Curt Weldon

Curt Weldon (born July 22, 1947) is an American politician. He has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1987, representing the Seventh District of Pennsylvania (map).

File:Curtweldon.jpg

Weldon is the vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee. He is also the co-chair of the Duma-Congress Study Group-- the official inter-parliamentary relationship between the United States and Russia.

Weldon and his wife Mary Gallagher have five children.

Early life and education

Weldon grew up in a blue-collar family in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of nine children. He attended West Chester University of Pennsylvania and earned a B.A in Russian Studies in 1969, making him the first in his family to graduate from college. Weldon speaks Russian fluently. After graduation, Weldon was subject to the draft, with the Vietnam War ongoing. Weldon "wanted to serve, but the military would not take him because of his extremely poor eyesight," according a Weldon spokesman.

Early political career

Weldon wasn't active in politics until 1977, when he became the Mayor of Marcus Hook. Prior to that, he served as an educator in local Delaware County schools as well as a volunteer fire-fighter in Marcus Hook.

Weldon served two terms as Mayor from 1977 to 1982 and was nominated for election on both the Republican and Democratic tickets. His efforts as mayor were geared towards reviving his town against the violent Pagans Motorcycle Gang.

From 1981 to 1986, Weldon served as a councilman and later chair of the Delaware County Council. Maintaining his interest in foreign affairs, he coordinated a USSR student exchange in 1985 that continues to this day.

Tenure as U.S. Representative

Weldon is now the third longest serving member of the Pennsylvanian delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives after Representatives John Murtha and Paul Kanjorski.

Weldon first ran for U.S. Congress for the 7th district of Pennsylvania in 1984 on the Republican ticket but lost to incumbent Democrat Rep. Robert W. Edgar. However, Edgar did not seek re-election in 1986 but instead ran for the U.S. Senate against Arlen Specter. Weldon then ran again for Edgar's seat in 1986 and won with a comfortable margin.

Weldon's margin for re-election has grown considerably since 1986, handily defeating Democratic opponents. In 2000, he was re-elected with 65% of the vote even though Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore won Delaware County with 54% of the vote.

In 2004, Weldon won with 59% of the vote. By contrast, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry got 53% of the district's vote that year. Weldon's Democratic opponent, Paul Scoles, spent $24,000 dollars running against the nine-term incumbent; in that 2003-2004 election cycle, Weldon received nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions. Scoles entered the race in the last 90 days of the campaign, when the original Democratic candidate, Greg Philips, was called up for Reserve duty to support the Iraq War.

Actions in Congress

Weldon has worked to promote a national missile defense system, citing a need to protect the U.S. against potential ballistic missile attacks from nations such as North Korea and Iran. In the late 1990s, he was one of the first members of Congress to speak out about the threat that chemical and biological weapons pose to U.S. security.

Weldon founded the Congressional Fire Services Caucus and has consistently fought for increased funding for firefighters. He was the author of a bill that implemented a federal grant program for local fire departments. He has fought for mandatory safety sprinklers in college dormitories and training of fire departments to deal with terrorism incidents involving chemical and biological weapons.

In June of 1998, Weldon served on the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, perhaps better known as the "Cox Committee." The committee, five Republicans and four Democrats, investigated whether the Clinton Administration's waivers allowing U.S. military contractors to transfer military technology to China damaged national security. The committee unanimous final report concluded that such actions did so.

Weldon has a conservative voting record for a Republican representing a Democratic district. He has maintained a more conservative voting record than either Representatives Mike Fitzpatrick or Jim Gerlach, despite the fact that his district is significantly more Democratic than either of theirs. Despite being a member of the Republican Mainstreet Partnership, he voted against stem cell research. [1]

Weldon has made improving relations with Russia one of his key efforts in the House. He has worked with Russian leaders on a variety of issues, including efforts to improve Russia's energy supply, correct environmental damage, and protect both nations from ballistic missile attack. Weldon is the co-founder of the Duma-Congress Study Group, the official parliamentary exchange between the two legislative bodies. This bilateral relationship coordinates legislative efforts in the Russian Duma and the Congress to foster a better working relationship between the two nations. Recently, Weldon created a comprehensive framework designed to improve the state of relations between the two countries. Titled "A New Time, A New Beginning," his proposal makes recommendations for cooperative efforts in eleven different areas ranging from defense and national security to space exploration and scientific research.

Weldon co-chairs the House Oceans Caucus. In 1995, his "Oceans Agenda" legislation passed Congress, increasing funding for oceanographic research projects. Weldon is the sole House Republican on the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, which approves funding for U.S. wildlife refuges and wetlands preservation. Weldon is a member of Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), where he serves as Honorary Chairman of the Oceans Protection Task Force. Weldon also serves as the honorary United States Vice President on the Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea (ACOPS). In his district, Weldon has secured funding for the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge in Tinicum and obtained funding for the preservation of the Paoli Battlefield, the site of a Revolutionary War battle that was slated for development.

Weldon also co-authored the Family Medical Leave Act, pushed for the extension of unemployment benefits, has consistently supported raising the minimum wage, opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and voted for across-the-board tax cuts. He also played a key leadership role in welfare reform in the mid-1990s.

House committee assignments

Weldon originally joined the Armed Services Committee and the Science Committee. He currently chairs the Military Procurement Subcommittee under Armed Services. In the 109th Congress, he is vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the Select Committee on Homeland Security.

In August 2005, after the Senate confirmed Chris Cox as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Weldon said he was interested in replacing Cox as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. Weldon sent a letter highlighting his achievements to Hastert and the rest of the 28-person Steering Committee, and more personalized letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, asking for the Speaker’s support. In September, the Steering Committee selected Peter King, the fifth-ranking member of the committee, as chair.

Weldon also said that Hastert will support his potential bid to become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee in 2008. Under House GOP rules, current Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter must relinquish his position in January 2008.

2006 election campaign

Main article: Pennsylvania 7th congressional district election, 2006

Weldon's Democratic opponent is Joe Sestak, a Vice-Admiral who retired earlier in the year after a 31-year military career. Sestak has proven to be a capable fundraiser, raising $704,000 in the second quarter of 2006, and having campaign cash reserves of nearly $1 million as of June 30. Weldon reported raising $692,000 in the second quarter, and had $1.2 million on hand at the end of June. In July, CQPolitics changed their rating on the race from "Republican Favored" to the more competitive "Leans Republican."

Controversies

Family

Karen Weldon

Karen Weldon, Curt Weldon's daughter, received an undergraduate degree in education and a graduate degree in information systems. After college, she spent six years working on "learning and training programs" for the Boeing Company, which has a helicopter plant at the edge of Weldon's district. A spokesman for Weldon said that he did not help his daughter get the job at Boeing, which is a frequent beneficiary of his work in Washington and one of his top campaign donors.

In September 2002, Weldon, then 28 years old, and Charles P. Sexton Jr., about 40 years her senior, started a partnership, Solutions North America (SNA), which she said was "more of a business consultancy than a lobbying firm". Sexton is a political power broker in Weldon's district and the former owner of a security guard company, which he sold in 2003 for $6 million.

In February of 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported that all three known clients of SNA had ties to Curt Weldon:

• Itera International Energy Corporation, a Russian company, was Solutions' first client. In May 2002, Curt Weldon had led a congressional delegation to Russia and visited Itera. At the beginning of September, Itera paid the expenses for a trip he made to New York City. The next week, Itera told Karen Weldon it would sign a contract with SNA. On September 24, Curt Weldon co-hosted an event at the Library of Congress honoring Itera's chairman. On September 26, Weldon gave a floor speech praising Itera. On September 30, SNA received a a $500,000 annual contract with Itera, with $170,000 up front. In November, Itera paid for Karen to join her father on a trip to Eastern Europe and Russia. In January 2003, Itera opened U.S. offices in Jacksonville, Fl., paying for Representative Weldon to attend the opening.

• Karen Weldon said she found her second client, Saratov Aviation, a Russian aerospace manufacturer, in December 2002, through a family friend, who had worked with her father to foster U.S.-Russian business ties. In January 2003 Curt and Karen Weldon visited Saratov's plant in Russia. After the trip, Saratov signed a contract to pay SNA for $20,000 per month plus a 10% commission, both dependent on new business generated. After the trip, Weldon contacted the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) concerning Saratov's products. In September, Navair and Saratov signed a nonbinding letter of intent that called for Navair to seek funding to develop the Saratov's technology. In November the Saratov contract was rewritten to remove the commission (illegal for federal contractors) and to deliver payment to Solutions Worldwide Inc., another Karen Weldon-Charles Sexton venture. Saratov began paying the new firm $20,000 a month in December 2003.

• Dragomir and Bogoljub Karic, associates of Slobodan Milosevic, paid $240,000 to SNA in March 2003. Weldon had championed the efforts of the two to obtain U.S. visas from the State Department, had refused them entry. After getting the contract, SNA paid for Weldon's chief of staff Michael J. Conallen Jr. to take a "fact-finding" trip to Serbia in November 2003. Curt Weldon approved the trip, although House ethics rules bar staff from taking official trips paid for by lobbyists or registered agents of foreign companies, the two SNA partners are registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents. Conallen said he reimbursed SNA with his own money in February 2004 after The Times raised questions about the trip.

Intelligence officials have warned Weldon that the Karics are too close to Milosevic, who was accused of leading the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslav federation. But the congressman has praised the Karics, who own a vast empire of banking, telecommunication and other firms, as model business leaders and humanitarians. He has portrayed them as victims of faulty intelligence reports and, In January 2004, asked the CIA to sit down with them and sort things out.

Kim Weldon

Weldon has used his position as a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee to attract a range of defense companies to southeastern Pennsylvania. One such firm is AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of the Italian defense firm Finmeccanica. In January 2005, AgustaWestland won a $1.7 billion contract to build the new presidential helicopter Marine One."US101 Selected By U.S. Navy For Presidential Helicopter Replacement Program", January 28, 2005</ref> Weldon was a key supporter in the win for the firm, which was competing with U.S. manufacter Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation.

In the fall of 2005, AgustaWestland hired Weldon's daughter Kim, working in the public relations office. She reportedly has a formal agreement with the company that prohibits her from lobbying Congress or contacting her father or his office on the company's behalf.

Andrew Weldon

[Andrew Weldon]http://www.ssracingonline.com/DriverProfile.asp?DriverID=12, is a race car driver hoping to make the Nascar circuit. DelCo Times has reported that Andrew has gained sponsorship by many of Weldon Sr's political contributors. As documented in this Harpers story. http://harpers.org/sb--1153846495.html

Other lobbyists

Cecilia "Cece" Grimes

In January 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that Cecilia Grimes, 40, who calls herself a longtime family friend of Weldon, was the senior partner in a two-person lobbying firm located in Media,Pennsylvania, where she is realtor.. The lobbying firm has clients from as far away as California whose with business involves one or both of the House committees that Weldon is a member of.

Grimes told the Times she has known Weldon for about 15 years. "I coached one of his kids in junior high school," she said, declining to elaborate. In 2000, she was his real estate agent in the purchase of a house in Pennsylvania. She has been lobbying since March 2003, when she opened a firm called CC Nexus LLC -- now incorporated as Grimes and Young. Grimes' partner is Cynthia Young, 28, a lawyer who lives two houses from Weldon. Her husband, Robert J. Young, worked as a paid staff aide for four months on Weldon's 2004 re-election campaign. He is the son of U.S. Representative Bill Young, R-FL.

Grimes has signed up at least eight corporate clients, four of which are located in Weldon's district. The companies are mostly small firms seeking federal defense and domestic security funding. Among the most recent clients signed by Grimes and Young is Oto Melara, a subsidiary of Italian defense company Finmeccanica, the firm that employs Kim Weldon. On June 1, 2005, the company agreed to pay Grimes $20,000 annually. Another client is Advanced Ceramics Research Inc., a Tucson, Arizona firm. Grimes lobbied about a dozen members of Congress, including Weldon, for a $3 million contract in 2005, which became the firm's first funding from a defense appropriations bill. The firm has since won a combined $43.5 million in Navy contracts and congressional funding. More than $5 million came from the Naval Air Systems Command, an agency overseen by Weldon's subcommittee.

Grimes said that despite a lack of Washington experience, she has skills for lobbying. "It's all about networking and follow-up," she said. "My clients like my company, and that has nothing to do with Curt."

Stefanie Reiser

Stefanie Reiser (sometimes spelled "Stephanie Reiser") worked from January 2000 to late 2005 for Weldon, handling fund-raising duties for Weldon’s campaign committee and for his political action committee, Committee for a United Republican Team (CURT PAC). She earned $54,659 as a fundraiser for Weldon’s campaign committee, and was paid at least $90,000 by CURT PAC for fundraising and reimbursements for travel, lodging and office supplies.

Prior to working for Weldon, Reiser was a lobbyist for Chambers Associates and served as former California Governor Pete Wilson’s representative in Washington. She registered as a lobbyist for Novavax, a company seeking federal funding for a vaccine, on November 13, 2001; the company paid her $20,000. On December 6, 2001, Weldon and three other members of Congress held a briefing in which they and researchers from Novavax spoke of the need for a vaccine similar to the one Novavax was working on. On December 24, 2001, Reiser donated $250 to Curt PAC, describing herself as "Self-employed/political fundraiser".

Use of campaign funds

Between 1998 and 2006, Weldon spent about $80,000 of campaign treasury funds on restaurant meals. During the same period, Weldon also spent about $30,000 of campaign funds on hotels. He also spent $1,698 for a personal computer, delivered to his home; $4,618 for landscaping, paid to a company owned by a campaign contributor; and $13,000 in unitemized personal reimbursements during that period.

Congressional ethics rules say that campaign funds should be used for "bona fide campaign or political purposes". Weldon's attorney, William B. Canfield, said that ethics rules are "entirely amorphous," and that "you may think it's a big loophole, but he's allowed to spend money that way."

Sun Myung Moon

International and Interreligious Federation for World Peace (IIFWP)

Weldon has attended three events of the IIFWP (now called the Universal Peace Federation), an organization created and run by Sun Myung Moon:

• In mid-February 2002, Weldon spoke at the IIFWP's Assembly 2002 festivities. According to Weldon's office, his appearance was related to his first trip to North Korea in June 2003.
• On November 22, 2002, Weldon was a keynote speaker at the IIFWP's U.S.-U.N. symposium.
• In April 2003, Weldon spoke at an IIFWP symposium in New York.

On June 19, 2003, Weldon and Representative Danny K. Davis, a Democrat from Illinois, both praised the IIFWP's "Ambassadors for Peace" program on the floor of Congress.

A spokesman for Weldon said that "The Congressman does not accept or support any of Reverend Moon's teachings or beliefs", and that money paid to Weldon for his speeches went to pay for the Michael Horrocks Playground Fund, named for a 9/11 pilot.

March 2004 coronation

Main article: Sun Myung Moon crowned by United States Congresspeople

Weldon was one of six "Congressional Co-Chairs" for a Sun Myung Moon event on March 23, 2004 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, which was described in the invitation as being for the "Interreligious and International Peace Council." The IIPC is a program of the Universal Peace Federation.

The spokeswoman for one Senator, who asked that her boss not be named, said politicians weren't told the awards program was going to be a Moon event that included Moon's coronation. The Senator went, she said, because the event included handing out awards to people from his home state, people who were genuinely accomplished. When the ceremony morphed into a platform for Moon, she said, people were disconcerted. "I think there was a mass exodus," she said. "They get all these senators on the floor, and this freak is there."

Weldon, whose office initially denied that he attended the event but retracted that claim upon being shown photos, gave a brief speech about his recent trip to Libya. A spokesman for Weldon said he "was not there for the crowning" and that "If we had known that Reverend Moon was going to attend the event, be crowned and make an unbelievably interesting speech, the congressman likely would not have attended."

Foreign policy

Visits to North Korea

In June 2003, Weldon lead a bi-partisan Congressional delegation to North Korea. The delegation didn't go as official representatives of the White House, which had repeatedly refused North Korea's demands that the two countries meet one-on-one. The White House did know the trip was planned and did supply a military helicopter.

Weldon said that the meetings went extremely well. Weldon said he drew up an outline of how relations could be improved between the two countries, which would involve the complete nuclear disarmament of North Korea. North Korean leaders, including the vice-foreign minister who is the chief negotiator for the North, were receptive to the concept, said Weldon.

In October 2003, Weldon had planned to head a 10-member Congressional delegation to North Korea for his second visit. But two days prior to the October 25 departure date, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed Weldon that the administration was "pulling all support." Weldon then wrote a 4½-page letter to President George W. Bush that said that Bush's national security team was "arrogant and disrespectful" in the way it cancelled the trip. Weldon said he would continue his efforts to dialogue with North Korean officials whether the White House supports him or not. "They can’t stop me from going there," he said. "What they can do is make things supremely difficult."

In January 2005, Weldon led a six-member Congressional delegation in a three-day visit to North Korea, as well as brief stops in South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. Weldon said Pyongyang was serious about abandoning its nuclear program, but he said it wanted certain assurances from the United States -- the main one being that an end to what he called "inflammatory rhetoric" from Washington.

In August 2005, Weldon went to North Korea as part of a 10-member delegation that included Ted Turner and former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg.

Visits to Libya

In 2004, Weldon lead two bipartisan delegations to Libya. The first visit, in January, was to establish contact with government officials. The second visit, in September, was to address their Congress (Libyan General People’s Congress Great Jamahiriya).

A large picture of Weldon putting what his office said was an American flag pin on Colonel Moammar Gaddafi, the head of Libya, was displayed when Weldon spoke at the March 2004 event involving Sun Myung Moon.

Able Danger

In June 2005, Weldon gave a speech on the House floor in which he described the Able Danger military intelligence program and said that it had identified a terrorist cell involved in the 9/11 attacks in 2000, a year prior to the attacks. (For details, see the article on Able Danger.)

Iranian informer

In mid-2005, Weldon's book, Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information that Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America . . . and How the CIA Has Ignored It, was published. In it, he accuses the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and his colleagues on the House and Senate intelligence committees of ignoring his trove of information. These secrets, he says, come from "an impeccable clandestine source," whom Weldon code-names "Ali," an Iranian exile living in Paris. Much of the book consists of reproduced pages of "intelligence" memos faxed by Ali to Weldon’s office between 2003 and 2004.

According to the book, Iranian-supported terrorists were plotting to fly a hijacked Canadian airliner into the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station, four miles outside Boston. The book also said that Iran was hiding Osama bin Laden.

"Ali" was identified in April 2005 as Fereidoun Mahdavi, a frail, elderly former minister of commerce in the government of the Shah of Iran. Mahdavi has said that the bulk of the information that he provided to Weldon originally came from Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar.

The CIA and former intelligence officers vehemently dispute Weldon's charges. Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris, said that, after interviewing Mahdavi on several occasions and investigating his claims, the CIA determined he was lying. The CIA says that Mahdavi never gave them anything specific about Iran's weapons capability or terrorist activities. As for Ghorbanifar, he is the subject of a rare CIA "burn notice" after the agency found him to be a "fabricator" during the Iran-Contra affair.

Death of bin Laden

In mid-March 2006, Weldon said that Ali/Mahdavi had told him that Osama bin Laden had died in Iran. But in late April, an audiotape was released of bin Laden speaking of events as current as mid-March, and the tape was confirmed to be authentic by U.S. intelligence services. Peter Vincent Pry, Weldon's staff adviser on national security issues and a former CIA military analyst, aid Ali/Mahdavi has been a reliable source: "If he is wrong about this bin Laden thing, it's the first time he has been wrong about a major issue." In an interview, Weldon said bin Laden "might very well be alive. 'Ali' may have been set up."

Unearthing hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

Dave Gaubatz, a former Air Force special investigator who was as a civilian employee in Iraq in 2003, says that while in Iraq, he acquired what he considered reliable information about WMD caches in four locations that had gas and chemical weapons that were recently produced. He could not get U.S. military officials to look into the matter, so he eventually contacted Weldon and Representative Peter Hoekstra, head of the House Intelligence Committee, to share his information and to try to get them to pressure the Defense Department and intelligence agencies to do the WMD searches in four locales.

Instead, Gaubatz said, Weldon discussed a Hoekstra-Weldon trip to Iraq, under the guise of visiting the troops, that would detour to one of the locales. Once there, Gaubatz said, the congressmen planned to persuade the U.S. military commander to lend them the equipment and men to go digging for the cache. He said that Weldon made it clear he didn't want word leaked to the Pentagon, to intelligence officials, or to Democratic congressmen.

Gaubatz said that "They even worked out how it would go. If there was nothing there, nothing would be said. If the site had been [scavenged], nothing would be said. But, if it was still there, they would bring the press corps out." After a May 4, 2006 meeting, according to Gaubatz, he called a reporter at the Washington Times, who called Weldon's office to get confirmation. That inquiry, Gaubatz said, scuttled the project.

A spokesman for Hoekstra denied that Hoekstra intended to take an expedition to Iraq. Weldon's office refused to comment.

External links

• Official website
• Weldon's Campaign Website
• Weldon calls for federal aid to help firefighters
• Weldon pushes plan asking kids to dime out drug dealers
• Weldon touts clout of regional concept
• Weldon announces Rotorcraft center, could bring 400 jobs to Delco
• Weldon’s crusade has eye on the future
• Weldon departs for flood ravaged areas
• A Google News Query of recent news articles related to Congressman Weldon's work on "Able Danger"
• Weldon and Santorum deliver $5.4M in Upper Darby
• Curt backed in Pentagon showdown
• Larisa Alexandrovna, Curt Weldon's attempt to tie Iran to nuclear arms plot, Raw Story, January 11, 2006.
• Curt Weldon's Deep Throat [2]
• Voting record maintained by the Washington Post
• PA-7 Watch: Blogging the 2006 PA-7 Congressional race between Joe Sestak and Curt Weldon- NOTE: PRO-SESTAK POINT OF VIEW