National Journal apparently has another follow up to their reporting on the federal investigation of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson but it is subscription only. However a Dallas Observer blog reports on the article which includes that Alphonso’s wife had ties to at least 2 companies that did business with HANO. FromThe Dallas Observer Blog Unfair Park…
Today, theNational Journal offersa subscription-only follow-up
that says federal investigators, the FBI and a Washington, D.C., grand
jury are digging even deeper into Jackson’s affairs and discovering
further connections, including a “stucco contractor” with whom Jackson
is pals and to whom the HUD secretary helped awarded a contract worth
about $500,000 for work in New Orleans. Also revealed: Jackson’s wife
Marcia, now a D.C.-based consultant, also had “financial ties to at
least two companies that did business at” the Housing Authority of New
Orleans (or HANO), one of which is a Houston-based company calledMetroplexCore, whose president was a President Bush appointee to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of Dallas in 2002.Reports theNational Journal:
Despite the criminal inquiry, which involves federal
prosecutors, the grand jury, the FBI, and HUD investigators, Jackson
has remained in the Cabinet post he has held since 2004. That is not
entirely surprising. He is a close friend of President Bush’s from
their days in Texas. Jackson’s wife is a friend of first lady Laura
Bush’s and often attends social functions at the White House. In 2001,
President Bush appointed Mrs. Jackson to the Commission on Presidential
Scholars.Marcia Jackson, who ran a small marketing and development firm in Texas
before moving to Washington, has represented only a few companies
during her husband’s time at HUD. Alphonso Jackson’s public financial
disclosure reports identify his wife as a “marketing consultant
self-employed specializing in municiples & cities.”There is no indication that Mrs. Jackson is a target of the federal
inquiry. Nonetheless, investigators recently began asking questions
about two minority-owned companies that have worked on HANO projects
and that have also used Mrs. Jackson as a consultant, according to a
person familiar with the probe.Another name that has surfaced as an “important witness” in the
government’s investigation is Lori Moon, who worked with Jackson during
his tenure at the Dallas Housing Authority. According to theNational Journal, she was involved in choosing St. Louis-basedKennedy Associates,
an architectural firm, for a $2.4-million design contract for a New
Orleans apartment complex HUD wanted to partially replace that city’s
public housing projects. At the time the contract was awarded in 2003,
Kennedy Associates “still owed [Marcia Jackson] an undisclosed amount
of consulting fees.”From theNational Journal again:
In a statement issued in response to questions fromNational Journal,
Moon said she was aware at the time of the … award in 2003 that
Alphonso Jackson knew Michael E. Kennedy, the company’s president and
CEO. But she emphasized she was not aware that Mrs. Jackson had
financial ties to Kennedy Associates. Moon said that any firm with such
ties to Jackson or his wife should have been disqualified from doing
business at HANO “given Mr. Jackson’s involvement in the management
decisions” at the New Orleans agency.
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This story gets more and more interesting yet National Journal is the only one covering it. Kudos to them…specifically Edward T. Pound but where is everyone, err anyone, else? I mean weare talking about a member of the President’s Cabinet, the head of a major federal agency and one who is now becoming more involved in dealing with the housing/mortgage crisis. Itwould be nice to know if the guy is a crook, would it not?