We've been following Jim Hagedorn's office management adulting issues since Daniel Newhauser first reported on them at the Minnesota Reformer in Congressman spent tax dollars on vendor owned by a member of his staff on August 15.
As we read the news, we don't think he's digging himself out of the hole he dug for himself spending public money. Wait for it in the final story in this news digest. We're considering starting a telenovela for Hagedorn and his charming wife, Republican Party of Minnesota state chair, as we did for the Emo Senator Mike Parry years ago.
On Tuesday, Newhauser reported in the Reformer article, Internal review: Hagedorn’s ex-chief of staff funneled printing contracts to brother, Hagedorn employee:
U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s chief of staff was funneling expensive printing contracts to his brother and an employee, in probable violation of House Ethics rules, according to an internal review the congressman’s office released on Monday.
But Hagedorn was in the dark, according to a summary of the internal review shared with the press. He has since reported the matter to the House Ethics Committee and implemented a policy that he will have final approval of all office contracts.
“Congressman Hagedorn fully agrees that he is ultimately responsible for actions of those in his employ, even when those actions are taken without his knowledge,” said Eliot Berke, a D.C. ethics lawyer Hagedorn hired to perform the investigation. “But upon thoroughly reviewing this matter for more than two months, I can state with certainty that Congressman Hagedorn acted in good faith and did not personally direct, profit or intend for his office to bypass any established office procedures or potentially or technically violate any rule of the House.”
The review found that Abernathy West, a company to which the office gave more than $340,000 of taxpayer money, is likely owned by Szu-Nien Su, a former high-ranking aide in the U.S. House and the brother of Hagedorn’s former chief of staff, Peter Su.
The review also found that another Hagedorn office employee, John Sample, is the owner of Invocq Technologies, as first reported by the Minnesota Reformer last month.
“Congressman Hagedorn had no knowledge of the potential interest or the direct staff interest prior to the Internal Review,” according to the document. “Upon learning of them, he suspended the two employees until further notice while the Internal Review was pending and barred the two staffers from returning to the official office.”
Su and his brother refused to comply with the internal review, according to a summary of its findings, written by Berke. The investigation was sparked by a June article in Legistorm noting that the office had spent nearly 40% of its official budget in the first three months of the year.
Berke noted that Su, who was fired the day after the investigation started, and a lawyer for his brother did not deny that the company is owned by the brother. The evidence tying the brother to the company includes that Abernathy West has the same co-working address, phone service, and registered agent as Artemis ESB, whose CEO is Szu-Nien Su.
Sample, meanwhile, has since returned to work in the office after complying with the review. Berke noted that Sample volunteered the graphic design services of his company after Su expressed that other vendors were producing constituent mailers that were too bland.
The actual design work was performed by Catherine Keszei, Sample’s partner in Invocq Technologies. But after she died last year, the company was no longer able to perform the work.
“Mr. Sample stated he did not believe his ownership interest, which was disclosed to Mr. Su, raised any concerns,” according to the summary of the review. “If Mr. Sample’s ownership interest in Invocq rendered it ineligible to serve as a vendor to Congressman Hagedorn’s office in accordance with the Member’s Congressional Handbook provision discussed herein, it did not enter into contract with Congressman Hagedorn’s office with any intent to violate, or knowledge of, the provision.”
Also of note: Both firms significantly overbilled the office . ...
Read the rest at the Minnesota Reformer.
Later the same day, Zach Fuller at KTTC in Rochester reported in GOP, DFL Chairs sound off on election, Hagedorn:
Both parties also talked about the recent release of Congressman Jim Hagedorn's internal review of his office's spending practices.
"I think what's going to be important on Nov. 3 is that Congressman Hagedorn has worked incredibly hard over the past 2 years," said Carnahan, who is also Hagedorn's wife. "He's done a lot of good things for this district whether it be medical care, whether it be agriculture, whether it be small business and those are going to be the things people remember when they go to the polls."
"Look, I am not satisfied at all with the results of Congressman Hagedorn's report that he released," said Martin. "There was serious wrongdoing involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. Jim Hagedorn had already lied to the people of Minnesota about this scandal and so we should just not take him at his word here. We need a real investigation by folks with subpoena power so we can get to the bottom of what's going on here."
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Forum News Services, which owns Rochester Bulletin, the district's largest newspaper, as well as the Worthington Globe, reports in U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn says internal review resolved spending questions; DFL says not so fast:
U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn has released an internal review of his office’s expenditures on printing and mailings conducted through two firms with connections to staff members.
The holiday-weekend release of the report comes less than two weeks after the southern Minnesota Republican visited Rochester and avoided answering questions on the subject, citing the ongoing review.
In a statement released Sunday, the first-term congressman indicates he wants to move beyond the controversy. . . .
The concerns stem from the 1st District congressman’s taxpayer-funded constituent mail, which is known as “franked mail,” and two of the companies paid to handle the mailings since he took office.
One company, Abernathy West, reportedly has ties to Hagedorn’s former chief of staff, Peter Su; and the other, Invocq, was co-owned by John Sample, a part-timer on the congressman’s staff. Reports on how much was spent vary, but most agree more than $300,000 was paid to Abernathy West and Invocq received approximately $60,000.
Hagedorn hired prominent ethics attorney Elliot Berke to start a review of the issue in June.
Berke has worked with former GOP congressman Duncan Hunter, who is currently serving an 11-month prison term for misusing campaign funds, and Aaron Schock, a Republican who resigned in 2015 amid a scandal involving misuse of campaign funds.
In his report, Berke said Hagedorn became aware of possible excessive mail services charges on June 18 and took action, including initiating the review, within 48 hours. . . .
Other steps cited include firing his chief of staff, calling for added office staff training and re-establishing a policy requiring pre-approval of contracts from pertinent House committees or administrative offices.
“The internal review confirms that soon after Congressman Hagedorn became aware of possible excessive franked mail pricing, he took immediate action and implemented corrective steps, ultimately self-reporting it to the House Ethics Committee,” Berke said in a statement released by the congressman.
The Minnesota DFL, however, said the review doesn’t go far enough.
“The report confirms that there still needs to be an independent investigation and Congressman Hagedorn owes it to the people of southern Minnesota to publicly release all relevant correspondence including text messages, emails, and letters prior to Election Day,” the party stated in a news release Monday.
Hagedorn is being challenged for his 1st District seat by DFL candidate Dan Feehan, whom Hagedorn narrowly defeated in 2018.
DFL Chairman Ken Martin said Hagedorn should have been aware of the conflicts.
“Congressman Hagedorn is responsible for using almost half a million of our tax dollars to line the pockets of his employees,” he said in Monday’s statement. “This corruption within Hagedorn’s office went on unchecked for months until media reports exposed it to the public, at which point Hagedorn lied to the public and tried to deflect blame.” . . .
According to the internal review, Abernathy West shared office space and phone service with Artemis ESB, whose CEO is Szu-Nien Su, the brother of Hagedorn’s former chief of staff.
The report states Peter Su and representatives from Abernathy West did not cooperate with the investigation. As a result, the review reports it remains unclear why Peter Su contracted with Abernathy West and whether his brother had a direct connection to the firm.
The findings, however, report Abernathy West charged Hagedorn’s office significantly more than the fair market for its services.
The same was stated for Invocq, but the review also cites Sample as apologizing for inadvertent charges and agreeing to return $16,500.
The report also states that Sample did not believe his ownership interest in Invocq violated standards of conduct. He had been suspended when the review started, but was reinstated on July 9. . . .
Read the whole hot mess at the Pioneer Press.
But the next big thing has come on Wednesday, at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where Briana Bierschbach and Patrick Condon report in Fired staffer to Rep. Jim Hagedorn pushes back after mail controversy:
U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn told his former chief of staff in a phone conversation last month that “I don’t believe there’s any problem” with taxpayer-funded mail to constituents that was produced by two companies with ties to his congressional office.
Peter Su, the former chief of staff, gave the Star Tribune an audio recording of the conversation, which he said occurred on Aug. 7. Hagedorn, in an interview, did not dispute that it was an authentic recording.
Hagedorn’s First District re-election campaign released what it called an internal review over the weekend asserting that Su had directed contracts for the mail pieces, funded through a congressional process called franking, to two companies. One is owned by Su’s brother and the other is owned by John Sample, another part-time employee in Hagedorn’s professional office.
“[T]here is nothing in [the recording] to suggest that Congressman Hagedorn had knowledge of the hiring of the vendors, that he approved of them or that anyone other than Mr. Su was the one who selected them,” said Elliot Berke, the attorney who produced the internal review.
Berke, who was hired by Hagedorn’s re-election campaign, also called it a “potentially illegal recording” and said the matter would be turned over to Capitol Police and the Justice Department for further investigation. But Washington, Minnesota and Virginia, where Su lives, are all states that only require one party on a call to be aware of the recording.
The internal review paid for by the Hagedorn campaign states: “When congressman Hagedorn became concerned about potential excessive franking charges incurred by his office on June 18, 2020, he took swift action and took corrective action.” Su was terminated the next day, according to the review.
But Su said the phone call he recorded — about six weeks after his departure from the office — shows that Hagedorn’s concerns as depicted in the internal review are being inflated in retrospect as he faces a tough re-election battle.
In the recorded conversation, Hagedorn is describing when he became aware there were concerns about the spending on the mailers: “It was presented as if, that John shouldn’t have done the work, that your brother shouldn’t have been hired, because that was unethical. Which it’s not,” Hagedorn says in the recording.
Later in the conversation, back on the subject of the mailings, Hagedorn said: “If your brother was doing the work, and he and I did not have a personal relationship and all that stuff going in, I don’t believe there’s any problem there either.”
Hagedorn said his attorney’s analysis is that there is no House rule “that would preclude a chief of staff from hiring anyone they have a relationship to, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a problem with it, in fact quite the opposite,” he said. “I took immediate action.”
Hagedorn said he didn’t know about the companies’ connections to his staffers before concerns were raised.
Ethics experts say the U.S. House handbook prohibits members from using official office funds to financially benefit themselves or anyone with whom they have a personal or professional relationship.
In Berke’s review, it says its findings have been turned over to the House Ethics Committee. That panel does not comment on potential investigations of members of the House. The review also says that Hagedorn, as an elected member of Congress, takes responsibility for decisions about franking “even when those actions are taken without his knowledge.”
The Star Tribune previously reported on e-mails between Hagedorn and members of his congressional staff that show the congressman taking an active interest in the mailer program. And in Su’s recording, Hagedorn at one point says that he wanted the mail pieces to go to “every damn household down there.” . . .
Awkward. There's more at the Star Tribune.
Those who wish to name the Hagedorn office soap opera are welcome to leave suggestions in the comments or email us with them. Keep it clean.
Related posts:
Photo: A pensive Hagedorn, via CNN.
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