S. Korean Group Sponsored
DeLay Trip
The Washington Post
By Mike Allen and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page A01
A delegation of Republican House members including Majority
Leader Tom DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in
2001 from a registered foreign agent despite House rules that bar
the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents, according
to government documents and travel reports filed by the House
members.
Justice Department documents show that the Korea-U.S. Exchange
Council, a business-financed entity created with help from a
lobbying firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff, registered
under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Aug. 22, 2001.
DeLay; his wife, Christine; and two other Republican lawmakers
departed on a trip financed by the group on Aug. 25 of that
year.
The exchange group in late 2003 hosted three Democratic House
members and another Republican on a similar trip. It spent at
least $106,921 to finance the three-day trip in 2001 from
Washington to Seoul by the Republicans, which DeLay (Tex.) and
accompanying staff assistants described at the time as having an
"educational" purpose.
DeLay's aides said yesterday that the congressman did not
learn of the group's registration until this week. "There's no
way we could have known, and they didn't inform us of the fact
that their status changed," said DeLay's communications director,
Dan Allen.
The Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives on Gifts and
Travel state that "a Member, officer or employee may not accept
travel expenses from 'a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign
principal.' "
Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel for the Republican
National Committee, said that although he was uncertain whether
this trip violated the rules, "it's a problem" likely to trigger
an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official
Conduct, known as the ethics committee. DeLay was admonished
three times last year by the ethics committee.
An aide to DeLay who asked not to be named said DeLay staff
members had general discussions about the trip with the ethics
committee before leaving and received verbal approval.
A veteran House official familiar with the case, who declined
to be named because of DeLay's involvement, said verbal approval
is not granted by the committee on such matters.
Committee staff workers provide advice to lawmakers and their
aides, but it does not go beyond what could be read in a manual,
the official said. "The only way you can get, quote, approval
from the ethics committee that is good for anything other than
your own comfort level is to write a letter asking for approval,
and to get a letter back," the official said. "If you do that,
you're home free. If you don't, you're always running the risk
you'll end up in a bind."
No letter was sent by DeLay to the committee, DeLay's aides
said.
DeLay was accompanied to Seoul by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
and Ander Crenshaw, both Florida Republicans. A spokesman for
Ros-Lehtinen, Alex Cruz, said she did not know the group had
registered as a foreign agent.
"My boss was never told of this," Cruz said. A spokesman for
Crenshaw, Kenneth Lundberg, said, "When the trip was brought [to
us], we did an internal vetting of it, and that revealed no
problems, no issues."
Lundberg said Crenshaw does not typically seek ethics
committee approval for travel with other legislators and did not
in this case.
The purpose of the trip is spelled out in documents filed with
the Justice Department by the Alexander Strategy Group, a firm
created by former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham that boasts
dozens of large corporations and trade associations among its
clients. Buckham is close to DeLay, and associates of both men
say that DeLay agrees to meetings with corporate officials on
Buckham's recommendation.
According to the documents, the objective of the trip
was to help define the corporate executive who bankrolls the
exchange group, Chairman Seung Youn Kim of the Hanwha Group, as
"the leading Korean business statesman in U.S.-Korea relations."
The Hanwha Group is one of South Korea's top 10 holding
companies.
The documents show that arranging the lawmakers' trip is just
one of numerous steps the lobbyists promised to take for Kim.
Others included arranging a meeting with President Bush and
lawmakers in Washington.
An "illustrative schedule" dated February 2001 for the August
2001 trip lists proposed meetings with the U.S. ambassador,
Korean legislators and business executives, but includes "free
time for shopping, touring, golf" on each of the three days in
Seoul.
It could not be determined yesterday whether the lawmakers
actually followed that schedule. DeLay said on the report, filed
Sept. 26, 2001, that his expenses for the trip were $13,000 for
transportation, $330 for lodging, $150 for meals and $20 for
"other." An identical accounting of expenses was provided for his
wife. Under "sponsor," DeLay wrote, "the Korea-U.S. Exchange
Council."
Registration under the act constitutes a declaration that the
group acts as an agent of a foreign government or political
party. A statement dated Tuesday issued by the Korean-U.S.
Exchange Council, and signed by Edward Stewart, who works for
Buckham's firm, said that "members were advised that a
representative of the House Committee of [sic] Official Standards
and Conduct approved the trip verbally." The group said that it
registered as a foreign agent "after the Committee representative
approved the trip."
"Members were not told that the organization had registered,"
the statement said, adding that the group was "unaware that this
could change the status of the trip."
Several other lawmakers and aides, including an adviser on
Asian affairs to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.),
also accepted trips from the group as recently as last year,
according to congressional disclosure forms. Pelosi spokeswoman
Jennifer Crider said that "there was no reason to think this
group was anything other than a charity."
House Del. Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa), Rep. Jim
McDermott (D-Wash.), Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) and Rep. Mike
Honda (D-Calif.) traveled to Seoul at the group's expense from
Nov. 29 to Dec. 2, 2003, according to a database compiled by
researchers at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern
University. Attempts to reach aides for all four were
unsuccessful last night.
The cost of DeLay's trip was the fourth largest for any single
trip by lawmakers from Jan. 1, 2000, to September 2004, according
to the Medill tally.
Baran, who now specializes in government ethics law, said the
ethics committee might distinguish between the actions of a
lawmaker who traveled without knowing about the foreign agent
registration and one who did know. "If a member acting in good
faith and without knowledge [travels], that does not in and of
itself create a violation, but it does create a problem," he
said.
Research editor Lucy Shackelford and researcher Madonna
Lebling contributed to this report.
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