Smoot, Perry disagree on Thompson

Fred Smoot was in DC and is a fan of Bennie Thompson.

Does Smoot frequently visit the Hill? Once every 10 days or so in the offseason, he said, which wasn't the answer I was expecting.

"You know, I'm a business man," he said. "Plus I've got my guy congressman Bennie Thompson down here from Mississippi, so I always come down and visit him. Then I'm always with Darrell [Green], and Darrell's always down here, so this is a place I'm very much used to....I've got a couple business partners, lawyers. They'll call me, 'Come down here, go to the restaurant, have a little dinner or something.' "

So, the secret to success on the Hill?

"You've got to have personality," Smoot said. "You've got to be a peoples' person. You've got to know how to fit in, in between. You've just got to know how to mix it up, be a good mixer."

The Madison County Journal's Brian Perry? Not so much the fan.

For the next three years, New York Carib News funded trips for Thompson to Panama (2006), Antigua and Barbuda (2007), and St. Maarten (2008). According to Washington DC's The Hill newspaper, "The trip is closely associated with the [Congressional Black Caucus]; only CBC members are invited each year."

The Stanford Financial Group, as recently as 2008, was a supporting sponsor of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (giving between $15,000 and $30,000). The foundation sponsors trips including a 2003 trip to Puerto Rico for Thompson.

On the 2005 IAEC trip, Stanford hosted a reception for lawmakers on his yacht. He hosted another yacht reception for the 2007 trip that included an appearance by Bennie Thompson who "chatted" with Stanford "about a sailing event the billionaire sponsored." Thompson's chief-of-staff told the Politico newspaper he "was not sure whether Thompson flew on Stanford's jet for the 2007 trip."

The 2007 conference agenda scheduled Thompson to speak on "National Security: A Pre-Condition for Success" sponsored by the banking firm HSBC and "Port & Airport Security" sponsored by Macy's.

The 2008 conference at the Sonesta Maho Bay Resort & Casino on the island of St. Maarten occurred about a month after Congress approved the $700 billion financial bailout package. Citigroup (who would receive $45 billion from the bailout package) sponsored the event to the tune of $100,000. Other corporate contributors included AT&T, Verizon ($35,000), Pfizer, Macy's and American Airlines who donated travel. The National Legal and Policy Center has requested an investigation of the event by the special inspector general of the financial bailout package.

Both the 2007 and 2008 trips occurred after Democrats passed new Congressional ethics rules banning corporate sponsorship of conferences like these island trips.

My concern is Thompson has been burned before. Ten years ago the "National Security Caucus Foundation" invited him to the Northern Mariana Islands for a few days. It turns out the real financer of the trip was Jack Abramoff. Thompson denied any knowledge of Abramoff's funding and I'll take him at his word.

But Thompson is Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He saw corporate executives all around him and corporate sponsors on the program, but he apparently maintained naïve innocence that this free trip to a tropical paradise was nothing more than a fact-finding mission where he might just happen to rub shoulders with billionaire Allen Stanford on his yacht.