Yesterday, Alphonso Jackson, Bush’s HUD secretary, resigned. “His tenure,” as the AP put it, was “tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation.” On February 4, The Washington Post began a series of embarrassing articles based on public court documents filed in Philadelphia. Jackson stonewalled a congressional committee, and senators called for his resignation.
Typical D.C. scandal cycle, you might assume.
But this time, for those who looked, there was something different. While the Philadelphia story may have been the attention-grabbing final nail in Jackson’s coffin, the basic carpentry was quietly done months before.
In October, November, and December, Edward Pound, an investigative reporter at The National Journal, produced a three-part series revealing that HUD’s inspector general was investigating allegations that Jackson had secured a HUD job in New Orleans for a lightly-qualified, out-of-state friend, and that the FBI, the Justice Department, and a federal grand jury were involved. Pound even got the contractor to tell him that, sure, Jackson had helped him get the job.
On October 5, the day after Pound’s first HUD story appeared, The Washington Post published an unsigned, 150-word squib briefly recounting the charges. The New York Times weighed in with a 450-word article. Both cited The National Journal. Those pieces would be the last mention of Jackson’s troubles in either paper until the Post got on it’s Philadelphia story in February—four months later. All that time, Pound continued to break news: that a company with financial ties to Jackson was winning big contracts, that an Atlanta lawyer and Jackson friend may have gotten $1 million to administer the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, that Jackson’s chief of staff had resigned under the investigation’s cloud.
“I was pretty much out there on my own. No doubt,” Pound told CJR. “I was hoping other people would jump on the train. And they didn’t.”
Pound was vaguely tipped to the existence of the hush-hush inquiry by someone he considers a “good source.”
“It wasn’t one of those stories where you could call Justice and have it laid out for you,” he says. “It took digging.”
So much digging, Pound says, that after three or four days of initial inquiries he got back in touch with his original tipster to tell him he’d been wrong. After being reassured, he returned to the chase.
He was able to link Jackson and one of the contractors after seeing a Hilton Head newsletter that placed the secretary at a party at the contractor’s house. Other sources suggested he look at the contractor running the Virgin Islands Housing Authority—a local paper had noted his name.
“A lot of this was digging and talking to people in HUD or who’d left HUD,” says Pound. “It’s nothing fancy.”
At no point, Pound says, did he receive a call from an outside reporter or editor asking for a huddle or a signpost. “I think a lot of people down here don’t give a damn about agencies. They’re interested in politics and the horse race, and that’s an important story,” he says. “But this is why we’re here.”
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.