Wal-Mart Consultants In Hot Water

Two of Wal-Mart’s heavy Washington hitters, Edelman and Patton Boggs, are in hot water over their work for convicted felon Michael Scanlon. From Roll Call:

For more than a handful of the capital’s most established legal and public relations firms, Michael Scanlon meant good business. Quietly, in a span from 2001 to early 2004, some of Washington, D.C.’s most storied firms and their subsidiaries did more than $2.1 million worth of business with Scanlon, the high-flying former flack for then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Renowned law firms such as Patton Boggs and PR giant Edelman performed work on behalf of Scanlon — and in many cases indirectly for his criminal associate, ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff — most of it coming on projects that the duo later would concede were part of their criminal conspiracy…

Patton Boggs served as the legal counsel for Scanlon’s firm for most of his criminal run, apparently helping set up some of the contracts engineered with the tribal clients he and Abramoff bilked for some $40 million. Less than three weeks before the scandal broke in Washington, Patton Boggs lawyers sent a threatening letter to one of the tribes, the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan, accusing it of a “serious breach” in refusing to pay an additional $2.8 million to Scanlon…

Patton Boggs declined any comment about the work it performed for Scanlon, who paid the law firm more than $116,000. Aside from a subsidiary of Powell Tate’s that later went to work for Edelman, none of the PR or legal firms has been targeted with a subpoena or other investigative inquiry from prosecutors involved in the corruption investigation…

Along with the Lunde and Burger money, Powell Tate raked in almost $1.3 million from Scanlon from 2001 to 2003. Edelman, which brought Lunde and Burger on board in February 2003, then took up work with Scanlon. However, that work began to dry up by the end of 2003, with the firm collecting just $214,000 in payments from Capitol Campaign Strategies. Edelman declined to comment on Lunde and Burger’s work for Scanlon. Burger left the PR industry and Washington a year ago, and Lunde didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Posted by Media Team on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

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