Judicial Watch, a non-profit, non-partisan organization announced their annual list of the 10 most corrupt politicians in America. Guess who made the list?

5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Giuliani came under fire in late 2007 after it was discovered the former New York mayor’s office “billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons…” ABC News also reported that Giuliani provided Nathan with a police vehicle and a city driver at taxpayer expense. All of this news came on the heels of the federal indictment on corruption charges of Giuliani’s former Police Chief and business partner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to accepting a $165,000 bribe in the form of renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company attempting to land city contracts.

6. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

The only other elected Republican official to make this elite group was Larry Craig. Now that's company.

Stem cell, contraception groups paid Huck
By: Kenneth P. Vogel Dec 28, 2007 06:19 AM EST

Mike Huckabee last year accepted $52,000 in speaking fees from a bio-tech giant that wants to research human embryonic stem cells, a non-profit working to expand access to the morning after pill and a group pushing to study whether tightening gun control laws will reduce violence.

Huckabee opposes embryonic stem cell research, emergency contraception and stricter gun laws – all of which rank high on the list of deal-breakers for many of the religious conservatives whose support he’s ridden to the top of the Republican presidential field. The payments – from drug-maker Novo Nordisk, which engages in stem cell research, the Public Health Institute, which works to expand access to “morning after” contraception and Grant Makers in Health, which is seeking to steer funding to studies of gun violence – highlight the delicate line Huckabee has walked on the profitable speaking circuit.

The former Arkansas governor has used appearances before churches, universities and other groups to both expand and capitalize on his reputation as a leader in conservative Christian and public health circles.

But along the way, he’s accepted honoraria from public health interests that sometimes support causes anathema to the GOP right. Huckabee “isn’t afraid to speak to people who don’t agree with his message or personal philosophy,” said his spokeswoman Kirsten Fedewa.
She added, though, that Huckabee sticks to “limited, focused and non-political” topics such as “preventive health care or similar issues.”

That answer may not satisfy some social conservatives, said Bill Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union.

“It raises questions as to his philosophical positions,” Lauderback asserted, “if he is accepting very lucrative speaking fees from special interest groups who have a markedly different perspective on certain social issues from what he is projecting as a candidate.” The speaking and book circuits helped Huckabee, whose salary during his decade as governor never topped $79,000, make ends meet – both before and after he left the governor's mansion early this year.

According to state and federal public records, he pulled in more than $405,000 since 2004 in honoraria, books sales, consulting and outside income through 12 Stops, Inc. a company set up that year to manage his private sector business. It’s not hard to see why his story appeals to groups and companies in the public health arena.

An ordained Baptist minister who dropped more than 100 pounds after being diagnosed with Type II diabetes, Huckabee pushed to expand health care access and incentivize healthy living in Arkansas. Novo Nordisk, which touts itself as a world leader in diabetes care, in May announced it was giving away 35,000 Spanish-language copies of Huckabee’s book, “Quit Digging Your Grave With A Knife and Fork: A 12-Stop Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle.”

Two months earlier, Huckabee received a total of $35,000 in two payments from the company, according to a personal financial disclosure statement he filed with the Federal Election Commission.

On its website, the company calls human embryonic stem cell research “essential” to addressing diseases including diabetes and Parkinson's.

But it adds it will only use human embryonic stem cells “derived from spare embryos from (in vitro fertilization) treatment that are obtained with freely given informed consent” and it says it does not support “the creation of human embryos solely for research purposes.” Huckabee is “opposed to research on embryonic stem cells,” according to his website.

Asked about the apparent contradiction, Novo Nordisk spokesman Sean Clements said the company and Huckabee “share the same passion for changing diabetes for the nearly 21 million Americans with the disease.”

The company’s connection to the research was too much for Mitt Romney, who also opposes most embryonic stem cell research.
Unbeknownst to him, he had between $100,000 and $250,000 in stock in Novo Nordisk in a blind trust that was made public this summer.
At the time, Romney said the trust manager would “endeavor to make my investments conform to my positions.”

The California-based Public Health Institute, a non-profit that paid Huckabee $13,000 for a January speech, works on a range of public health issues.
T
hey include expanding access to emergency contraception – also known as the morning-after pill – in the U.S. and abroad. The institute did not return telephone calls and emails. But its website asserts “The best way to make change happen is to bring together people and institutions with common interests and, sometimes, different points of view.”

Huckabee this year received $4,000 from the D.C.-based non-profit group, Grant Makers in Health. It helps foundations evaluate grant proposals in a range of areas, such as expanding healthcare access for immigrants, including illegal immigrants, and studying the impacts of gun-control laws on violence – hardly causes celebre among conservative activists. Grant Makers did not respond to requests for comment. Other entities that paid Huckabee seem more closely aligned with his world view.

He reported receiving nearly $11,000 from book sales and honoraria from five churches and from conservative Liberty University (Huckabee says he donated payments from the churches). Castle Partners, a group that invests in health and fitness companies, paid him $15,000 to speak last year, while the Cooper Institute, an exercise research group on whose board Huckabee once sat, paid him more than $3,000 in honoraria and book sales. The International Music Products Association, which this year gave the guitar-playing Huckabee its “Music for Life Award” for commitment to music education, also paid him $40,000 in consulting fees for a contract that ran through September.

As for book sales, the McBride Agency paid him nearly $150,000 in book royalties, while a political committee he controlled, Hope for America, paid him nearly $8,000 for books.

Gov. Huckabee is bringing in $25,000 a pop for speaking engagements to church's in Iowa, according to Redstate via EFM.

Does anyone have an ethical problem with this?

Can you imagine the hullabaloo if Romney did this?

McCain Says Allegations That He Did Favors for D.C. Lobbyist Are Untrue
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 21, 2007; A05

Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he has "never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group," as his presidential campaign issued a statement denouncing allegations of legislative favoritism as "gutter politics."

The Arizona Republican has hired a prominent Washington criminal attorney, Robert Bennett, to deal with the matter. "What is being done to John McCain is an outrage," Bennett said in an interview.

Bennett said he sent prepared answers yesterday to written questions submitted by New York Times reporters who have spent weeks investigating questions about whether the senator did favors for a Washington lobbyist or her clients. She has also retained a lawyer, according to a knowledgeable source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing legal matters.

McCain called Times Executive Editor Bill Keller this month to deny the allegations and to complain that he was not being treated fairly by the Times reporters, who had not yet interviewed him, the source said.

The Times inquiry burst into public view when the Drudge Report Web site posted an item about the newspaper's probe. Keller did not respond to a request to comment.
Speaking to reporters in Detroit, McCain confirmed the Times inquiry, adding: "I do find the timing of this whole issue very interesting. And we're not going to stand for what happened to us in 2000. We're getting close to the primary," he said, referring to the Jan. 8 contest in New Hampshire.

Bennett said McCain had personally retained him "to respond more forcefully" to the allegations than he did to unfounded rumors in the 2000 South Carolina primary, which included the falsehood that McCain had illegitimately fathered a black baby. Those rumors, Bennett said, "may have cost him the election."

McCain's top strategists initially declined to comment on the Drudge Report item, fearing that would open the door for news organizations to write about what his advisers regard as a non-story. McCain took the matter into his own hands by fielding questions about the controversy in Detroit, prompting his campaign to issue its statement.

"It is unfortunate that rumor and gossip enter into political campaigns," said the statement from Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign's communications director. "John McCain has a 24-year record of serving this country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the important issues facing our country."

Internet gossip Matt Drudge has occasionally served as a conduit for allegations that news organizations are investigating but have not yet published.

Bennett represented President Bill Clinton during the impeachment investigation mounted by Congress. In 1989, Bennett was special counsel to a Senate ethics committee probe of five senators, including McCain, over their ties to convicted savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating. The panel concluded that McCain used poor judgment in interceding with banking regulators on Keating's behalf, but that no punishment was warranted.

POTOMAC WATCH — Leap of Faith — Mike Huckabee and Little Rock ethics — BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL — Friday, December 21, 2007

As pigs in pokes go, the Democratic Party bought itself a big one in 1988. Michael Dukakis was relatively unknown . . . was a typecast liberal–a furlougher of felons, and a guy who looked mighty awkward in a tank.

Mr. Huckabee is starting to get a look-see by the press, though whether the nation will have time to absorb the findings before the primaries is just as unknown. The small amount that has been unearthed so far ought to have primary voters nervous. It isn’t just that Mr. Huckabee is far from a traditional conservative; he’s a potential ethical time bomb.

Most of this is out there, thoroughly documented, and even now slowly filtering its way to voters. Of more concern is what has not yet been discovered about Mr. Huckabee’s time as Arkansas lieutenant governor and governor, in particular on ethical issues. There are signs that Mr. Huckabee’s background–borne of the same Arkansas establishment that produced Bill Clinton–is ripe to provide the sort of pop-up political scandal that could derail a general election campaign.

In Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee was investigated by the state ethics committee at least 14 times. Most of the complaints centered on what appears to be a serial disregard for government rules about gifts and outside financial compensation. He reported $112,000 worth of gifts in one year alone, nearly double his $67,000 salary.

Five of the 14 investigations resulted in admonishments: Two for failing to report gifts (one was later overturned), the other three for some $80,000 that Mr. Huckabee and his wife received but failed to initially report. One of these admonishments involved a $23,500 payment to Mr. Huckabee from an opaque organization called Action America that he helped found in 1994 while lieutenant governor, and that was designed to coordinate his speeches and supplement his income.

Mr. Huckabee caused an uproar when he used a $60,000 account intended to maintain the governor’s mansion for personal expenses, including restaurant meals, dry cleaning and boat supplies. He also faced a lawsuit over his assertion that $70,000 worth of furniture donated to the mansion was his to keep. Sprinkled among all this are complaints about the misuse of state planes and campaign funds, mistakes on financial disclosure forms, and fights over documents related to ethics investigations.

Any one of these episodes individually may appear penny ante, but they add up to a disturbing pattern. People I’ve spoken with who worked with Mr. Huckabee in Arkansas dispute the idea that he is “corrupt.” They instead ascribe his ethical mishaps to a “blind spot” rooted in his beginnings as a Baptist minister and a Southern culture of gift-giving; they suggest he never made the mental transition to public office.

Some will also argue Mr. Huckabee is no more ethically challenged than Mr. Giuliani . .
The obscure governor from Arkansas is, in contrast, a deep sea for media diving. Most recent have been stories about his pardons and commutations, as well as the news that R.J. Reynolds contributed to Action America. Mr. Huckabee–who now wants a national smoking ban in public places–responded that he never knew he accepted tobacco money, which has inspired a former adviser to claim Mr. Huckabee is being “less than truthful.” What’s next?

And he's running as a "Christian" leader:

"Huck's Gift-Givers Ended Up In State Posts"
Politico
By Kenneth P. Vogel
December 14, 2007

"Mike Huckabee accepted more than 90 gifts from 21 Arkansans he appointed to state posts during his decade as governor, a Politico analysis of state public records found.

"Since setting his sights on the White House, those supporters, their families and their companies have kept on giving. They contributed nearly $161,000 to a pre-presidential campaign account and Huckabee's official campaign committee since late last year, according to state and federal campaign finance records."
…

"In one year, the value of the gifts given to Huckabee amounted to more than $112,000 – nearly double his $67,000 state salary. And he wrangled with the state Ethics Commission over gift rules, with the commission twice finding he’d broken them (one violation was later overturned).

"Huckabee twice sued the commission, once seeking a statute of limitations on ethics complaints and in another suit he sought to narrow the scope of prohibited gifts. Ironically, he was represented before the ethics commission by Crass and one other lawyer who donated their services – as gifts.

"Huckabee later named one of the attorneys, Tom Mars, to head the Arkansas State Police."
…

"Huckabee is an avid hunter and fisherman, and his appointees to the state’s influential Game and Fish Commission provide a window into the layered relationship he had with supporters. At least four Huckabee appointees to the seven-member commission had given the governor gifts and are now counted among his presidential donors.

"Ronald Pierce is one of Huckabee’s longtime fishing buddies and the owner of a bass boat manufacturer. From 1997 to 2000, Pierce loaned Huckabee a pair of boats that today would retail for about $40,000 each. He also gave Huckabee and his wife, Janet, jackets and rain suits.

"Huckabee named one of the loaner boats 'State Business' because, he once joshed, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, it allowed his secretary to tell callers 'He’s out on State Business' when he was on fishing trips.

"After Huckabee’s gifts drew some bad press, Huckabee became concerned that 'it would kind of look bad' if Pierce loaned him a new boat, Pierce told Politico. So Pierce’s company pulled its loaners and sold the governor a new boat – albeit at a reduced price usually reserved for professional fishermen whose patronage is good marketing. 'The governor driving your boat on the lake is going to help you,' Pierce explained.

"Huckabee last year tapped Pierce for a seat on the Game and Fish Commission and this year Pierce and his wife gave $4,600 to Huckabee’s presidential campaign."
…

"In all, Huckabee accepted more than $54,000 in clothes for himself and his family during his decade as governor. And the lion’s share – $25,000 – came from Jennings Osborne, a colorful businessman who was by far the most generous gift giver to the Huckabees.

"Osborne, whose website describes him as 'Little Rock's own version of Elvis' gave Huckabee, his family and staff more than $60,000 worth of gifts, including $11,000 in flowers, nearly $12,000 worth of pastries and more than $25,000 in clothes.

"Huckabee appointed Osborne to a seat on the commission that oversees the stadium where the University of Arkansas football team plays some home games, and Osborne and his wife contributed $4,100 to Huckabee’s presidential campaign."
…

"Huckabee also gave appointments to givers of less extravagant gifts who have yet to appear in his campaign donation reports.

"He accepted a barbecue grill from a resort owned by the family of a man he appointed to the state’s State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission.

"He accepted as gifts seemingly common services, including car repairs. He reported receiving free eye care and 'eye wear' from an optometrist and an ophthalmologist – both of whom he tapped for spots on the boards overseeing their respective professions.

"In 1996, when the governor’s mansion was being refurbished, Huckabee received free 'general contracting and interior design services' from designer Georg Anderson and furnishings from cotton magnate Charles Adams. The next year, Huckabee named Anderson, as well as Adams’ wife, Myrna Vine Adams, to the Arkansas Governor's Mansion Commission.

"When Adam's furniture gift, worth more than $70,000, was first revealed, Huckabee claimed it was his family’s to keep. He backed down after a lawsuit was filed over the furniture and his family’s use of a $60,000-a-year fund, which the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported had been used to pay for pizza, a doghouse, a magazine subscription and pantyhose for Janet Huckabee.

"The suit was settled with the furniture still in the mansion and Huckabee, while admitting no wrongdoing, acknowledging a dispute 'regarding reimbursements.'"

Huckabee's "ethical" record (from an article entitled, "Huckabee Tries to Gloss Over Ark. Record":

"People are starting to contact us and they're saying we want everything on Mike Huckabee," says Graham Sloan, director of the state's Ethics Commission.

What they'll find is 436 pages of documents chronicling Huckabee's various tangles with a commission he's derided as a political tool of Democrats. It's a panel that has held proceedings 20 times on the former governor and lieutenant governor.

But the Ethics Commission files don't cover everything, and this year—anticipating criticism—Huckabee's campaign set up a "truth squad" to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record.

On major issues:

_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.

Two of the complaints against Huckabee pertain to unreported gifts—the canoe and a $200 stadium blanket received by his wife, Janet. Two stem from cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report. The panel also ruled in 2003 that Huckabee's campaign violated state law when it used its funds to pay for an event during the summer of 2002 called Gospel Fest.

During his tenure, Huckabee accepted 314 gifts valued overall at more than $150,000, according to documents filed with the Arkansas secretary of state's office. (He accepted 187 gifts in his first three years as governor but was not required to report their value.)

_Huckabee has consistently understated his role in the parole of rapist Wayne DuMond, who had been convicted in the 1984 rape of a distant cousin of former President Clinton.

Two months after taking office, Huckabee stunned the state by saying he questioned DuMond's guilt and that it was his intention to free the rapist, who had been castrated by masked men while awaiting trial. Huckabee said then he had "serious questions as to the legitimacy of his guilt" and acknowledged later that he had met with DuMond's wife about the case while he was lieutenant governor. Two months after ascending to the governor's office, Huckabee met with the woman again.

The ex-governor now blames his predecessor for making DuMond parole eligible—Jim Guy Tucker commuted a life-plus-20 years sentence to 39 1/2 years—but distances himself from his role in DuMond's release. Huckabee met privately with the state parole board, and two members have said he pressured them for a vote.

"He made it obvious that he thought DuMond had gotten a raw deal and wanted us to take another look at it," former board member Charles Chastain said in 2001. "Some board members who were usually very tough about letting people out ... (later) voted in favor of him, and seemed eager to."

On his campaign Web site, Huckabee says the parole board was made up entirely of Democrats appointed by Clinton and Tucker. It doesn't mention that Huckabee reappointed board member Railey Steele days before he voted with three other members to set DuMond free. DuMond was later convicted of killing a woman in Missouri and died in 2005.

_Huckabee likes to say he was tough on taxes in Arkansas, noting a $100 million tax cut in 1997 that until this year was Arkansas' largest. When asked about a fuel tax increase he backed in 1999, Huckabee says incorrectly that he joined 80 percent of Arkansas voters in approving it.

Huckabee in 1999 supported a $1 billion highway bond program, including costs for interest and lawyers' fees, but the question on the ballot was only whether the state could take on the debt, not how Arkansas would pay for it. Huckabee had signed the fuel tax increase two months earlier.

Shortly after taking office, Huckabee took a four-day trip by bass boat along the Arkansas River to tout a 1/8th-cent sales tax increase for outdoor programs. (Two nature centers now carry the names of Huckabee and his wife.) Taxes went up $40 million in the months before the $100 million tax cut Huckabee touts.

Other taxes went up as Arkansas changed its property tax system and made improvements to its school system.

_Huckabee's recent strong stand on immigration, including an intolerance toward companies that employ illegal immigrants, runs counter to the image he crafted in his final years in office. He was battling conservatives within his own party who were pushing for stricter state-level immigration measures.

Huckabee opposed a Republican lawmaker's efforts in 2005 to require proof of legal status when applying for state services that aren't federally mandated and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Huckabee derided the bill as un-American and un-Christian and said the bill's sponsor drank a different "Jesus juice."

That same year, Huckabee failed in his effort to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded scholarships and in-state tuition to Arkansas colleges. At the time, Huckabee said he didn't understand the opposition to it.

"It hurts me on a personal as well as a policy level to think that we are still debating issues that I kind of hoped we had put aside in the maybe at the latest the '70s, and yet I understand people have deep passions about things usually they don't fully understand," Huckabee said.