A Busy Police Beat

Violence. Sex. Immigration violations. The HOH crime blotter was chock full on Wednesday, with news affecting members from both sides of the Capitol Dome.

Patrick Moran, the son of Virginia Democratic Rep. James P. Moran, pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, the Washington City Paper reported. The younger Moran and his girlfriend, Kelly Hoffman, started arguing in Columbia Heights bar The Getaway. The police report says Moran was observed grabbing his girlfriend by the back of the head and shoving her face against a metal trash can cage.
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Menendez Aides’ Spectacular Run of Bad Headlines

Updated: 5:24 p.m. | It’s been a brutal year for alumni of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez’s operation.

Unpaid intern Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, a registered sex offender, is the latest to run afoul of the law, landing on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s radar over an expired visa.

The Department of Homeland Security is now disputing reports that the agency held off on pursuing the 18-year-old Peruvian immigrant until after the elections.

“The report is categorically false. ICE followed standard process in coordination with its federal partners and local prosecutors before taking appropriate enforcement action,” DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said.

The Zavaleta scandal comes on the heels of recent reports chronicling the arrests of Menendez aides David M. Gins and Yasmin Malhotra for clumsily snatching GOP campaign signs and dealing prescription drugs, respectively.

Repeated attempts by HOH to reach Menendez for comment about the Zavaleta situation went unanswered.

Updated: 5:24 p.m.

Menendez spokeswoman Patricia Enright offered the following explanation for the suspect hiring and the senator’s reaction to the arrest.

“Luis Sanchez was an unpaid college intern in our Newark office for approximately two months. No staff member responsible for managing the internship program had reason to believe, based on their interview process, that Sanchez had any criminal background or immigration issues. Clearly, Mr. Sanchez sought to deceive our staff. Upon notification from authorities of his arrest, Mr. Sanchez’s relationship with our office immediately ended,” she told HOH via email.

“Sen. Menendez was briefed on the situation today — and he is appalled. He has no tolerance for those who violate the law and expects the authorities to continue to prosecute the case,” Enright asserted. “Sen. Menendez believes this incident underscores the reason we need comprehensive immigration reform that provides zero tolerance for those who have criminal records.”

Moran’s Son Pleads Guilty to Assault

Updated 5:36 p.m. | Patrick Moran, the son of Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., pleaded guilty on Wednesday to assault charges stemming from an incident on Dec. 1 where he allegedly slammed his girlfriend’s head into a metal trash can cage, reports the Washington City Paper.

The incident took place at a Columbia Heights neighborhood bar, The Getaway, where Moran was arrested after the incident.

The police report says Moran was observed to “grab a white female by the back of her head with his hand and slam her head into the metal trash can cage in front of the nightclub.” The police report went on to say that the woman was “bleeding heavily from her nose” and “her nose and right eye were extremely swollen.”

“The Congressman strongly condemns domestic violence,” Moran’s spokeswoman Anne Hughes told HOH in an email. “As was stated in court by both his son Patrick and his girlfriend, Kelly, the situation was an accident. Patrick didn’t hit or shove her. They were the only two people who witnessed the scene. In that sense, their statements are the only ones that matter.”

“They are both very embarrassed by the situation, which involved drinking, and they are looking to move past it, and ask for their privacy to be respected,” she said.

The younger Moran’s girlfriend, Kelly Hoffman, issued a statement in response to the media frenzy Wednesday afternoon.

“This was an accident that has been blown out of proportion,” Hoffman said. “The statements in the police report are inaccurate. Pat and I were arguing, one of my high heels gave out, and I fell into the side of a trashcan. On impact, I fractured my nose. False conclusions were made as a result. I hope our privacy will be respected.”

The younger Moran was taped earlier this year telling gotcha journo James O’Keefe how he might commit voter fraud.

Young Shakes Cane at Protester

Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., raised his cane to an uber-mouthy protester Monday, Tampa Bay’s Creative Loafing blog reports.

On Monday, a group of protesters gathered in Young’s district office. They ordered pizza, sang “fiscal cliff carols” and sat on Santa Claus’ lap to ask for “tax relief.” Santa — we assume he was not the real Kris Kringle, but an impersonator — even tried to hand the congressman a wrapped lump of coal.  Full story

Time-Traveling Tea Party

FreedomWorks is trying to turn back time.

The conservative advocacy group sent a letter to Speaker John A. Boehner last week, lambasting him for ousting four tea-party-aligned lawmakers from powerful committees.

But the letter was dated Dec. 5, 2011. Because, really, wasn’t 2011 better?

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This time last year, FreedomWorks still had a prestigious chairman, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. (He resigned two weeks ago in the wake of a row with FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe.) And the group’s ultra-conservative friends on Capitol Hill were still riding high after scoring at least a few points during negotiations over the debt ceiling.

Now, Kibbe is fending off allegations that he used donor money to promote his book and hid the source of more than $12 million in contributions from the departed chairman. Meanwhile, high-level staffers have followed Armey to the exit.

So, if there was any doubt the FreedomWorks headquarters was distracted last week, well … just saying.

Or maybe it was tea party dreaming, noted FreedomWorks spokeswoman Jackie Bodnar.

“Must have been a typo,” she said in an email to HOH. “Or maybe it was wishful thinking since the debt was about $1.5 trillion lower around this time in 2011 than it is currently.”

Tim Ryan Exonerated From Post-Wedding Arrest

Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, had a brush with the law during the August recess.

Ryan, 39, was arrested Aug. 25 for public intoxication while attending a staffer’s wedding in Lexington, Va. He was released on his own recognizance and pleaded not guilty at a later date. The Washington Post first reported the news.
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How-To Guide on The Tell-All Memoir

The David H. Petraeus/Paula Broadwell scandal has receded from the headlines a bit, which means it’s only a matter of time before some publishing house approaches Broadwell for the next step in her life: the tell-all memoir.

For guidance, HOH has lessons Broadwell might do well to observe from an unlikely source: the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter affair.

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Andrew W.K. Undeterred by Administration Snub

Rambunctious rocker Andrew W.K. has decided he will not be party to all the disinformation being spread about him by the State Department, detailing the origin of his now-ill fated trip in an interview with HOH.

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As we reported yesterday, the “Party King” suffered a major buzz kill after D.C. bureaucrats nervously pulled the plug on a goodwill swing through the Kingdom of Bahrain. Government officials maintained that if any such invitation was ever extended, it was done without the prior consent of official Washington, and was therefore null and void.

“It’s possible that State Department spokeslady might not have known anything about it, but I find it hard to believe this whole thing went forward without some higher ups’ approval,” W.K. posited about a plan he insists was set in motion last fall. Full story

Bart Simpson Pledges Allegiance to Karl Rove

The spiky-haired scion of the Simpsons clan stuck it to “Bush’s Brain” on Sunday night, scribbling an election denier’s mantra across the blackboard during the show’s opening sequence:

Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s presidency and prime mover and shaker for uber-super PAC American Crossroads, just about lost it on election night after Fox News’ decision desk called Ohio for President Barack Obama:

Even if Fox News isn’t with you, Karl, Bart Simpson still is!

No One Leaping to Explain GOP Orthodoxy to Quora

For all of their disdain of mainstream media, Republican leaders and surrogates are flocking to the safe harbors they know to perform the requisite post-election-defeat hand-wringing.

Speaker John Boehner sat down with Diane Sawyer on “ABC News” for a postmortem, for example.

Meanwhile, no one seems to be too keen on fully dissecting the party’s sobering diversity problem to the brutally inquisitive folks on the Quora discussion boards:

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Three House Democrats Burgled

It was the best of times, and, for three Democratic Members of Congress, it may have been sort of the worst of times, as well.

In the wake of a successful election night, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (Calif.) vacation home and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s district home were burgled  — the Californian’s twice — and Michigan Rep. Hansen Clarke’s Detroit office was broken into sometime late Wednesday night or early this morning.

“They stole three laptops, two camcorders, a camera, a Blackberry,” Clarke tells HOH. All constituent personal information is safe, he says.

“Apparently, they jimmied the front-door lock,” Clarke says. “But, just so you know, our office is in a large building that has restaurants, banquet halls, things like that. It’s in downtown Detroit. But our office was the only one broken into.”

The Congressman says he thinks the perpetrators targeted his office specifically.

“I do have a suspicion that our break-in could be politically motivated,” the Congressman says. “I’m hounded daily by political people who want to know what my plans are after my term is over with.” Full story

Parkmobile Backs Down From Blaming Dick Durbin for Parking Fee

Want to get a Senator riled? Blame him for high parking fees.

Pay-by-phone outfit Parkmobile last week blamed Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for the 13-cent increase in D.C.’s mobile parking meter fees. This didn’t sit too well with Durbin, whose face was adorning parking meters on a sticker that said “Durbin Tax” throughout the nation’s capital. And in an email sent to subscribers this afternoon, Parkmobile backed down.

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Local Media Engulfed by McKeon-Rogers Race

The mudslinging intensified in California’s 25^th district during the weekend, as an embattled news organization accused Democrat Lee Rogers of politicizing controversial personnel changes while the displaced journalists continued holding incumbent Republican Rep. Buck McKeon responsible for costing them their jobs.

The employment scrap got under way Oct. 16. That’s when KHTS owner Carl Goldman told news director Carol Rock and reporter Mark Archuleta they were being laid off because of budget cuts. Both Archuleta and Rock maintain they were terminated because McKeon was tired of their unflattering reports and had threatened Goldman’s financial interests if the coverage did not stop — charges the McKeon camp flatly denies.

“It has been made clear that neither the Congressman nor his staff members had anything to do with the staffing decisions at KHTS, and we won’t engage in the perpetuation of these unfortunate accounts,” McKeon spokeswoman Alissa McCurley told HOH.

Goldman, meanwhile, went from playing defense on the firings — “Our decision to change personnel was solely a business decision,” he assured HOH in an Oct. 19 email — to now fingering Rogers as the instigator of the whole sordid affair.

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Tina Fey Legitimately Sick of Todd Akin

“30 Rock” creator and spot-on Sarah Palin impersonator Tina Fey on Wednesday night lit into Missouri Republican and Senate hopeful Rep. Todd Akin for his mind-blowing “legitimate rape” theory.

“I can’t even finish this sentence without getting dumber. It’s making me dumber when I say it,” the comedian told attendees at the Center for Reproductive Rights’ inaugural gala, a fundraiser at New York’s iconic Lincoln Center.

Trump, Obama Battle Royally

Reality TV host and real estate magnate Donald Trump is determined to own this year’s October surprise, promising to drop a “bombshell” about President Barack Obama early Wednesday.

Trump, who has become the de facto head of the birther movement, has remained tight-lipped about what the revelation might be. But that hasn’t stopped bookmakers from speculating about his purportedly damaging intel. Overseas betting house Paddy Power, for instance, is offering 2-to-5 odds Trump will declare that POTUS is not an American citizen. Our favorite wager: 250 to 1 that Obama gets outed as an extraterrestrial.

The duo has fought off and on throughout the Republican primary, a sublimely ridiculous feud Slate has summarized in this brilliant “Mortal Kombat” spoof: