Republican fundraiser funds terror

TPMmuckraker February 19, 2007 04:14 PM Indicted NY Biz Man Republican Player? Or Sucker?By Paul Kiel - February 19, 2007, 4:14 PM Josh, looking into Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari (aka Michael Mixon), the New York businessman indicted last week for terrorist financing and bilking investors of millions of dollars, notes that Alishtari, in addition to doling out thousands to the National Republican Congressional Committee, also claims in an online CV to be a member of the "White House Business Advisory Committee" and at having been a "National Republican Congressional Committee [New York State] Businessman of the Year" in 2002 and 2003. So was Alishtari a Republican heavy hitter? Well, if he was, these awards aren't an indication of it. As ABC's new ace investigative reporter Justin Rood reports today in his story on Alishtari, "the NRCC 'Businessperson of the Year' fundraising campaign, which gave such 'awards' to at least 1,900 GOP donors, has been derided as a telemarketing scam by political watchdogs." Here's how it works, as reported in The Washington Post back in 2003: The call starts with flattery: You have been named businessman of the year, or physician of the year, or state chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee's Business Advisory Council. Then comes the fundraising hook: a request for as much as $500 to help pay for a full-page Wall Street Journal advertisement, then a request for $5,000 to reserve a seat at a banquet thrown in your honor. Can't handle that? How about $1,250 for the no-frills package? Back then, the calls frequently featured a recording of ex-Majority Leader's Tom DeLay (R-TX). But the program is a long-time fixture of the NRCC's fundraising apparatus, dating back to 1998 and still going strong. And that's despite several news stories exposing the award as a sham. Apparently there are plenty of people who don't mind being hit up for thousands of dollars in order to receive an award: As NRCC spokesman told the Post back in 2003, "There are many, many happy members of the Business Advisory Council." (Note: There is no such thing as the "White House Business Advisory Committee," as Alishtari terms it. And given that the award lines up with his "Businessman of the Year" honor (and his contributions to the NRCC), it's safe to assume he's referring to the same program.)