According to this Reuters article, The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for purported bribery.
WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.
Of course, the interesting part of this incident is that the campaign contributions came from none other than Bush friend, Randy Best.
More below...
Randy Best, a top Republican donor and Bush pioneer, founded Voyager, an educational products company and rather than selling the company's reading program to school districts, hired lobbyists to obtain earmarks for it. Although the House had appropriated $1 million for his program for the D.C. public schools, Best still needed a Senate sponsor. A lobbyist arranged a meeting with Sen. Landrieu, the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the District of Columbia, to press for an earmark.
CREW's filing comes following a Washington Post article about the dealings. Given Landrieu's past (and present) tenuous hold on her Senate seat -- she won with a mere 52% of the vote in 2002, and is on the short list of GOP pickoffs, how is this going to affect her race in 2008? For what it's worth, more recent contributions he's made to Landrieu's campaign (beyond the 2004 link referenced above) can be found here.
CREW's website goes a little more depth into their claims, here on their website; they also cover Landrieu's response, here.