109ed

Were there any republicans in the 109th Congress that weren't on the take? Jim "Ass Grabbing" Gibbons, now Governor of Nevada might have thought his legal problems were over when an investigation into his cover-up of allegedly groping a cocktail waitress in a Las Vegas parking garage was dropped, but now the DOJ has come a knocking. At issue are the numerous gifts and payments given to Gibbons from contractor Warren Trepp. Form the NY Times:

Federal authorities are investigating gifts and payments that Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada received as a congressman from an executive of a software company that got millions of dollars in federal contracts, government officials said Thursday.

Investigators are examining whether the gifts and payments to Mr. Gibbons, a Republican, were in exchange for his help as a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

The payments were from Warren Trepp, owner of eTreppid Technologies, based in Reno. The company was awarded contracts from several government agencies including the Air Force, the Special Operations Command and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Oh, I'm sure the gifts had absolutely no bearing on Gibbons actions as a member of those committees. Yea, right. And it gets better, there's a paper trail, or rather an electronic trail. also from the Times:

“Please don’t forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn,” Mr. Trepp’s wife, Jale, wrote in the e-mail message to her husband on March 22, 2005, a few days before the Trepps left for a Caribbean cruise with Mr. Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, a former Nevada assemblywoman.

Minutes later, Mr. Trepp replied, according to The [Wall Street] Journal: “Don’t you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!”

Mr. Gibbons, who was in Congress at the time, did not disclose the trip, which included travel aboard Mr. Trepp’s leased private jet.

Oops, I guess somebody forgot to do some erasing! The key here is Mrs. Trepp's phrasing. "The money" suggests that the sum is to be paid in cash, and not forgetting it means it is probably a sum that you can't pick up along the way because it will leave a paper trail as large cash withdrawals do because of required IRS reporting.