Doolittle Campaign Contributer Indicted and it's Not Even Friday, Guam nails Abramoff Buddy
by AmericanRiverCanyon
Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 10:12:38 AM PDT
Howard Hills, an attorney from Laguna Beach, CA, and a former legal "consultant" of the Court of Guam, was indicted by a Guam Grand Jury February 7 (just yesterday) and charged with conspiracy for unlawful influence as a third degree felony for activities he performed on behalf of Anthony Sanchez and convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Anthony Sanchez, a former Guam Superior Court Administrator, was also charged as a co conspirator with felony charges of conspiracy, theft of property held in trust, and official misconduct back on Dec 13, 2006. Sanchez pleaded not guilty yesterday, and a lawyer for Howard Hills asked for a continuance, Hills is scheduled for arraignment February 21, 2007. Hills is being charged with being a "go between" for Sanchez and Abramoff, by taking 36 checks (or more by other news accounts) totaling $324,000 and depositing them first into his account and then sending the money on to Abramoff.
See new link here from the Marshall Islands' Yokwe Online, Dec 13 '06 article by Aenet Rowa, "Rongelap Attorney Hills and Guam's Sanchez Indicted by Guam Grand Jury http://www.yokwe.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1600
California-based attorney Howard Hills, who represents the Marshall Islands atoll of Rongelap, was indicted Tuesday, December 12, along with former Guam court Administrative Director Tony Sanchez, on charges conneced to $324,000 that the local court paid to lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Guam's Pacific Daily News reported that the summons were issued for the two appear at the Superior Court of Guam at 10 a.m. Feb. 7. Charges of Unlawful influence, Conspiracy for unlawful influence, Theft of property held in trust, and Official misconduct were listed.... In February of this year, Hills wrote to Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks to clarify that it wasn't his call to break payments to Abramoff into smaller, $9,000 checks...."
Read below and you'll see why Hills is trying to weasel out of that part about the size of the checks...
As soon as I read this I started digging to see if I could connect Howard Hills to John Doolittle financially, and I didn't, alas, have to go too far, but first, some more background on this story.
A good link to an older story from Dec 22, 2005, written about how Abramoff was secretly hired by officials on Guam, who pretended to be hiring Howard Hills to do the work, to lobby against Guam judicial reform:
Indicted Lobbyist's Web extends to the Pacific, Abramoff secretly sought to sway Congress for Guam
It seems that Mr. Sanchez, who was just charged yesterday but not mentioned as the possible culprit/fall guy in this article, was pilfering out of the Guam's Superior Court's Judicial Building Fund to pay Abramoff to lobby against Congress giving the Guam Supreme Court juridiction over the Superior Court.
The auditors found that the Superior Court didn't file required reports on the payments to the IRS, didn't have a real contract with Hills describing just what legal services he was providing, and that the Court person (that's Sanchez) was paying Hills in $9000 dollar increments to circumvent a requirment that purchases over $10,000 be done by sealed bid.
The documents filed by Abramoff's home firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP named Hills and not the Superior Court of Guam or (Sanchez on behalf of Guam) as the client.
The Guam Auditor says that $564,039 was spent for the lobby effort, that Hills received $479,000, and that Abramoff recieved $324,000, and that the Court reorganization was held off between 2002 and 2004. You can see the little problem there...every time the money changed hands, there was less of it.
Now for the Humor Link™ , this little episode from Howard Hills point of view, written in 2005 from peace corps online. org: http://peacecorpsonline.org/...
"Former Peace Corps Member Howard Hills Blows Whistle on Jack Abramoff, the Recently Indicted Republican lobbyist who bilked Native American Tribes out of millions of dollars"
(Ah, isn't that cute? He cares, he likes us, he really, really likes us!...)
"Hills said the judge dealt directly with Abramoff and that his only role was passing checks to Abramoff's law firm. "hiring a subcontractor is a very routine thing, ...there were no red flags at that point....Hills said that after he came forward about his role in the scandal, (ARC's note...that's 36 to 49 payment checks later....) he received telephone calls from both Democrats and Republicans who worked with him during his government career.
“It appeared to a lot of people that I was in cahoots with these guys,” he said. “Looking back, I wish I had done it differently. But when I came out and made it clear I had been involved, people supported me. It was like the end of It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart.”
When he started dragging Jimmy Stewart into it, I knew I was going into the Federal Elections Campaign donations records before the night was over.
~~
Let's follow the money and see if Howard Hills gives money to Republicans and to my district's Congressman, John Doolittle, (R) CA- 04
Here's a page from Newsmeat that indicates that Howard Hills is indeed a love bug ♥ when it comes to donating money to Republicans: Newsmeat.com Campaign Contribution Search for Howard Hills There are both Republican oriented PACs and individual donations listed.
Alliance of the West Pac got $2000, 8/1/04 This pac in '06 gives to Republican Senators, gave to losers like George Allen Macaca Breath of VA, Rick "dog" Santorum PA, Conrad Burns MT, Jim Talent of Mo....etc, hah! He did better in 2004 when the recipients like Martinez FL, Specter PA, and Murkowski AK won.
Let's see who else donates to Alliance for the West Pac, a few sample larger donors for the 03- 04 cycle, interesting... Brent Wilkes 6/28/04 $5000 James Jay Baker, Stewart Hall, The Federalist Group, $1000 each James C Barker Oakton VA (hm, Oakton, neighbor of Doolittle?) $500 Carol and Earl Holding, owners of Sinclair Oil $6,500 total
So that's Wilkes, a defense contractor implicated in bribing another congressman, James Baker, the Bush Family Consigliore and Carlyle Group Guy, and some Sinclair Oil Company owners, just for starters. Nice Pac.
Howard Also gave George Macaca Allen (R, VA, loser, '06) a $500 dollar individual donation 9/30/05. Hills sure likes George Allen. Must be a CA orange county thing.
Howard donates frequently to Dana Rohrabacher, (R) CA 46 Rohrabacher is a crazy loon who ran around in Afghanistan with the hill tribes shooting at Russians right after he got elected to Congress. Goes back to Reagan/Ollie North. Yes, Howard Hills has a thing for American Men in Period Military Costumes. First Allen and now this.
Howard's Donations to Dana Rohrabacher(R) CA 46 $400 6/24/06 $300 3/20/05 $1000 2/25/04
Who does Dana Rohrabacher give to? From a search on : http://opensecrets.org/ thanks, opensecrets! John T. Doolittle For Congress, Sacramento CA $1000, 10/13/06 ping!
Howard also gives money to the NewStar Pac Howard Hills, $3000, 3/17/01
And NewStar Pac gives to John Doolittle $5000 during the 2002 cycle ping!
link for Dans Rohrabacher's donation to Doolittle in 10/2006 , the election cycle we just had: http://www.opensecrets.org/...
Let's look at the Newsmeat link again.... Howard Hills also gave the aptly named RICH Pac $500 on 8/31/05
link for RICH PAC donation to John Doolittle on 3/21/06 (actual FEC ticket log) $5000 http://images.nictusa.com/...
There was another donation of $5000 on 9/19/06 to Doolittle from the same RICH PAC
link for RICH PAC donations page of the FEC, Candidates Supported by this PAC, scroll down to see the 2 given for Doolittle in 2006, total $10,000 ping! http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_supopp/C00387670/
And If You Only Click On One Lousy Link In this Diary, Click on This One link for RICH PAC page FEC, Individuals who gave to this Committee, reads like the Hall of Fame of Abramoff's lobbyists' and the Saipanese, (Commonwealth of the N. Marianas Islands) plus Howard Hills is on this page
Look at all the CNMI names on this list, Babauta, Atalig, Zak, Tenorio, Tenorio, Tan, Benavente.
Now you can see how they do it, they make bribes, then get together and pool the kickback fee money into these PACs and make much larger donations to these Republicans to make sure the CNMI and her sister territories like Guam and Samoa stays "protected". One of the people on this list, Pedro Tenorio, the Resident Rep of CNMI, will be testifying this morning 2/8/07 in front of the Senate Committee on how he thinks they should make exceptions for "imposing" minimum wage and federal immigration standards on the CNMI. Here's a link to a summary of his written testimony: http://www.resrep.gov.mp/press%20releases/hearing%202-2007,%207%20points.htm Pedro Tenorio's webpage also has a link to his full written testimony.
The existing power structure in the CNMI will do and say anything to preserve the status quo of doing absolutely nothing to change the system that pays an imported work force slave wages of $3.05 or less per hour in the island's sweatshops. Jack took money from these overlords and willingly paid it to anyone who would look the other way, including John Doolittle, who serves on the House committee that has juridiction over the CNMI. This diary attempts to show you what we can see of that money trail, as someone has already said, it's what lies beneath.
Almost forgot, one more, Howard Hills gave GW Bush money for his Presidental re election campaign: $1000 on 6/30/03 to Bush/ Cheney '04
Howard Hills has a wife, Lura Hills. She is listed as a "homemaker." She also gave $300 to Dana Rohrabacher in 2005 and $6000 to a PAC in 2004, but I have to stop somewhere.
HILLS, HOWARD LAGUNA BEACH , CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$400primary
06/16/07
HILLS, HOWARD LAGUNA BEACH , CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$400general
06/24/06
HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651
ALLEN, GEORGE (R)Senate - VAFRIENDS OF GEORGE ALLEN
$500primary
09/30/05
Hills, HowardLaguna Beach, CA 92651Howard Hills/Attorney
RICH POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
$500primary
08/31/05
HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$300primary
03/20/05
Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
ALLIANCE FOR THE WEST
$2,000primary
08/01/04
HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$1,000primary
02/25/04
HILLS, HOWARD L MR.LAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651SELF-EMPLOYED/ATTORNEY
BUSH, GEORGE W (R)PresidentBUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC
$1,000primary
06/30/03
Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
12/02/02
Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
12/02/02
Hills, Howard L.Laguna Beach, CA 92651Self Employed/Attorney
KALOI, KIMO (R)House (HI 02)KALOI FOR CONGRESS
$1,000
10/21/02
Howard HillsLaguna Beach, CA
TAUZIN, WILBERT J II (R)House (LA 03)BILLY TAUZIN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE THE
$1,000primary
08/23/01
HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651HOWARD HILLS/ATTORNEY
ROHRABACHER, DANA (R)House (CA 46)COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT CONGRESSMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
$200primary
05/01/01
HILLS, HOWARDLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651ATTORNEY
NEWSTAR PAC (FKA NEW CENTURY FEDERAL PAC; THE
$3,000primary
03/17/01
HILLS, HOWARD LLAGUANA BEACH, CA 92651
UNDERWOOD, ROBERT A (D)House (GU 00)GUAM'S VOICE IN CONGRESS: ROBERT A UNDERWOOD
$500general
10/23/00
HILLS, HOWARD LLAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651ATTORNEY
STOKER, MICHAEL BRIAN (R)House (CA 22)STOKER FOR CONGRESS
$1,000general
06/29/00
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