Oh Dannenbaum, Oh Dannenbaum
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.
That picture makes him sad looking. I went to Lamar HS with him. He was an arrogant prick then, too. I used to joke that Houston did indeed have zoning. Jimmy Dannenbaum handled it. They have been buying politicians since before Bob Echols was a county commissioner.
I’m surprised they were stupid enough to get caught. DH worked for a Fortune 100 company. They all gave to politicians and padded their vouchers. It was a common practice.
1i knew jim in the 70’s, i guess he changed..
2Wait. The 80 year old dude gets all his cash back because the donations have to be returned. But he won’t be prosecuted! But he still got the government contracts!
Probably turned himself in….
3Until people have to go to jail – 80 or not – no one will follow the law. Money is obviously no problem.
4If he isn’t going to jail free everyone else that old or older.
5just pick a number and publicize it that any old rich white guy can committ any crimes in texas if older then whatever “x” is.
Let him die in jail or while under cross examination.
Now that would approach some symbol of justice.
Oh to be a multimillionaire crook.
“Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation (DEC) . . . HAS AGREED TO PAY a $1.6 million criminal fine . . . .”
And
“Sen. John Cornyn . . . has vowed [iow, AGREED] to cooperate with the Justice Department and return the donation money . . . .” And almost certainly that will be the end of it, won’t it?
Hmm. If I were to be arrested for committing a crime, could I choose to AGREE OR DISAGREE to my sentence? Or choose to return whatever I stole in order not to be prosecuted for the crime of theft?
While those would be lovely outcomes, I’m guessing neither would be an option.
6This kind of stupidity has been illegal forever!!!! If I stole $150 bux with a pretend gun in my pocket, they’d be piping sunlight into my dungeon for 25 years; this old f**t (Sorry, Mama) commits more crimes than you can shake a stick at and he’ll get probation.
AAAARGH!!!!`
7“The law doth punish man or woman
8Who steals the goose from off the commons.
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the commons from the goose!”
-Anon
This guy, with the help of our corrupt City Council, fleeces Jersey Village out of lots of money with a “flood assessment” that did nothing – absolutely nothing. But then Justin Ray is trying to run for Jon Rosenthall’s House seat. Bet there was a considerable kickback there – and we are still going to flood in the next heavy rain because of this fake study by that POS’s firm.
9Karen @ 9
10IMO, most of the trouble in all of Harris county can be laid at the feet of Dannenbaum and the other engineering firms that got rich off of governments. When Houston got one of the 1st big growth spurts back in the late 60s- 70 DE did most of the work for the CoH, the county, the subdivisions and MUDs. In order to remediate flooding on Cypress Creek, the powers that be made a rule no single subdivision could raise the level of the creek more than an inch. They held a public meeting. When i asked if addition was cumulative, no one answered. IMO, they all knew flooding was going to happen.
Was it DE who decided to make the streets catch basins during periods of heavy rain? Trouble is, they never told anybody.
Watch out now. We are in the headwaters of White Oak Bayou. The commercial warehouse building in this watershed is mind blowing. I try to keep up with the amount of storm water onsite water storage. IMO, tanks under the parking lots are not enough.