What's the problem?

What's the problem?

Alright, it's special. I can't wait for the photo of Angela Merkel at De Gaulle International to surface. I work next a public square dedicated to a military hero where people display photographs from abortions and spin wacky signs around their body for peace. OH THE IRONY

Tony Rudy pleaded guilty today. I think "the DeLay family," as we learned it was called in today's WSJ, is in trouble.

She wasn't actually in Liverpool very long, she was visiting The Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's constituency Blackburn (right near where Jigga is now) as a return for Straw going to Birmingham, Alabama last year.

Please post the related article. I don't have a WSJ subscription.

End of the Affair: Behind Unraveling Of DeLay's Team, A Jilted Fiancee; Breakup of Ex-Aides Shook Group Tied to Abramoff; The Prosecutors Move In; Ms. Miller's Tearful Apology
Brody Mullins. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Mar 31, 2006. pg. A.1
Author(s): Brody Mullins
Text Word Count 3020

WASHINGTON -- The engagement of Emily Miller and Michael Scanlon was supposed to mark the coming out of a new Washington power couple.

The two had met on Capitol Hill, where they worked as press secretaries to Rep. Tom DeLay, the feared Texas Republican. They got engaged in September 2001 on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., and planned an August 2002 wedding. As the date approached, Mr. Scanlon bought a $4.7 million oceanside mansion and guest house, formerly part of the DuPont estate, in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He furnished it down to the monogrammed towels and presented it to his bride-to-be.

Then, with the wedding a few months away, he called off the engagement and started dating a 24-year-old waitress.

Mr. Scanlon and Ms. Miller, now both 35 years old, were among a tight-knit group of aides who helped Mr. DeLay rise to the pinnacle of Capitol Hill in the 1990s and cement his power as House majority leader. Some of those aides provided a link between their boss and Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist.

The end of the engagement was part of that group's unraveling -- which has had significant consequences for official Washington. The aides have since turned on one another, feeding the ethics scandal surrounding Mr. Abramoff that now roils the capital. Mr. Abramoff has admitted he directed Native American clients to pay huge sums to Mr. Scanlon's public-relations firm. Mr. Scanlon secretly gave Mr. Abramoff half of his profits.

Prosecutors came to Ms. Miller to help them build a case that drove her ex-fiance to plead guilty, according to a person familiar with the situation. Mr. Scanlon's testimony in turn helped force Mr. Abramoff into a guilty plea. Another former DeLay aide, Tony Rudy, has been cited by prosecutors in the investigation. Now Washington is wondering whether prosecutors will use testimony from Messrs. Scanlon and Rudy to go after Mr. DeLay, who has resigned as majority leader.

While Mr. Abramoff has become well-known as a symbol of the excesses of Washington influence-peddling, the story of the DeLay aides and their role in the scandal is less-known. People who have spoken to Ms. Miller say that after her breakup she began questioning how Mr. Scanlon could afford a lavish lifestyle while working summers as a beach lifeguard and doing seemingly little work at his public- relations firm. She talked about the beach house he had presented to her, the private jet he flew around in and the $17,000-a-month apartment he rented at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. Prosecutors would later ask the same questions, and discover Mr. Abramoff's deals with the Indian tribes.

Ms. Miller, who hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, declined to comment through her attorney, Dan French, who said the "details of Ms. Miller's past personal life are not relevant to the criminal actions of Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff." Mr. Abramoff was sentenced this week in Florida to five years and 10 months in prison over fraud in a casino deal, but his ultimate prison term won't be known until he is sentenced in the corruption scandal in Washington.

The story of the star-crossed Capitol Hill romance -- and its repercussions in national politics -- begins in 1997, when Mr. Scanlon arrived in Rep. DeLay's office as press secretary. There he worked closely with Mr. Rudy. Both press aides were veterans of Republican politics and eager sportsmen. Mr. Scanlon, a native of suburban Washington, could run five miles in under 30 minutes, while Mr. Rudy, of Brooklyn, N.Y., played in an amateur ice-hockey league.

The two shared a pit-bull political style and pushed Mr. DeLay to lead the charge in 1998 for the impeachment of President Clinton. "This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is B.S.," Mr. Scanlon once wrote to Mr. Rudy in an email published in "The Breach," a book by Peter Baker about the impeachment. "Not only do you kick him -- you kick him until he passes out -- then beat him over the head with a baseball bat -- then roll him up in an old rug -- and throw him off a cliff into the pound surf below!!!!!"

The two staffers often lent a hand to Mr. Abramoff, according to court documents and former colleagues. The lobbyist helped Mr. DeLay raise millions of dollars. Mr. Abramoff frequently treated Mr. DeLay to dinner at his sushi restaurant on Capitol Hill and took the congressman on trips overseas. Mr. Abramoff spoiled Mr. DeLay's aides, too, taking them on trips to casinos and golf courses owned by his clients, according to travel disclosure forms.

The aides returned the favor. In the fall of 1998, Mr. Abramoff wanted to help a Republican, Joe Ada, get elected as governor in Guam, even though he was trailing incumbent Gov. Carl Gutierrez badly in the polls.

Just after lunch on Oct. 26, 1998, Mr. Abramoff emailed Mr. Rudy: "We want to know if there is anyway to get Tom to call for an investigation of the misuse of federal funds on Guam by this governor," he wrote in a message reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Abramoff said he would draft a statement for Mr. DeLay and suggested that if Mr. Rudy could "issue a press release and letter requesting an Inspector General (I guess from Interior?) to investigate these matters, it should have a major impact on the election next week."

Within a few hours, Messrs. Rudy and Scanlon released a statement from Mr. DeLay and a letter to the Department of the Interior's inspector general calling for a federal investigation into the Democratic governor. "The allegations and materials I reviewed point to serious corruption" by the governor, Mr. DeLay said in the letter.

Despite their efforts, Mr. Ada lost the race, and the department didn't conduct an investigation. After leaving office, Mr. Gutierrez was tried on corruption charges but acquitted on all counts. Mr. DeLay's spokeswoman said he declined to comment. Mr. Rudy's lawyer didn't return phone calls.

In late 1998, Mr. Rudy was promoted to deputy chief of staff and Mr. Scanlon was elevated to communications director, reporting to Mr. Rudy. To fill the void in the press office, Mr. Scanlon soon hired Ms. Miller, a Georgetown University graduate who had worked as an ABC News associate producer and as a press secretary for Rep. Rick Lazio, a New York Republican.

Ms. Miller shared the pugnacious style of her new colleagues. She was once quoted in a Washington Post profile of Mr. DeLay yelling at a reporter: "You lied!. . . You betrayed him! You twisted his words!. . . We don't know you. You don't exist . . . You are dead to us."

Ms. Miller and Mr. Scanlon soon became close friends. Mr. Scanlon, married at the time, would sometimes bring his newborn son into the office, and Ms. Miller enjoyed watching over him, according to DeLay staffers.

By the end of 1999, Mr. Scanlon's marriage was falling apart, and he moved out of the one-story bungalow he shared with his wife. He left the DeLay office for a private-sector job in public relations. In March 2000, Mr. Abramoff hired Mr. Scanlon to work with him in the Washington, D.C., lobbying office of Seattle-based law firm Preston Gates Ellis LLP.

Mr. Abramoff frequently sought Mr. Rudy's help to influence legislation on behalf of his clients. In exchange, Mr. Abramoff offered the DeLay aide meals, expensive trips and cash, according to Mr. Abramoff and prosecutors. In June 2000, Mr. Abramoff took Mr. Rudy to watch Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open golf championship at Pebble Beach.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Rudy helped arrange for Mr. DeLay to send a U.S. flag that had flown above the Capitol to the owner of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet, which Mr. Abramoff wanted to buy. When the SunCruz owners agreed to sell to Mr. Abramoff for $147.5 million, the lobbyist listed Mr. Rudy as a reference on his $60 million loan application. Mr. Abramoff later pleaded guilty to faking a wire transfer to get financing for the deal, which led to his sentencing in Florida this week.

In March 2001, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon joined Greenberg Traurig, a Miami-based law firm looking to build a lobbying practice in Washington. One of Mr. Abramoff's first hires there was Mr. Rudy. The two former DeLay press secretaries, once allies, became fierce rivals.

Mr. Rudy bad-mouthed Mr. Scanlon among colleagues, according to other Greenberg Traurig lobbyists. Mr. Scanlon fought back by leaking unfavorable tidbits about Mr. Rudy to the press. Mr. Scanlon was now dating Ms. Miller, who had been promoted to Mr. DeLay's communications director.

Using Ms. Miller as his eyes and ears in the DeLay office, Mr. Scanlon, according to DeLay staffers and journalists, told reporters that Mr. Rudy often visited Mr. DeLay's office in 2001, a possible violation of lobbying rules. Former congressional aides must wait a year before lobbying their former colleagues. Mr. Scanlon also told reporters that when Mr. Rudy worked as a House aide, Mr. Rudy urged House Republicans to steer political work to his wife's firm.

When Mr. DeLay heard about the squabbling among his former aides, he was "livid" and threatened to get Mr. Scanlon booted from his lobbying job, according to a March 29, 2001, email from Mr. Rudy to Mr. Abramoff. Mr. Abramoff got Mr. Scanlon to stop the leaks, and no stories came out at the time about Mr. Scanlon's allegations.

Around this time, Mr. Abramoff's bet that SunCruz revenue would allow him to pay back the $60 million loan wasn't panning out. In June 2001, SunCruz filed for bankruptcy, and Mr. Abramoff's lender demanded payment. To resolve the matter, Mr. Abramoff needed to come up with millions of dollars. He hatched a plan to bilk his clients.

Most of Mr. Abramoff's Native American clients operated gambling casinos and wanted to block rival tribes from invading their turf. The tribes also worried that the federal government would tax their casino revenues. Mr. Abramoff told his tribal clients to hire Mr. Scanlon, who had set up his own public-relations firm and would soon leave the lobbying practice. Mr. Scanlon then secretly routed half of his net profits back to Mr. Abramoff. While Mr. Scanlon's actions didn't violate any laws, Mr. Abramoff admitted that he defrauded his clients by receiving kickbacks and not telling them.

As the friendship between Messrs. Abramoff and Scanlon deepened, they teased each other about their regular racquetball matches. "You better start pulling some real opponents or I am going to beat your ass to a pulp next time we get out there!" Mr. Scanlon told Mr. Abramoff in one trash-talking email. Mr. Scanlon was "afraid of a real man!" Mr. Abramoff answered in an email sprinkled with obscenities.

Mr. Scanlon reveled in his newfound wealth. In September 2001, he bought two houses in Washington for a total of $1.2 million, according to court papers. In November 2001, he bought a $1.6 million beach house in Rehoboth Beach and completely renovated it. A few months later, in March, he paid $4.7 million in cash for a place for him and Ms. Miller to live. The beachfront mansion had a weight room, sauna and a three-bedroom guest house. Mr. Scanlon mounted lights on the deck so he could hold parties on the beach at night, according to his surfing friends. He also bought vacation homes on the Caribbean island of St. Barts, including one villa he rented out for $50,000 a week.

In September 2001, Mr. Scanlon, now divorced from his wife, proposed to Ms. Miller before dinner at The Ivy, a Los Angeles restaurant popular with celebrities. The couple planned a wedding at the beach for the following summer. In January 2002 Ms. Miller quit her job as Mr. DeLay's spokeswoman to prepare for the Aug. 10 wedding. The couple sent a save-the-date card to guests that read: "The Celebration Begins."

The celebration never came. Mr. Scanlon broke off the engagement that spring and began dating a 24-year-old waitress at a Rehoboth Beach seafood restaurant.

Mr. Scanlon returned to his summer lifeguard job at Rehoboth Beach, occasionally visiting Washington and staying at his Ritz-Carlton apartment. In November 2002, Mr. Scanlon quietly married his new girlfriend.

Ms. Miller was devastated, according to friends. She spent hours at the gym. Two weeks after her planned wedding date, she started a blog with beauty and diet tips for women.

Three weeks after Mr. Scanlon got married, Ms. Miller was a bridesmaid at the Houston wedding of another former DeLay aide. Ms. Miller confessed to friends at the reception that she had helped Mr. Scanlon spread negative stories about Mr. Rudy, according to people who attended. When she saw Mr. DeLay and his wife, Ms. Miller tearfully apologized and said she had been used as a pawn in Mr. Scanlon's fight with Mr. Rudy, to whom she also expressed remorse.

Mr. DeLay accepted Ms. Miller's apology, according to wedding guests, and embraced her, saying: "We are all a part of the DeLay family." A DeLay spokeswoman, Shannon Flaherty, said Mr. DeLay couldn't recall his exact words.

After flying back to Washington, Ms. Miller called Mr. Scanlon's ex- wife, Carrie Anne Liipfert. People familiar with Ms. Miller's thinking say she missed spending time with Mr. Scanlon's son. She also sought the comfort of another woman hurt by Mr. Scanlon. Over the next few months, the two spoke frequently and became friends.

Ms. Miller told Ms. Liipfert about the millions of dollars Mr. Scanlon was making and about the properties he had purchased, according to people who know both women.

When Mr. Scanlon and Ms. Liipfert, who declined to comment, separated three years earlier, Mr. Scanlon was making $155,000 as Mr. DeLay's communications director and had $39,000 in debt, including $19,400 on his credit cards, according to court records. His child- support payment was set at $1,680 a month.

Now he had millions of dollars in beach houses and flew around in a private jet. In February 2003, Mr. Scanlon's ex-wife filed a motion in a suburban Washington court to increase the child-support payments. Mr. Scanlon's "financial circumstances . . . have improved dramatically," Ms. Liipfert told the court, according to records. "It is believed he earns millions of dollars per year now."

Mr. Scanlon fought his ex-wife's request and refused to tell the court how much he made. He said his ex-wife "has been in direct contact with third parties concerning his finances and business enterprises, apparently seeking to embarrass" him, according to court records.

In April, Ms. Liipfert asked the court to subpoena former yoga instructor Brian Mann, a move that suggested she had knowledge about her ex-husband's work with Mr. Abramoff. Federal investigators later discovered Mr. Mann was the director of a fake think tank that Messrs. Abramoff and Scanlon used to collect fees from clients.

At the end of the summer of 2003, Mr. Scanlon reached an out-of- court settlement with his ex-wife. Under the settlement, the two aren't permitted to discuss the terms.

Just as Mr. Scanlon was being pressed by his ex-wife for more money, Mr. Abramoff was starting to show the stress of being pinched by his lenders.

"Mike!!! I need the money TODAY! I AM BOUNCING CHECKS!!!" he emailed Mr. Scanlon on Feb. 19, 2003, as the latter vacationed in St. Barts, according to an email released by Senate investigators. After Mr. Scanlon promised to send a kickback check, Mr. Abramoff wrote: "Sorry I got nuts, but it's a little crazy for me right now. I am not kidding that I was literally on the verge of collapse. I hate all the s--t I'm into."

On Feb. 22, 2004, the Washington Post in a front-page article reported that Messrs. Abramoff and Scanlon charged four Indian tribes $45 million for lobbying and public-relations work over three years. The sum rivaled the lobbying fees of the biggest U.S. corporations.

Mr. Abramoff's world quickly caved in. The next week, he was fired from his lobbying job. On Capitol Hill, Sen. John McCain opened a Senate probe into his business.

The Justice Department, already investigating Mr. Abramoff's SunCruz deal in Florida, expanded its investigation to include his work in Washington with Mr. Scanlon and the Indian tribes. Federal prosecutors soon found out that Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon received more than $80 million from the tribes.

Mr. Scanlon at first seemed unfazed. In the months after the story broke, he bought a pair of $2 million beach houses and returned to his lifeguard job. In July 2005, he sold the beach house he bought for Ms. Miller for a $1 million profit, according to court records.

But pressure was mounting on him. Justice Department prosecutors secretly approached Ms. Miller to help build a case against her ex- fiance, says a person familiar with the case. Last November, Mr. Scanlon pleaded guilty to bribery charges. He agreed to go to jail for as long as five years and pay back nearly $20 million to the tribes. Mr. Scanlon also implicated Mr. Abramoff.

Six weeks later, Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption and bribery charges and agreed to pay the tribes $26 million. Depending on his sentence in Washington, he may spend a decade behind bars. In his plea agreement, Mr. Abramoff said he sought to bribe Mr. Rudy "to perform a series of official acts" by offering him golf trips, meals and a $50,000 payment to his wife.

Days later, Mr. DeLay announced he wouldn't seek another term in the Republican leadership in the House. He faces a re-election fight this fall. Mr. Rudy quit his lobbying job.

Until the summer of 2005, Ms. Miller worked as a spokeswoman at the State Department. In May 2004, she earned a bit of fame when she cut off a live interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Ms. Miller hasn't held a steady job since leaving the State Department. She blames talk about her involvement with the investigation.

Friends say Ms. Miller still has Mr. Scanlon's four-carat engagement ring.

The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff
How a Well-Connected Lobbyist Became the Center of a Far-Reaching Corruption Scandal

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 29, 2005; Page A01

Jack Abramoff liked to slip into dialogue from "The Godfather" as he led his lobbying colleagues in planning their next conquest on Capitol Hill. In a favorite bit, he would mimic an ice-cold Michael Corleone facing down a crooked politician's demand for a cut of Mafia gambling profits: "Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing."

The playacting provided a clue to how Abramoff saw himself -- the power behind the scenes who directed millions of dollars in Indian gambling proceeds to favored lawmakers, the puppet master who pulled the strings of officials in key places, the businessman who was building an international casino empire.

Abramoff is the central figure in what could become the biggest congressional corruption scandal in generations. Justice Department prosecutors are pressing him and his lawyers to settle fraud and bribery allegations by the end of this week, sources knowledgeable about the case said. Unless he reaches a plea deal, he faces a trial Jan. 9 in Florida in a related fraud case.

A reconstruction of the lobbyist's rise and fall shows that he was an ingenious dealmaker who hatched interlocking schemes that exploited the machinery of government and trampled the norms of doing business in Washington -- sometimes for clients but more often to serve his desire for wealth and influence.

....on and on and on....click the link above.

Peel Holdings Limited
Peel Dome, The Trafford Centre
Manchester
M17 8PL, United Kingdom
Phone: +44-161-629-8200
Fax: +44-161-629-8334

http://www.peelholdings.co.uk

Overview
Peel Holdings has some a-peel-ing properties in its grip. The company owns, develops, and manages properties, including canals and regional airports, in the UK. Among its assets are Trafford Centre (a suburban shopping megaplex in greater Manchester), Scottish port management firm Clydeport, and Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. In anticipation of a deregulation of UK gambling laws, Peel Holdings is partnering with MGM MIRAGE to build at least four casino and entertainment complexes in England and Scotland. A group of shareholders controlling Peel Holdings (including founder and chairman John Whittaker) took the firm private in 2004.


Peel Holdings has four operating divisions: Peel Airports, Peel Land & Property, Peel Ports, and The Trafford Centre. Its development projects include entertainment and leisure centers, mixed-use redevelopments, retail parks, and business parks. A fifth division -- Peel Living -- will eventually add residential schemes to its portfolio.

The company's overseas holdings include commercial property in Bermuda and the Bahamas.

In September 2005 Peel acquired Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, the UK's second largest port operator. Peel had previously owned more than 25% of Mersey Docks. The company offered in February 2006 to build a stadium for the Everton Football Club, though a final site was not identified.

In Scotland, Peel submitted revised plans for the estimated $2 billion (£1.2 billion) regeneration of Glasgow Harbor, a 128-acre site that will include retail, leisure, and residential space. The plan also calls for a regional casino operated by MGM MIRAGE, a five-star hotel, and a 30-story residential tower.