THERE AREN'T MANY CONGRESSIONAL BODIES MORE powerful than the House Appropriations Committee, a fat channel through which billions of dollars in federal contracts flow. A federal grand jury charged Representative Joseph McDade, a 15-term Congressman from Pennsylvania and the committee's ranking Republican, with greasing that channel for some special friends in return for $100,000 in bribes.
The indictment states that, during a five-year period in the 1980s, McDade accepted money, air travel, use of vacation houses, even a golf umbrella from five manufacturers in exchange for help in obtaining defense contracts. Among the companies seeking favors were Sperry (now Unisys), Grumman...
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