Wampum

Mark Twain once famously wrote:

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

In 1998 (the last year for which I have figures), Federal Grand Juries indicted a few more than 76,000 persons. The population of the United States in that year was about 271,000,000 people. That works out to about one person indicted for each 3,500 people Thus, in a randomly selected group of 1,000 people, the expectation is that about person from the group will be indicted by a Federal grand Jury every three years.

Let's look at a not randomly selected group of people. A search for Bush Rangers (who bundled at least $200,000 for the Bush campaign) and Pioneers (who bundled at least $100,000 for the campaign) for both the 2000 and 2004 elections returns a list of 940 people.

There are a lot of interesting names on that list.

Jack Abramoff was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on six counts of wire fraud and conspiracy in August of last year. He was subsequently indicted by another FGJ on three additional counts of tax evasion, fraud, and conspiracy.

Duke Cunningham pled guilty after being charged in Federal indictment with four instances of bribery, two of mail fraud, as well as conspiracy, and tax evasion

Ken Lay was indicted by a FGJ on 11 counts including lying to the public, investors and Enron employees in charges that include securities and wire fraud and making false statements.

P. Nicholas Hutgen was indicted on three counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of extortion.

James Tobin was indicted on four felony counts relating to an election-day phone jamming scheme.

That list does not include such Bush fundraisers as Tom Noe, indicted by a state Grand Jury on 53 counts, or Brent Wilkes, who is co-conspirator # 1 in the Cunningham indictment and who the indictment claims paid at least four bribes to or for the benefit of a Congressman.

It does not include such fundraisers as Larry Householder, formerly Speaker of the Ohio House who is under investigation for skimming campaign contributions, or Jeffrey Barbakow, formerly the CEO of Tenet Healthcare. A federal grand jury indicted a subsidiary of Tenet for paying kickbacks while on Barbakow's watch.

The list does not include Bush fundraisers such as Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. Greenberg is the former CEO of insurance giant, AIG. AIG was investigated by the SEC and the attorney General of New York for, among other things, fraud. Mr. Greenberg exercised his rights under the Fifth Amendment, refusing to talk to investigators. Mr. Greenberg resigned his post. Just prior to his resignation, he transferred more then $2 billion in AIG stock to his wife. AIG paid more than $120 million to settle with the SEC.

That is five Federal Grand Jury indictments out of the 924 Bush Pioneers or Rangers in a two year period. Out of a random group of 1000 people, one would expect about one federal indictment in a three year period. Five of 924 seems like a lot.

In the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush liked to say:

You can judge the nature of a man by the company he keeps.