Republican Pervert Diaper-Boy Vitter Attempts to BRIBE Latino Interior Secretary Salazar!

A watchdog group filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on Tuesday against Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) over allegations that he attempted to “bribe” the Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar.

The complaint, filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), cites a letter that Vitter wrote to Salazar last month. In the letter Vitter said he would continue to oppose increasing Salazar’s paycheck by $19,600 until the secretary issued permits for new exploratory deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a five-page letter to committee Chairwoman Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Vice Chairman Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan detailed the allegation of Vitter’s “quid pro quo” and recommended that the committee refer matters to the Justice Department if they found the senator guilty of wrongdoing.

“Our country’s criminal laws apply to everyone, including senators,” said Sloan in the letter. “There is no exception to the bribery law allowing a senator to influence a department secretary’s official acts by withholding compensation.”

A spokesman for Vitter defended the senator’s actions and blasted CREW for not filing a complaint against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for his role in negotiating the Senate’s health care overhaul measure. As part of the bill, several senators were given state-level exemptions and federal funding increases in an effort to gain their votes.

“CREW has a clear track record of filing frivolous, political attack complaints,” said Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Vitter. “But that certainly won't deter Senator Vitter from using every tool available to reopen the Gulf and defend Louisiana jobs.

“If CREW thinks this is bribery, then it should file complaints against Harry Reid for buying votes with the Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback,” Bolar said.


After receiving Vitter’s letter, Salazar immediately wrote to Senate leaders and depicted the senator’s actions as, “attempted coercion.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) slammed Vitter’s attempt and said it was “wrong.”

Sloan took it one step further and cited Vitter’s association with a well-known Washington prostitution service, which was made public in 2007.

“Perhaps given that Sen. Vitter escaped accountability for soliciting prostitutes, he also thinks he can evade responsibility for violating the bribery laws,” said Sloan in a statement. “At some point, the Senate Ethics Committee needs to make clear to Sen. Vitter that he has to follow the same rules and laws as everyone else.”

Interior’s offshore drilling arm — the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) — has issued more than a dozen deepwater permits in the months since the administration lifted its post-spill moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf.

It’s not the first time Vitter, a vocal opponent of the administration’s energy policies, has put his foot down over offshore drilling. In February, he blocked lawmakers from approving the nomination of a key Interior Department official over BOEMRE’s pace of approving drilling permits.