Jerry Lewis – Lowery lobbying firm controversy

The Jerry Lewis – Lowery lobbying firm controversy stems from the relationship between Congressman Jerry Lewis (R CA) and a lobbying firm, known as Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, where good friend and former U. S. Congressman Bill Lowery was a partner from 1993 to 2006. The basic allegations are that Lewis, by virtue of his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee (since January 2005), and his prior chairmanship of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, was able, through earmarks and other methods, to steer hundreds of millions of dollars to clients of Lowery's firm. Lowery and his firm have earned millions of dollars in fees from these clients. Lowery and others in his firm, in turn, have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lewis' campaign committee and political action committee. Defense contractors who are clients of the lobbying firm have also given hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lewis, who has not faced serious opposition in his re election campaigns in the past ten years, has used his campaign and PAC funds in support of other Republicans, something that helped him become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The Justice department ultimately dropped its investigation into the firm and Mr. Lewis. A spokesman for the department had no further comment. In addition, two key individuals on Lewis' staff (Letitia White and Jeff Shockey) went to work for Copeland Lowery, earning millions of dollars for themselves; Richard White, Letitia's husband, has seen a steep increase in his income since he switched to being a lobbyist for defense firms; Lewis' stepdaughter has benefited from his ties to the lobbyists; and Jeff Shockey, upon returning to work of Lewis in 2005, was paid two million dollars by Copeland Lowery as "severance", based upon projected revenues of the lobbying firm for the eleven months following his departure.

No individual has been formally charged with any wrongdoing, but there is now an ongoing federal investigation being run by the U. S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles, and a federal grand jury in Los Angeles has issued at least 10 subpoenas. As of early July 2006, one of Lowery's two ex wives, Melinda Morrin, has been interviewed twice by the FBI about her ex husband's dealings. On June 1, 2006, the San Bernardino Sun reported that the City of Redlands, California and San Bernardino County, California, both clients of Lowery's law firm, had been subpoenaed in the federal investigation into possible lobbying and earmarking abuses by Lowery's firm and Lewis. Four days later it was revealed that two other clients of the law firm, California State University San Bernardino and Riverside County, California, had also been subpoenaed. On June 6, three more California cities, Loma Linda, Yucca Valley, and Twentynine Palms stated that they had been issued subpoenas. On June 14, Highland, California announced it had been issued a subpoena. On June 28, 2006, an official of ESRI said that the company had also received a federal subpoena as part the ongoing investigation into the ties between Lewis and Copeland Lowery. "We have no concerns," ESRI spokesman Don Berry said. "We retain a lobbyist and it is not an issue for us." On September 5, 2006, the Associated Press reported that federal investigators were looking into a donation of of land to the city of Redlands by the owners of ESRI in 2001, land adjacent to the home of Lewis. On December 4, 2010, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department had ended its investigation on the relationship between Mr. Lewis and Copeland Lowery. "The D. O. J. response confirms what I've known from Day 1 — that the facts and the truth of this matter will ultimately prevail," Mr. Lewis said in a statement.

From January 1985 to January 1993, Congressmen Jerry Lewis and Bill Lowery served together on the House Appropriations Committee, where they became friends. In 1993, Lowery became a lobbyist and partner in a lobbying firm that James Copeland helped found in 1992. Since 1993, Lewis and Lowery have celebrated birthdays together, vacationed together and often shared meals at restaurants near their Capitol Hill homes. Lewis was the best man at Lowery's second marriage. Lowery emceed a gala for Lewis in Redlands, California in 2004. Their day to day contacts are made convenient by Lowery's special access to Capitol Hill. As a former congressman, he can exercise at the House gym and walk onto the House floor. In January 1995, Lewis became chairman of the Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations subcommittee.

In January 1999, Lewis became chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees more discretionary spending than any other congressional subcommittee. left Lewis' employ to join Copeland Lowery, where he would work for the next six years. Shockey's wife, Alexandra Shockey, who had been on Lewis' personal staff since 1992, continued to work for Lewis. (She eventually left Lewis' staff to start a family.) In 2000, Richard White, the husband, of Letitia White, a key Lewis staffer, stopped lobbying for the Brown & Williamson tobacco company and registered to do defense lobbying. On January 8, 2003, Letitia White, who had worked for Lewis for 21 years, including as chief of staff, and was known as his "gatekeeper", left Lewis' employ, and government service. She too went to work for Copeland Lowery, registering as a lobbyist on January 9, 2003. In 2003, Lewis became the fundraising chairman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Lewis said White is so dedicated to public service that she also asked to rejoin his staff when he became chair of the appropriations committee. But according to Lewis, he said no, because he wanted White, whose husband is in his early 70's, to build some financial security. "I said, 'Letitia, I'm afraid you shouldn't do that,'" Lewis said. In late May or early June 2006, Lewis hired a high profile legal team from a Los Angeles based law firm. The team includes former Solicitor General Ted Olson; Robert Bonner, who once led the U. S. attorney's office in Los Angeles and was once head of Customs and Border Protection; Mel Levine, a former Democratic congressman from California; and Joseph Warin, a former federal prosecutor. In June 2006, Copeland Lowery amended 35 prior government filings which reported the firm's lobbying revenues and clients between 1998 and 2005. The firm had failed to disclose at least $755,000 in income from 17 nonprofit organizations and governmental entities, and $635,000 from 18 other clients. In June, the firm split into two. Democratic Party partners Copeland and Jacquez formed a firm called CJ Strategies. Republicans Lowery, Denton and White formed a firm called Innovative Federal Strategies. In early July, a spokesman said that "The firm is continuing to review its lobbying disclosure forms," and that "The firm is planning to amend the 2003 and 2004 statements involving [San Bernardino County] in the coming days," with underreported income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. By October 2006, according to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission, Lewis had spent about $800,000 of his campaign funds for lawyers.

After Lewis became chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee in 1999, earmarks in defense bills exploded. "We used to think that Mr. Lewis would be a champion for smart spending," said Keith Ashdown of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "But he brought us the biggest increase in defense earmarking in history." Such earmarks are normally done openly. For example, on November 8, 2005, Lewis' office sent out a press release by email announcing that the congressman had secured $10.75 million in federal funding for a number of recipients, including at least five that are clients of Copeland Lowery. Lewis has helped secure more than $1 billion for projects across Inland Southern California in recent years. Lewis has aided more than 250 Inland projects with allocations ranging from $81,000 to help move the Big Bear Zoo to nearly $100 million to ESRI, a Redlands mapping company working on reconstruction plans in Iraq. Federal funding has paid for flood control and transportation projects, community services, and advanced technology for area businesses and agencies. Lewis is credited with bringing tens of millions of federal dollars for cancer research in Loma Linda and helping reverse factors that led to unprecedented fire danger in the San Bernardino National Forest.

During the 1995 2005 period, some of the two dozen firms in San Diego and Virginia owned by Brent R. Wilkes received about $100 million in federal contracts. Most of Wilkes' government work came from earmarks. In November 2005, Wilkes was described as "co conspirator No. 1" in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts from Wilkes and other contractors. Since 1993, Lewis has received $88,000 in contributions from Wilkes and his associates. Wilkes paid Lowery's firm $160,000 in fees, according to original filings by Copeland Lowery. In fact, those fees were substantially underreported: the firm's fees had increased to $25,000 a month by 2005, and total fees were underreported by at least $225,000. In February 1999, Wilkes met with Shockey, then a Lewis aide, to ask the Lewis's office to intervene on a project paid through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Around that time, when a VA accounting officer complained about questions from a congressman on ADCS's behalf, a Wilkes aide, Mike Williams, wrote back that Lewis was "a close personal friend of Brent's." The letter offered to "have the congressman's office contact the V. A. to put this issue to rest." In early 2006, Lewis has said that he barely knew Wilkes and that he did not remember seeing him in nearly a decade. But Wilkes says their relationship was closer than that. Ever since they went on a scuba diving trip together in 1993, he said, Lewis had referred to him as his "diving buddy." They occasionally dined together or met at political functions, Wilkes said. At a Las Vegas fund raiser in April 2005, Wilkes said, Lewis greeted him as "Brento" and hugged him as Wilkes surprised Lewis with $25,000 in campaign contributions. Work included such efforts as building software that assesses the fire danger of the San Bernardino Mountains, helping move troops in the Iraq war, and assisting in reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. From 1998 to 2003, the company also received another $60 million in defense contracts outside of those earmarks. ESRI has paid Lowery's firm $320,000 since 1998. Jack Dangermond, the president and founder of ESRI, and his wife, Laura, have consistently been two of the top individual contributors to Lewis' campaign fund, giving a combined $13,900 between 2000 and 2005. at a reported cost of nearly $8,500. In January 2003, White became a lobbyist for the company, one day after Lewis' employ. In May 2003, the company paid for Lewis and his wife to go on a trip to New York City. In October 2004, Lewis and now convicted Representative Duke Cunningham, Representative Duncan Hunter, had a joint fund raiser at the company's San Diego headquarters. Isothermal Systems and Tessera Technologies partnered on a defense project that received $4.5 million in earmarks over 2003 and 2004. Isothermal had Letitia White as a lobbyist; Tessera had her husband, Richard. Tessera paid Richard White $300,000 in fees between 2003 and 2005. Orincon, a defense contractor now owned by Lockheed Martin, grew slowly after it was founded in the mid 1970s by former UCSD professor Daniel Alspach. In the late 1990s, after it signed on with Lowery's firm, the company's growth curve turned sharply upward: sales went from about $10 million per year to $52 million in 2003, when it was sold. In April 1999, Lewis, Lowery, White, and White's husband traveled to San Diego at the company's expense; the purpose was a tour of the company's headquarters. The group stayed two nights at one of La Jolla's most prestigious resort hotels; Lewis' suite cost $700 a night. Orincon paid $720,000 to Copeland Lowery between 1998 and 2003. Alspach and his Orincon colleagues gave at least $47,000 to Lewis' political action committee between 2001 and 2003; In addition, Trident had been a beneficiary of Lewis backed funds to support small business contracts with the Defense Department: the company has received tens of millions in grants from the Small Business Innovation Research Program since 2002, including five in 2005 and at least one in 2006, for $9.62 million. In the 2000 02 election cycle, Nicholas Karangelen, Trident's owner, gave just $15,500 in campaign contributions. But in the 2004 2006 period, he contributed $104,000. The biggest individual recipient was Jerry Lewis, whose PAC and campaign fund received $72,000 from Karangelen and Karangelen's wife. In June 2006 the company opened a development center in an office building in Redlands, the home town of Lewis.

On September 5, 2006, the Associated Press reported that federal investigators were looking into a donation of of land to the city of Redlands by Jack Dangermond, the president and founder of ESRI, and his wife, Laura. The land, worth more than $2 million, was donated in September 2001, about six months after the Dangermonds bought it. The donation required the city to agree to keep the property as open space or parkland. The land, some of which sits directly across from Lewis' home, is part of a scenic canyon in one of Redlands' wealthiest neighborhoods. Keeping the land free of development helps ensure property values remain high. ESRI had hired Copeland Lowery in 2000, the year before the purchase and donation. In 2002, the year after the donation, the defense appropriations subcommittee, which Lewis chaired, provided a $15 million earmark for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency to acquire software from ESRI. The Dangermonds said in a statement that they didn't know Lewis lived in the neighborhood when they decided to buy the land and donate it. A spokeswoman for Lewis' attorneys said the congressman was unaware the Dangermonds owned the land and did not know the terms under which it was given to the city. Lewis and Willis have four children of their own and three children from prior marriages; Julia Willis Leon is one of those three.

Willis Leon, who lives in Las Vegas, is a "strategic partner" of the lobbying firm of Potomac Partners DC LLC, President Richard Alcalde said in an interview in June 2006. Alcalde said he has paid Willis Leon $40,000 to $50,000 over the last year for advice on several clients. Six of Alcalde's thirteen clients have business before the Appropriations Committee, according to reports of his lobbying activity.

Willis Leon's lawyer said that his client has a background in event planning and met Alcalde, as well as leaders of the Small Biz Tech PAC, through contacts that included Letitia White. The lawyer said that Willis Leon had also worked part time for General Atomics as well as for groups representing alternative fuel users and charter schools, before she met Alcalde. Overhead costs in 2004 were about 18 percent.

Lowery earned about $850,000 in 1997. In 2003, he earned just under $2 million. White was paid $122,536 in 2001. Exactly when White took a pay cut is unclear, how her pay was cut, and why, is unclear. By one report, she received an $11,000 pay cut shortly before she left. Another report said that her salary decreased in February 2002, but also quoted a spokesman as saying that the main difference in pay between the years was because she got a bonus in 2001 but not 2002. At Copeland Lowery, White quickly acquired a client roster of two dozen defense firms for which she sought earmarks and other special treatment. Indeed, the day after leaving the Hill, White signed up a major client, General Atomics, along with one of its aeronautics subsidiaries. The companies received several multimillion dollar earmarks that year in the defense spending bill for the 2004 fiscal year. In 2003, Richard White began getting defense contractors directly as clients, without going through Whitner, for whose clients he continued to work. In 2005, he reported having six defense clients and receiving $280,000 in fees. When Shockey left the firm in January 2005 to return to work for Lewis, he accepted a salary of just under $160,000. That put him among the best paid congressional employees, His attorneys said that the partisan fight that effectively shut down the ethics panel for eighteen months may have played role in explaining why they never received a follow up letter from the committee giving its approval of the arrangement. On June 9, 2006, attorneys for Shockey said that the $1.96 million was based on a projection by the firm that Shockey would have billed clients for $3 million in 2005 if he had remained a lobbyist, a 76 percent increase from the $1.7 million in his billings in 2004. According to Roll Call, the jump in revenue wasn't because Shockey was expected to bring in more clients—it jumped because the clients he already had were projected to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for his services. In other words, Shockey was worth a lot more to his clients on the Hill than on K Street, where Copeland Lowery is located. Shockey is not barred from doing work related to his own former clients (assuming they are being represented someone other than his wife, a lobbyist), but Lewis spokesman John Scofield said that Shockey nonetheless informally recuses himself from such activity. For another donation in 2004, she listed her occupation as "retired". In February 2005, just weeks after her husband left Copeland Lowery to rejoin the Appropriations Committee, she apparently went back to work. She registered Copeland Lowery as a client for her lobbying firm, called Hillscape Associates, becoming a subcontractor to Copeland Lowery. Hillscape's address on federal disclosure forms is identical to that of the Lowery firm. Jeff Shockey's disclosure forms and lobbying records show that Letitia White took over at least 19 of Shockey's local clients after he left the firm. whose records have been subpoenaed. Hillscape initially reported receiving less than $20,000 in lobbying fees from Copeland Lowery and another client during the first half of 2005, according to disclosure reports filed in 2005. Hillscape filed amended disclosure reports in February 2006, less than two months after the first Lewis Lowery story appeared in newspapers, that showed the company was paid $80,000 by Copeland Lowery from January 1 to June 30, 2005, plus another $40,000 by a second client, itself a California based lobbying firm.