Phil’s Alibi

When we revealed his soft spot for middle-class drug dealers, Gramm went looking for an excuse.

Image: Richard Thompson

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A month after we broke the news that the GOP’s premier parole-basher had lobbied to get three felons out of jail early (“Phil’s Felon,” July/August), presidential candidate Sen. Phil Gramm showed up at a Young Republican convention to tout his newest anti-crime proposal: If you’re victimized by a twice-convicted felon who’s been put back on the street, you should be allowed to sue Uncle Sam.

If Gramm manages to pass such a bill, he’d better open his own wallet: He might be sued by parents in California whose kids, as we reported, were victimized by Bill Doyle, the twice-convicted drug dealer Gramm helped get out of prison in 1980.

Our story prompted follow-up articles by media such as the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, and the Associated Press. Later, tipped off by our disclosure of Gramm’s secret archives at Texas A&M University, the Dallas Morning-News and the Houston Chronicle unearthed additional embarrassing documents, including letters to the Air Force requesting that John Weaver be released early from active duty to work on Gramm’s 1984 Senate campaign. (Weaver is now Gramm’s deputy political director.)

When Mother Jones first broke the story, Gramm told reporters he had never intervened in a parole case. When we released signed letters from his office, his staff tracked down Mary Fae Kamm, a 60-year-old former aide, and extracted a statement in which she claimed to have forged his name without his knowledge in the case of one of the three felons. Gramm’s spokesman has tried to pin blame for the other two on her, but she has yet to accept it.

Startled at Gramm’s complete refusal to accept any responsibility, we asked his office to clarify numerous inconsistencies in his statements. Instead, Gramm’s press secretary issued a written statement addressed to “Mrs. Jones,” which read: “I am at a loss to remedy your newest difficulties. (I imagine that your difficulties have been many since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I regret to add to them.)” Then Gramm stood up at a press conference and falsely accused the Democratic National Committee of having given us the story.

No word yet from Gramm on whether the Jews or the Queen of England were involved.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate