WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is investigating whether Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, according to sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry.
The FBI, which opened an investigation in recent months, has formally referred the matter to the department's Public Integrity Section for additional scrutiny. At issue are Weldon's efforts between 2002 and 2004 to aid two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers with ties to strongman Slobodan Milosevic, a federal law enforcement official said.
The Russian companies and a Serbian foundation run by the brothers' family each hired a firm co-owned by Weldon's daughter, Karen, for fees totaling nearly $1 million a year, public records show.
Karen Weldon was 28 and lacked consulting experience when she and Charles Sexton, a Weldon ally and longtime Republican leader in Delaware County, Pa., created the firm of Solutions North America Inc. in 2002. Both are registered with the Justice Department as representatives of foreign clients.
Word of the inquiry, which has been closely held within the Justice Department and the FBI, comes from two individuals with specific knowledge of the existence of the investigation. They both declined to be identified because of the confidentiality of criminal investigations...
But McClatchy Newspapers' sources said the FBI only over the last few months obtained evidence suggesting that the congressman may have broken the law. One of the sources, a federal law enforcement official, said that Weldon had not yet been told about the inquiry.
The official said that the FBI recently sought the assistance of federal prosecutors in pressuring an unidentified person to provide evidence about the 59-year-old congressman. The attempt to "squeeze" this individual appeared to be an early step, the two sources said...
In 2004, The Los Angeles Times published a lengthy report that described the meteoric rise of Solutions North America, the consulting firm set up by Karen Weldon and Sexton...
Solutions got its third foreign client, the Serbian Karic Foundation, after Weldon took on the unpopular job of seeking a U.S. visa for Dragomir Karic and reportedly, one for his brother, Bogoljub.
In the early 1990s, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control had listed the Karic brothers among parties whose U.S. assets were frozen because of their close ties to Milosevic, who died in his cell last spring while facing war crimes charges stemming from the genocides in Bosnia. Recently, the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs issued an international warrant for the arrest of Bogoljub Karic as part of a tax evasion investigation.
The Karic Foundation agreed to pay Solutions $20,000 per month, to assist with its humanitarian work, including setting up a U.S. branch.
Solutions later paid more than $2,300 for Mike Conallen, who was Weldon's chief of staff at the time, to travel to Belgrade, Yugoslavia - a trip approved by Weldon, records show. Conallen later reimbursed the firm because members of Congress and their aides are barred from accepting money from foreign agents.
The Times quoted Conallen as saying he phoned the State Department so many times pushing for visas for the Karic brothers that he didn't have to say why he was calling. Conallen said he was surprised to learn of the current Justice Department inquiry, but declined further comment.
In late 2003, Sexton and Karen Weldon set up a new firm, Solutions Worldwide Inc., but ended their representation of Saratov even before the news stories broke.
