Oh Dannenbaum, Oh Dannenbaum,
How loyal are your donations!
You’re green not only at election time,
No, also in summer when we need cash.
Oh Dannenbaum, Oh Dannenbaum,
How loyal are your donations!

Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation (DEC), based in Houston, has agreed to pay a $1.6 million criminal fine for its involvement in a multi-year conduit political contribution scheme.  With federal campaign donation limits holding back the tons of money Dannenbaum wants to donate to congressional and presidential candidates, they devised a scheme where they asked employees to donate the limit to the company’s favorite candidates and then they reimbursed the employees.

“DEC engaged in a criminal scheme that undermined the fairness and transparency of our nation’s campaign finance laws in a misguided effort to increase its own power and prestige,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s resolution demonstrates the Department’s resolve to aggressively pursue those who seek to corrupt our democratic process.”

They have been active in Texas for a couple of decades.  In Texas, county commissioners award non bid contracts for professional services to the tune of millions of dollars.  Not surprisingly, they generally award it to the service that donates the most to their campaign.  If you are curious, check the political contributions to your county commissioners and the county judge and more likely than not, especially is fast growing counties, you’ll find Dannenbaum’s name.  A bunch of times.

From 2015 to 2017, Dannenbaum made $232,300 in illegal contributions to specific congressional candidates and the Republican National Campaign Committee.  We have reason to suspect that Dannenbaum was trying to buy a piece of the wall.  A wall has to have lotsa engineering and apparently Trump was willing to spend big as long as he made some money, too.  So dealing with other greedy crooks is his forte.

James Dannenbaum resigned today.  He’s a former UT Regent, a position which you buy from the Governor.

Dannenbaum donated more than $420,000 to Rick Perry’s political campaigns. Perry named him a UT Regent in 2007, and Dannenbaum’s firm received multiple engineering contracts from the state during Perry’s governorship.

He’s 80 years old so I doubt there will be any criminal prosecution.

This is not isolated …

Sen. John Cornyn, whose campaign committees received $30,000 from Dannenbaum and his wife in February 2017, has vowed to cooperate with the Justice Department and return the donation money to the U.S. Treasury as mandated by law, a spokesperson said.

Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack said he would consider returning donations, which amount to at least $45,000 over the years. His fellow commissioners did not respond to a request for comment.

Two county commissioners in South Texas have been found guilty of corruption charges for their dealings with Dannenbaum Engineering. They will be sentenced this month.

Thanks to Alfredo for the heads up.