Louisville. Sen. McConnell was included in CREW’s 2007 and 2008 congressional corruption reports.

Gordon Hunter Bates and the Bates Capitol Group LLC

Gordon Hunter Bates served as Sen. McConnell’s chief legal counsel and then chief of staff from 1997 to 2002. After a 2003 lawsuit ended his bid for Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, he opened a lobbying firm, Bates Capitol Group, LLC (Bates Capitol). Bates Capitol clients include: E-Cavern, Voice for Humanity, Appriss, Inc. and Boardpoint, LLC, all of which have received earmarks thanks to Sen. McConnell. In addition, the senator rewrote legislation to help another Bates Capitol client, UPS Inc. All of these companies have made substantial contributions to Sen. McConnell’s campaigns.

According to lobbying disclosures, Mr. Bates joined the C2 Group, LLC, as a lobbyist beginning in September 2007. Mr. Bates brought at least two of his former clients to his new firm, Appriss, Inc., and Boardpoint. As of July 2009, Mr. Bates had donated $2,700 to Sen. McConnell’s PAC for the year. Federal Elections Commission records do not indicate that employees of Appriss or Boardpoint made contributions to Sen. McConnell’s campaign committee or PAC in this cycle.

The McConnell Center for Political Leadership

The McConnell Center for Political Leadership was founded by Sen. McConnell in 1991 as a non-profit organization for which the senator raises funds. The University of Louisville Foundation was sued by the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky because the center insisted on maintaining the anonymity of its donors. Two of the largest donors to the McConnell Center are Ashland Inc. and UPS, which have donated $500,000 and $400,000 respectively. Some donations to the McConnell Center have been delivered to Sen. McConnell’s Capitol Hill office.

In a lawsuit brought by the Courier-Journal for records of donations made to the McConnell Center, the Kentucky Supreme court ruled in August 2008 that the University of Louisville could not withhold information about donors from public records requests. The court agreed with the newspaper that “certain donors may not simply wish to conceal their identities, but rather may wish to conceal the true purposes of their donations.” Though the court ruled that the identities of 62 donors who requested their donations be anonymous need not be revealed, the court held that future donors would not be permitted to make anonymous donations.

Since winning its lawsuit, the Courier-Journal has begun maintaining an online database of all donations made to the University of Louiseville Foundation, which manages all donations made to the school, including those made to the McConnell Center. Funding for the McConnell Center has dropped precipitously, according to the database it has only received $31,125 in contributions since 2004.

BAE Systems

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has an ongoing investigation into British defense contractor, BAE Systems, concerning allegations that the company bribed members of the Saudi Royal family, including the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, in support of an arms-for-oil barter.
The United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which was also investigating BAE over those same allegations of bribery, dropped the investigation when ordered to do so by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2006, amid concerns that it would tread too close to members of the Saudi Royal family and endanger national security. Approximately half of BAE’s business is now done with the United States government, but the decision of the SFO to drop its investigation into the company has hampered the DOJ probe. The United States government lodged two official diplomatic protests over the scuttling of the SFO’s investigation.

The Austrian government, is expected, however, to bring charges in connection with its investigation of BAE. That investigation concerns the action of an Austrian aristocrat who secretly worked for the defense contractor and made “aggressive incentive payments to key decision-makers.”

For fiscal year 2010, Sen. McConnell requested three earmarks for BAE worth a combined $17 million dollars. The requests are for various gun assemblies manufactured by BAE at its Louisville, Kentucky facility. Since the third quarter of 2008, employees of BAE Systems have donated $3,400 to Sen. McConnell’s campaign committee.

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