Deeply obliged?

Foley's angels

Mark Benjamin, Salon:

Oct. 6, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- The Pinto family, which owns and runs a Long Island, N.Y., debt-collection agency, are generous Republican donors, giving more than $156,000 to GOP candidates since 2000. What makes the family's political gift-giving unusual is that almost all of their campaign contributions since 2000 have gone to just two House members -- Mark Foley, whose misconduct triggered the the Capitol Hill page scandal, and Tom Reynolds, whose chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, negotiated with ABC News on Foley's behalf to try to contain the story.

The ties between Foley and Reynolds go beyond having, in turn, employed Fordham in their top staff job. Reynolds is one of four House Republicans who have said that they had received warnings about Foley's suggestive e-mails to pages months before public disclosure. As the chairman of the campaign arm of House Republicans, the National Republican Congressional Committee, Reynolds was aided by financial assistance from Foley, who transferred $100,000 of his own campaign funds to the NRCC in July. Foley was more generous to the NRCC than all but 26 other House Republicans.

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Foley, who just resigned from Congress, and Reynolds served together on a House Ways and Means subcommittee that deals with the Internal Revenue Service. This IRS subcommittee connection may have inspired the Pinto family's interest in supporting the political careers of both Republicans.

Congress in 2004 approved a Republican amendment that authorized the IRS to hire private companies to collect back taxes. The Pinto firm with 300 employees, headquartered in Melville, N.Y., made no secret of wanting an IRS debt-collection contract under the new legislation.