All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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It took a full month for many in Congress and the American public to realize that billions in bailout funds were not going to be used the way they thought.

Instead of purchasing failed mortgage assets, the Treasury Department used the taxpayer money to buy preferred shares of stock in select banks. It was not only weak banks in need of assistance, but also banks supposedly deemed to be "strong" by federal regulators; the idea apparently to help shore up the economy by ensuring strong banks take over weaker ones (although nobody from the Treasury Department has responded to our repeated requests for information).

Sources tell CBS News the bank strategy was not discussed in advance with important members of Congress who were "sold" on the bailout. Sources also say the strategy was not mentioned to top members who spoke directly with Treasury Secretary Paulson. But in the first weeks of the bailout, select banks become in-the-know quickly. Several of them have said it was "federal regulators" who approached them and urged them to apply for bailout money ... even before the public or Congress were aware this would be its use ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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Fake occupations like "lover"? Non-existent zip codes like "00000"? Imaginary people like "Doodad Pro"? Neither campaign appears to corner the market on odd entries from the donor files.

But with Obama receiving many more individual donations, a stunningly larger total (Obama's got more than $603 million to McCain's $358 million), and -depending who you ask - an impressive (or suspicious) month of record fundraising in September, some are trying to take a closer look at Obama's stats.

"He's been taking in a lot of money very rapidly," says Sheila Krumholz who heads up the Center for Responsive Politics. She says ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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Back in 1972, a Republican convention corporate contributions scandal shook things up. Executives from the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. had allegedly met secretly with Nixon administration officials – and offered to underwrite the Republican convention. In return, the Justice Department was allegedly urged to "go easy" on ITT in a pending anti-trust lawsuit. ITT ended up with what was widely regarded as a favorable out-of-court settlement.

To eliminate the appearance of tainted funding, election law was changed. The idea was to provide public funds for the conventions and limit corporate contributions. But things haven't really worked out that way. Here's why.

Corporations are still allowed to donate money through convention "host committees" (committees that presumably help promote the locality that's holding the convention). But the "host committee" exemption has become a giant loophole exploited by corporations seeking influence – and politicians eager to provide it. Corporate contributions have soared from just $1 million in 1980 to an estimated $112 million for 2008.

Tonight on the CBS Evening News our Follow the Money story will talk about what some corporate donors "get" in exchange for their generous contributions ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is the Capitol Hill Correspondent for CBS News.

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Rep. Paul Kanjorski, was just trying to do something great for his hometown: He got several million federal tax dollars to build an office building in Nanticoke, Penn., so that a major business had a place to operate and bring several hundred jobs to town. It was named the Kanjorski Center. But a few years ago, the business moved out of the city-owned Kanjorski Center, leaving Nanticoke stuck paying the $15,000 a month bill for the empty building.

Kanjorski's follow up plan was to build a city-owned parking garage for the empty city-owned Kanjorski Center in hopes of attracting new tenants. Once again, he turned to federal taxpayers for help, earmarking more than $5 million for the Kanjorski Center parking garage project.

Critics say federal tax dollars aren't meant to buy economic stimulus projects for every Congressman's hometown – there isn't enough money to go around as it is. Further objections came from local officials who said Kanjorski shouldn't be able to use an earmark to force the city to build and own another liability: a parking garage ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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For years, members of Congress have been investigating financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and the government, doctors and researchers, research hospitals, colleges and universities. Sen. Charles Grassley, who has most recently been digging into money links between drug companies and the American Psychiatric Association, puts it this way: “I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions.”

In a letter to its members, the APA says it supports complete transparency and plans to provide Grassley with the information he's requested: "a complete accounting of APA revenues, except from advertising in our journals, from pharmaceutical companies, starting in 2003." The APA notes: "We are not alone; recent public focus on relationships between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry is a challenge for the whole field of medicine."

Indeed, the APA is not alone in being the subject of public focus and scrutiny for its relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. Tonight, on the CBS Evening News, we dig into the allegations of financial conflicts of interest among some widely-quoted "independent" voices in the debates over vaccine safety. We weren't as lucky as Grassley ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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What's worse than an earmark that wastes tax dollars and abuses the system by allowing Congress to funnel money outside the normal process to favored businesses or entities?

Plenty, you might say. But how about a secret, classified earmark that costs American lives?

That's the allegation from a military intelligence officer Maj. Eric Egland. In an exclusive interview, Egland told me the amazing story of being on the ground in Iraq at the height of IED (Improvised Explosive Device) deaths and injuries. It was his job to evaluate a large contract that was supposed to send resources and trained people to attack the IED networks. It wasn't working. Egland says it didn't take long for him to discover the contractor was, in his words, completely unqualified for the task at hand. The workers, he said, lacked the experience, resources and know-how to do this important job. He wondered ...

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Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News. Her latest Follow the Money segment examined how replying to a text message or even browsing a Web site can unleash a flury of phone-bill charges for unordered and unwanted services. It's called "cramming."

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I communicated with many unhappy customers while working on tonight's story on ringtone fraud. Of course only a few people's stories can actually fit into a report on the Evening News.

But I thought it might be interesting for you to read about the experiences of a few other folks. Judging from how many people have said it's happened to them (it even happened to me and my friends and family) we may be just beginning to hear how widespread this type of alleged scam may be.

What are your rights? If you can't get satisfaction from your service provider on what you believe are bogus charges, report it online to the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC told CBS News it's glad we're doing the story and helping let people know that this type of fraud is out there. Read on for some of the stories people told me.

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Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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When you do as many stories on government waste and fraud as I do, you can almost start to believe that if the misspending could be wiped out, we'd have enough money to pay for all of our needs, help the guys next door, and still have money leftover to give some back to hard working taxpayers.

The scope of "improper payments," as the government calls them, is so huge, it's counted in terms of billions of dollars. It's so huge, you may even begin to think a billion dollars isn't that much. You forget that a billion is it's a thousand million. And that a million is a thousand thousand . And so on.

A new report from the GAO has some upsetting figures on this front. Congress now requires major executive branches to report how much in improper payments (of your tax dollars) they believe they make in a given year. For fiscal year 2007, the GAO reports the total is $55 billion dollars. That amounts to about "2% of the total federal executive branch agencies'" spending, which right about now totals almost $2.8 trillion. Now that's huge.

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Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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When Democrats took over Congress last year, they pledged to cut back on Congressional earmarks: grants of money without the normal public review. Too often, say critics, earmarks end up going to some senator or congressman's friends, donors or associates. And because earmarks aren't subject to the normal competition and review of budget items, critics also say they're ripe for fraud, waste and abuse. Earmarks cost billions of tax dollars each year, and have ballooned in number in recent years. Members of Congress seem to have discovered it's a great way to "bring home the bacon" and attract donations and votes among the receiving constituents.

Democrats partially delivered on their promise. There are fewer earmarks this year. But numbering more than 11,000, totaling billions of dollars, many say there are still too many ... worth too much.

And earmarks have tapped into voter outrage.

Voters are angry that gas prices and taxes are high, the economic outlook is poor, many of them are looking for ways to tighten their belts. But Congress seems to be spending their tax dollars on earmark items that are far from national priorities.

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Sharyl Attkisson is investigative correspondent for CBS News.

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Our Follow the Money story talks about a small business called ProLogic that's under FBI investigation for its use of some public funds. It's unclear where that will end up. But taxpayer watchdogs are upset with members of Congress who continue to "earmark" your tax dollars to companies like ProLogic while they're under investigation.

ProLogic started up in a "business incubator" in West Virginia funded by Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.V. (who's also under FBI investigation for his earmark practices). Once ProLogic got going, with the indirect help of federal funds from Congressman Mollohan, Mollohan earmarked more federal contracts to the company. And the company has been good to Mollohan in return, making campaign contributions to him and other members of Congress who are in powerful positions to unilaterally hand out earmarks with no hearing or group vote (see information below).

All of that, as far as we know, is perfectly legal. The campaign contributions by ProLogic's interests — more than $400,000 — and receipt of them by the members of Congress — the subsequent earmarks by those same members — are apparently legal. So is the $880,000 ProLogic, a small business, has spent on Washington lobbyists. It's all allowed under our system of government. The question that some taxpayer watchdogs have is ... should it be?

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