Feds Hit 21 with Probe of Nevada Pol

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February 15, 2007 6:34 PM

The number of investigations into lawmakers from the 109th Congress has grown to 21.

Jim Gibbons, the newly-elected Republican governor of Nevada, is facing a federal investigation for suspicions of criminal behavior while he was a member of Congress, according to a Wall Street Journal report today.  The probe would make Gibbons, who left Congress last fall, the fourth member of the former House Intelligence Committee to come under such scrutiny.

The FBI is investigating whether Gibbons improperly accepted gifts from intelligence contractor and longtime friend Warren Trepp and helped Trepp's company, eTreppid, win contracts for secret government work, the paper said.

Asked to comment on the matter, a Gibbons spokesman confirmed the governor's "longstanding friendship" with Trepp and said Gibbons "held no special power in awarding defense contracts." Trepp did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case as outlined by "The Wall Street Journal" has an uncomfortable echo to the favors-for-contracts scandal that brought down Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now serving an eight-year prison sentence.

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Like Cunningham, Gibbons sat on the House Intelligence Committee, whose work is done largely outside of public scrutiny.  And like Cunningham, Gibbons is suspected of helping a favored contractor win secret contracts from national security agencies in exchange for favors, including cash.

"I suspect it is a much-wider spread problem than we know," said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who now heads up the left-leaning Washington, D.C. watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "Because of the clearances necessary to know what's going on there, there's almost no oversight."

In the wake of the Cunningham scandal, the intelligence committee conducted an internal probe, which cleared its staff and fellow members of wrongdoing.  That probe, however, was narrowly focused on Cunningham's activities and did not explore the activities of Gibbons or others.

Two other members of the intelligence committee from the previous Congress have reportedly faced federal investigations. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona is investigating Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., for allegedly pushing a land deal on behalf of a major political backer. And in 2005, the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the former ranking member of the committee, had improperly asked a pro-Israel lobbying group for political assistance.

Both Renzi and Harman have denied wrongdoing. Last November, "The New York Times" reported that Harman probe was "no longer active."