J. Garrison Jordan, an attorney for one of the four men charged this week with trying to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) office phone system, has an explanation that the senator isn't buying.

Yesterday, Jordan said the men were not trying to wiretap or disable the phone system -- rather, they simply were trying to capture embarrassing video of Sen. Landrieu's staff ignoring constituent phone calls.

According to Huffington Post:

... Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu wasn't impressed with the lawyer's explanation Thursday that the men hoped to document claims that callers couldn't get through with complaints about her support for health care reform.

"Attorneys are hired to spin for their clients," she said Thursday in an interview in Washington. "Good luck."

One of the four men charged is James O'Keefe, who gained notoriety last year by posing as a pimp and filming undercover video during a visit to an office of ACORN, a community-organizing group.

This week's arrests in New Orleans of four people for allegedy trying to bug the office phone system of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have led TPMMuckraker to examine an organization that it believes could be "key to the story."

Located at 400 Poydras St. in downtown New Orleans -- half a block from Landrieu's office at 500 Poydras St. -- [the Pelican Institute] describes itself as a state policy think tank dedicated to advancing "sound policies based on the principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, and limited government."

James O'Keefe, the conservative filmmaker behind the ACORN stings who has been charged in the Landrieu case, was scheduled to give a talk at Pelican last Thursday on "Exposing Truth: Undercover Video, New Media and Creativity."

... Another of the charged men, Robert Flanagan, works for Pelican, his attorney told the Times-Picayune. Flanagan allegedly dressed up a telephone repairman to infiltrate Landrieu's office.

In August 2008, the Wall Street Journal published this profile on the Pelican Institute, noting that the group wants state legislators to focus on "better government transparency, lower corporate taxes and improved schools."

The filmmaker-activist whose undercover film last year cast an ethical cloud over the group ACORN was arrested yesterday in Louisiana and charged with criminal activity.

James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker-activist, was charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. Federal authorities allege that O'Keefe and at least three others were involved in a plot apparently to wire-tap or otherwise tamper with phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) office in New Orleans.

CREW filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint today against Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) campaign committee, Friends of Mary Landrieu, Inc., over a mysterious $25,300 “donation” the committee made to the Treasury Department last year according to reports filed with the FEC.

The campaign committee likely discovered it had accepted illegal contributions and, rather than following the normal practice of returning a contribution to its original donor, decided to turn the money over to the Treasury. When Sen. Landrieu’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias was asked to explain the payment, he refused, seeking to protect the identity of the donor.

However, while Friends of Mary Landrieu, Inc. may not be talking, federal campaign finance law is clear – the only time campaign committees can transfer illegal contributions to the Treasury rather than back to the original donor is when that donor:

• is under a Justice Department investigation, or
• has been convicted for making illegal contributions.

And even in those cases, the campaign committee still must make the donor’s identity public. CREW’s complaint alleges that because there has been no suggestion of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into illegal contributions to the Landrieu campaign, the committee improperly turned the money over to the Treasury.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said,

We all know politicians don’t give up campaign contributions – much less $25,000 – without a very good reason. It appears Sen. Landrieu’s reason may have been to avoid a scandal or, even worse, a federal investigation into some of her contributions. Our campaign finance laws were designed to ensure transparency. Sen. Landrieu cannot ignore a law she finds inconvenient simply to save herself the embarrassment of acknowledging she received illegal campaign contributions. If Sen. Landrieu did nothing wrong, she has no reason not to come clean with the American people and explain why she turned over $25,000 in contributions to the Treasury.

Click here to read CREW’s FEC complaint.

Yesterday, Roll Call newspaper reporter Paul Singer sent CREW a list of questions for a story he is writing about CREW -- after a conversation he had with Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) office. 

Here's the back story:  On January 8th, CREW filed complaints with the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Landrieu violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.

To ensure full transparency of the exchange between CREW and Singer, Singer’s email and CREW’s responses are posted below:

Senator Landrieu's hometown paper ran an article about CREW's complaints filed yesterday with the Department of Justice and Senate Ethics Committee. (The complaints can be found here.) The New Orleans Times-Picayune covered our complaints -- and Landrieu's denials:

An ethics watchdog group Tuesday asked the Justice Department and Senate Ethics Committee to investigate whether Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., violated federal bribery laws in getting a $2 million earmark for a reading program whose executives and lobbyists donated to her 2002 re-election campaign.

The money was earmarked for a Washington, D.C., public schools reading program operated by Voyager Expanded Learning, a Dallas company then headed by Randy Best.

The request for investigations came from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington via letters to the Senate Ethics Committee, the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana and the Northern District of Texas.

"Sen. Landrieu appears to have traded a $2 million earmark for $30,000 in campaign contributions," said Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director. "It was a win-win situation for Best and Sen. Landrieu, but a lose-lose for the taxpayers and D.C. schoolchildren."

Officials at the Justice Department and Senate Ethics Committee declined to comment.

Today, CREW sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.   Both complaints can be found here.

Randy Best, a top Republican donor and Bush pioneer, founded Voyager, an educational products company and rather than selling the company’s reading program to school districts, hired lobbyists to obtain earmarks for it. Although the House had appropriated $1 million for his program for the D.C. public schools, Best still needed a Senate sponsor. A lobbyist arranged a meeting with Sen. Landrieu, the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the District of Columbia, to press for an earmark. Shortly after Sen. Landrieu met with Best, a member of Sen. Landrieu’s staff asked him to hold a fundraiser for her and he agreed. After the fundraiser, she received $30,000 in campaign contributions from individuals associated with the company -- donors who had never before contributed to her. Four days after she received the money, she inserted an earmark into a D.C. appropriations bill, giving D.C. schools $2 million to buy Best’s reading program, which was unproven and had not been requested by the school system.

Federal law prohibits public officials from directly or indirectly demanding, seeking, receiving, accepting, or agreeing to receive or accept anything of value in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act. Accepting a contribution to a political campaign can constitute a bribe if a quid pro quo can be demonstrated.

Given that Sen. Landrieu asked Best to hold a fundraiser for her, which he did, and then inserted the Voyager earmark only four days after receiving contributions from individuals connected with the company, it certainly appears she traded the earmark for the contributions in violation of federal criminal law. Sen. Landrieu also may have violated the Senate rule prohibiting “improper conduct which reflects upon the Senate.”

After sending the complaints, Melanie Sloan said:

Senator Landrieu appears to have traded a $2 million earmark for $30,000 in campaign contributions. It was a win-win situation for Best and Senator Landrieu, but a lose-lose for the taxpayers and D.C. school children.” Sloan continued, “the Department of Justice and the Senate Ethics Committee should look into this matter immediately. Members of Congress need to understand that trading earmarks for campaign funds is illegal -- no exceptions.