Our hinterlands correspondent, Kathleen Casey, was curious why Washington showered its love on AIG.  So she followed the sage advice of Deep Throat and followed the money.  This is what she found:

By Kathleen Casey

On Monday, March 16, two days after the New York Times reported on March 14, A.I.G. Planning Huge Bonuses After $170 Billion Bailout – NYTimes.com, that word of the AIG bonuses stirred “deep consternation inside the Obama administration” a Washington-based nonprofit entity posted details of bonuses from AIG to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 1989 through 2008, including President Obama’s Senate and presidential campaigns. During this 20-year period AIG has contributed more than $9 million to federal candidates and parties through PAC and individual contributions according to the Center for Responsive Politics, posting the details on its website, OpenSecrets.org., based on reports filed and released by the Federal Elections Commission.

“As long as everyone’s talking today about AIG’s payouts to its executives and foreign banks, let’s remember the payouts AIG has made over the years to politicians,” commented Massie Ritsch, communications director for the organization, described as nonpartisan with the mission of tracking money in U.S. politics, including campaign contributions and lobbying data, and its effect on elections and public policy. That’s enough to rank AIG on OpenSecrets.org’s Heavy Hitters list, only number 79 of “the top 100 contributors of all time.” It also reported that last year, AIG and its subsidiaries spent about $9.7 million on federal lobbying, down from an all-time high of $11.4 million spent on lobbying in 2007. According to the press release posted on the very serviceable website,

Over time, AIG hasn’t shown an especially partisan streak, splitting evenly the $9.3 million it has contributed since 1989. In the last election cycle, though, 68 percent of contributions associated with the company went to Democrats. Two senators who chair committees charged with overseeing AIG and the insurance industry, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), are among the top recipients of AIG contributions. Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee and has collected more money from AIG in his congressional career than from any other company–$91,000. And with more than $280,000, AIG has been the fourth largest contributor to Dodd, who chairs the Senate’s banking committee. President Obama and his rival in last year’s election, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), are also high on the list of top recipients.

But in 2008 McCain was a distant third in rank as a recipient of AIG contributions to federal elections campaigns, $59,499, behind Dodd, $103,900, and Obama, number one by a nose, $104,332 according to the website. The revelations pile on:

AIG has been a personal investment for lawmakers, too. Twenty-eight current members of Congress reported owning stock in AIG in 2007, worth between $2.5 million and $3.3 million. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the richest members of Congress, was by far the biggest investor in AIG, with stock valued around $2 million.

About Us – CBS News describes “newsmagazine” 60 Minutes as “offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news.” But Steve Kroft did not hit hard with Obama On AIG Rage, Recession, Challenges – CBS News. Among details of life in the White House with Michelle and the girls, his interview was open-ended yet circumscribed about bailouts and bonuses, evading the elephant in the home office — the bonuses AIG has paid:

“…People want a lot of contradictory things. You know, the banks would love a lot of taxpayer money with no strings attached. Folks in Congress, as well as the American people, would love to fix the banks without spending any money. And so at a certain point, you know, you’ve got just a very difficult line to walk.”

“You need the financial community…to solve this crisis,” Kroft remarked. “Do you think that the people on Wall Street and the people in the financial community that you need trust you, believe in you?”

“Part of my job is to communicate to them. Look, I believe in the market. I believe in financial innovation. And I believe in success. I want them to do well. But what I also know is that the financial sector was out of balance. You look at how finance used to operate just 20 years ago, or 25 years ago. People, if you went into investment banking, you were making 20 times what a teacher made. You weren’t making 200 times what a teacher made,” Obama said.

“There is a perception right now, at least in New York, which is where I live and work. …People feel they thought that you were going to be supportive. And now I think there are a lot of people the say, ‘Look, we’re not gonna be able to keep our best people. They’re not gonna stay and work here for $250,000 a year when they can go work for a hedge fund, if they can find one that’s still working…and make a lot more,” Kroft remarked.

“I’ve told them directly, ’cause I’ve heard some of this. They need to spend a little time outside of New York. …where folks would be thrilled to be making $75,000 a year without a bonus, then I think they’d get a sense of why people are frustrated,” Obama said.

“…because of bad bets made on Wall Street, there have been enormous losses. I mean there were a whole bunch of folks who, on paper, if you looked at quarterly reports, were wildly successful, selling derivatives that turned out to be…completely worthless,” he added.

And they were insuring them.

“Now you know, gosh, I don’t think it’s me being anti-Wall Street just to point out that the best and the brightest didn’t do too well on that front, and that you know, maybe the incentive structures that have been set up have not produced the kinds of long term growth that I think everybody’s looking for,” Obama said.

As of Tuesday, the Center for Responsive Politics lists media citations to the AIG data, only three, on March 19, Critics Got Donations From Insurer – WSJ.com, and on March 18, ABC News: Will Obama, McCain, Dodd Return Contributions From AIG Employees? and Watching the A.I.G. Hearing on the Hill – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com, which reported:

A.I.G. Employees and Campaign Donations | 12:26 p.m. One other aspect of A.I.G.’s purported influence as a significant financial institution is its role as a mega-donor to political campaigns. The Center for Responsive Politics ranks A.I.G. employees among its top 100 heavy-hitters, based on the highest amounts of money donated to politicians over time.

Among those receiving large amounts were Senator Christoper J. Dodd, Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee. (President Barack Obama, Senator John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton also received hefty donations last year from A.I.G. during their presidential campaigns.)

None of this as an “aspect of A.I.G.’s purported influence” is a shocker so far as the Grey Lady is concerned, reporting about it only on a blog, and inconclusively concluding, in a prize of garbled syntax:

We’re not suggesting any quid pro quo, by the way. But the confluence of political donations, the near-collapse of the corporation and the amount of lobbying money that flows in and out of Congress as it makes decisions is something that has long been monitored.

Those of us living outside work-a-day politics and the media can understand that there is not and never was a rotation-in-office term limits amendment in our Constitution, and so career representation is to be expected. Moreover, congressional campaigns are media-controlled money monsters, and money-flush corporations are one source of large-block contributions. This is all bigness.

In comparison to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal described the pretense that most any schoolchild can grasp, in the lead sentence of a real article:

WASHINGTON — Some of the most vocal critics of American International Group’s bonus payments are also the biggest recipients of campaign contributions from the company, including President Barack Obama and Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd.

Near the end it prominently “suggested a quid pro quo,” and turned out a phrase:

AIG has run one of the largest political-influence operations in Washington in the past decade. The company has spent $72.6 million to lobby Congress and the administration since 1998, making it one of the top lobbying spenders among corporations, according to public records.

In October, after it received government funding to stay afloat, AIG said it would stop lobbying Congress and the Obama administration. Campaign donations dried up at the same time.

AIG has made $9.3 million in donations since 1989, placing it among the top 100 sources of campaign donations during that period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In addition, FEC records show that the company has hosted dozens of fund-raising events for lawmakers.

In an op-ed article he wrote and published in the Washington Post on March 18, AIG CEO Liddy threw a bone to the issue:

When I answered the call for help and joined AIG in September 2008, one thing quickly became apparent: The company’s overall structure is too complex, too unwieldy and too opaque for its component businesses to be well managed as one entity. …

What also became clear is that once AIG’s relationship with the government and taxpayers changed, our behavior as a company needed to change. So, of our own initiative, we suspended our federal lobbying activities and halted corporate political contributions.

Edward M. Liddy – Repairing AIG and Repaying the Public – washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post has reported nothing recently about the numbers and other details of AIG lobbying and political contributions, whether directly from the FEC or from the office where Massie Ritsch reports the numbers, which is, at 14th and L Streets, barely a block away from The Post. It’s not as though the paper hasn’t already done some digging, producing this about Maurice R. Greenman, AIG CEO for decades, early last October: AIG Founder Wielded Personal Influence in Washington – washingtonpost.com :

“They have long played this game like experts, and it’s certain that their pull on the political front plays a role in their access to support now,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. “AIG’s goodwill is legendary.”

AIG’s clout came in large part from Greenberg’s commanding persona. Wall Street called the hands-on chairman a genius, and at least four presidents sought his advice on international affairs and financial markets. …

Greenberg backed up his own influence with a board of directors that included members with deep ties to their respective political parties. Among them were President Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William S. Cohen and former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke. On the Republican side, there was Carla Hills, who had been U.S. trade representative under President George H.W. Bush, and whose husband had been chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One hand washes another you know. This is an insurance company.

So far as ABC is concerned, what the New York Times has dismissed as “the confluence” of money and Congressional decision-making is elemental to questions of integrity:

This raises two key questions: Was any bailout money used to make political contributions? And will the politicians who received AIG cash give the money back? …

Records indicate that AIG’s PACs stopped making donations, but contributions from AIG executives continued right up to the presidential election.

One suggestion: Perhaps the money could be paid back not to AIG but to the U.S. Treasury.

“A White House spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment” to the Wall Street Journal as of publication last Thursday. 60 Minutes could have reached the one and only White House spokesman for comment by airtime Sunday, if not by Kroft to his face, so as to give us answers in a “hard-hitting” interview, CBS’ adjective. But that didn’t happen. This was not ABC, after all. President Obama was not reached for comment.