TPM Muckraker: Stanford Wooed Washington Power-Brokers

TPM Mucraker has posted some photos of Allen Stanford meeting with members of the Congressional Caribbean Caucus at a Washington, DC meeting, to illustrate an interesting article by Zachary Roth:

By now, we've all seen those pictures of Allen Stanford hobnobbing with lawmakers in Antigua. But, with the exception of one trip by Sen. John Cornyn, it wasn't Stanford himself who picked up the tab for these jaunts -- it was an obscure outfit called the Inter-American Economic Council.

And taking a closer look at the IAEC, and its ties to Stanford, sheds some light on how the Texas billionaire gained access to all those members of Congress -- and what he hoped to gain by doing so.

The IAEC's website says that the Washington-based group was founded in 1999 and that it aims to "provide senior Government Officials, leading Business Executives, and Academic Professionals the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about current and future economic strategies in the Hemisphere." And in 2003, the Associated Press reported (via Nexis) that, according to IAEC president Barry Featherman, the organization "relies mostly on contributions from U.S. corporations."

But the group appears to have remarkably close ties to Stanford himself. In this 2006 report, Bloomberg described Stanford as a "principal backer" of the organization. And Stanford Financial told Bloomberg that it had "donated the use of its aircraft" to the IAEC for one 2006 trip to Jamaica that four Democratic lawmakers went on.

That same year, the IAEC gave Stanford its "Excellence in Leadership" award. A press release put out by the group (since removed from its website) declared that Stanford "has strongly supported the work that the IAEC is doing in Latin America and the Caribbean."

Stanford also appears to have taken advantage of IAEC-funded events by showing up personally to schmooze lawmakers. We already posted these shots of current or former lawmakers including Katherine Harris, Pete Sessions, Tom Feeney, James Clyburn, and John Sweeney chilling with Stanford and Caribbean dignitaries in Antigua in 2005.