However, in response to my FOIA requests, CPS failed to produce a single training record. Further, in 2003 your agency awarded $25,000 to SALF to provide first aid training to students in these schools:
Salem School District #111 (Marion County) South Central Community Unit School District #401 (Kinmundy, Marion County) Camp Point CU School District #3 Beardstown CU School District #15 Rantoul City School District #137 (Champaign County) Cass County School Districts (Cass County) Edwardsville CU School District #7 Greenview CU School District #200
In a 2015 interview, Senator Bivens said, "(SALF) claimed they had trained thousands and thousands of children...We can't substantiate that all of these children were trained."
As you may know, in approximately June 2010, your office initiated an investigation into SALF. According to a 2010 IL Public Radio report, "The Illinois Attorney General's office confirms it is reviewing how the funds were used, as is done whenever a charitable organization disbands."
To learn the outcome of the investigation, every six months or so, I file FOIA requests with your agency, asking for related records.
In an August 15, 2022 response to my most recent FOIA request, Assistant Attorney General Mark Rogina wrote: "(This office has reviewed) its records, and we determined that approximately 10,000 pages of records are maintained only in physical, hard copy form."
Please be advised that because this investigation remains ongoing, we have no records responsive to your request.
It's unclear why it's taking your office over 12 years to investigate a long-defunct, thoroughly-discredited organization. Still, I hope you agree that the public is entitled to learn what happened to the millions of misappropriated tax dollars.
With that hope in mind, this is to respectfully request that you initiate a review to determine if the investigation of SALF has been conducted properly.
This is also to respectfully request that you provide me with the name of the staff member leading the SALF investigation and an approximate date when the investigation will be completed. I appreciate your consideration and I look forward to your reply.
Looks like I'm first again with the amended complaint filed yesterday by Melongo and her attorney Jennifer Bonjean which includes the complete timeline of the case, including the almost two years she spent in jail for posting recordings of benign phone conversations on the Internet, the result of being prosecuted under a statute that has been overturned as unconstitutional by the IL Supreme Court.
The complaint also takes aim at the felony computer tampering charges filed by Spizzirri against Melongo on October 31, 2006. Almost eight years later, that case appears to be headed to court, according to the website tracking Melongo's cases (click and page down).
Click here for a compilation of media reports about the Melongo case.
Click here for a compilation of media reports about Spizzirri and SALF.
* 7/4/14 update: A previous version of this item identified former SALF Operations Director Vince Davis as the cowboy wearing the duster coat in the photo. Yesterday I received an e-mail from Davis -- seen in the video clip below escorting Carol Spizzirri when she freaks out and flees the room mid-interview -- informing me that Mayor Conner (who died in 2010) dressed up as the cowboy.
I regret the error and I appreciate Davis -- whose June 10, 2007 e-mail about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama helping to fund SALF (see below) -- was reported in a June 25, 2013 Dubuque Telegraph Herald article -- bringing it to my attention -- PMH
Here's Rita Mullins, former mayor of Palatine, IL, and Carol J. Spizzirri -- the gal pals who helmed the organization -- and my father at a Washington, DC conference that was supposed to move their organization into the big leagues:
Per a San Diego newsweekly article about her sordid history, Spizzirri hightailed it to a mobile home park near Carlsbad a couple years ago.
Sen. Bivins tagged Spizzirri and Mullins in this acerbic letter he sent to the IL Attorney General:
Turns out the senator's letter really got under somebody's skin.
Check out this anonymous screed he received that portrays me as slightly worse than Charlie Manson. (I've redacted a paragraph consisting of crapulous allegations about a third party.)
For fun, I'll try and fact-check the claims in the letter. It shouldn't require much effort.
For example:
To enlighten you, the students of Dixon schools were taught/saved lives with SALF's life saving curriculum instructed by off-duty Dixon City Fire Department EMS professionals, which operated through a Branch at St. John's Hospital, Springfield.
Sen. Bivins -- misspelled "Bevins" by the cluck who wrote the letter -- lives in Dixon and was Lee County Sheriff for 20 years. Here's what he wrote me:
I did talk to one of the longest serving fireman in my town and he
doesn't recall any such program (SALF) ever being offered here.
As for my motives, I'll leave it to others to decide whether this page of media reports that resulted from my whistleblowing efforts constitutes a "hit list" -- and what may have compelled me to take a closer look at Spizzirri's organization.
Carol Spizzirri and my father (then 85 years old) at SALF's US Conference of Mayors presentation, January 19, 2005
One last question.
Why is the skank who wrote the anonymous letter to Sen. Bivins giving me grief about my father? Per this ABC7 report, it was Spizzirri and her organization that kicked him to the curb:
The idea was to try and verify a thin claim published by the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) and by the Huffington Post that, when he served as an IL state senator and as a member of the US Senate, President Obama was a supporter of SALF.
As Sidebar readers know, SALF was a high-flying, politically-connected Chicago-area nonprofit whose wings got clipped in November 2006, when ABC Chicago aired the first of four exposes by I-Team reporter Chuck Goudie. Since then, SALF has been the subject of dozens more critical media reports.
Per The Hill and other news outlets, SALF is being investigated by the IL Attorney General. Per my blog, an executive at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who moonlighted as SALF's Corporate Treasurer is under review by the CDC - and my congressman, Rob Woodall, is asking questions. There's about $9 million in IL state and federal dollars that may have gone bye-bye
SALF's Carol J. Spizzirri, my father & my mother (sitting)
Back to President Obama, to my knowledge, here's the only published document that mentions him, a 2006 SALF press release:
Like I said, that's wafer-thin evidence, but I figured I'd toss a couple softball questions at the White House and see what happened. Even a denial would give me a cheap headline, à la:
"White House denies claims that President was 'close' to tainted nonprofit"
Truth be told, I assumed I'd simply be ignored. In hindsight, I think I'd have preferred that.
White House Deputy Press Secretaries Jamie Smith and Josh Earnest (source: PotomacFlacks.com)
Per the correspondence posted below, White House Deputy Press Secretary Jamie Smith wasted hours of my time - and hers - by leading me on a four-month wild goose chase of endless back & forth e-mails.
Her challenge? To field this pair of slow-motion grounders I tossed at her:
1) Per a Huffington Post article, is it accurate to say that "Barack Obama was close to the Save-A-Life Foundation"? If not, please explain.
Save A Life Foundation (SALF) President and Founder Carol Spizzirri recently spoke with U.S. Senator Barack Obama...regarding SALF’s future lifesaving efforts....While in the Illinois legislature together, Obama and current Illinois Senate President Emil Jones were always supportive of SALF’s efforts to train Illinois schoolchildren in life-sustaining skills for free.
Are any parts of the above sentences inaccurate? If so, please explain.
It started off great. White House Deputy Press Secretary Smith promptly agreed to answer my questions.
Cheap headline, here I come!
For the next couple of months, I politely sent follow-up nudges and she promptly sent follow-up replies assuring me that she was working on getting my answers. (Look, I'm aware that I'm a cloutless blogger so I was willing to be patient.)
Then she pulled this 180:
I regret to inform you that we will not be able to accommodate your request.
WTF? Did a White House Deputy Press Secretary just broke what I consider to be Rule Three for every media rep?
Jamie Smith will join the White House Communications team as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary. In addition to serving as an on-the-record spokesperson for the White House, she will manage the day-to-day operations of our office. An experienced and well-regarded manager and communicator, Jamie is currently Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Before that, she was Communications Director for U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV when he was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and then Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Smith also served as Traveling Press Director for the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign, Communications Director for former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and The Albright Group, and Legislative Aide to Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey.
Those sounded like high-class gigs and quite a few for such a young woman to have held, so I kept my cool and played this hand:
On my blog this week, I intend to report this (more or less) as "White House refuses to answer questions about President Obama's past ties to tainted Illinois nonprofit under federal and state investigations."
If you wish to dispute that characterization, would you please get back to me by the end of today?
Less than an hour later, to my surprise, she put the ball back in play!
Thanks for your reply back. If you can give me a few more days on this, I would appreciate it.
Will respond by week's end.
But those assurances led to - yeah, you guessed it - another two months of phony promises, a family sob story, and then White House Deputy Press Secretary Smith vanished.
I think I know why she's held so many jobs.
But just as bad as wasting my time, she broke Rule Two:
Rep. Rob Woodall (holding copies of SALF documents I handed to him), Town Hall, Suwanee, GA, 11/5/11
A freshman Republican congressman from Georgia is asking questions about a developing Illinois scandal that involves two of the biggest players in the national Democratic party.
Sidebar regulars know that the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was a high-flying nonprofit that, according to the Chicago Tribune, was awarded nearly $9 million in federal and state funds to provide first aid training classes to millions of students.
Among other problems, records of any training classes are hard to come by.
IL State Sen. Tim Bivins
Last week an Illinois daily reported that State Senator Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) and State Board of Education chairman Gery Chico want "investigations and audits of (SALF)":
“Where’s our money going?” Bivins said. “Where’s our tax dollars going? Where did it go?... As taxpayers, we have a right to know where the money’s going.”
...Chico agreed.
"I think if there’s probable cause for wrongdoing, especially if it involves public money, there ought to be an investigation, sure,” Chico said.
That prospect doesn't seem to appeal to this pair of officials who helped SALF obtain big bucks: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin. Click their names and you'll see what I mean.
Back in the day, both spared no praise or support for the organization and its founder/president, Carol J. Spizzirri. Duncan called her "one of my heroes." Durbin told a CNN reporter, "I would do everything I could to help her."
After dozens more media exposes, you'd think the elected officials who handed SALF millions of public dollars might want to assure taxpayers that their money didn't go down the you-know-where.
Think again. Despite his calls for oversight, Bivins wrote me, "There is little or no interest in pursuing an investigation of SALF in Illinois."
Such incuriousity may be attributable to SALF's connections to scores of public officials up and down the Prairie State's political food chain.
Click here for pages of photos of some of those worthies posing with SALF founder/president Carol Spizzirri and her second-in-command, Rita Mullins, former 20-year mayor of Palatine, IL.
As Sen. Bivins wrote me, "It's going to take someone from outside Illinois to expose the SALF scandal."
That someone may turn out to be my congressman, Rob Woodall, (R-GA, 7th District).
This week, Rep. Woodall wrote me that since July he's been asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about $3.33 million that agency awarded to SALF.
According to sworn grant applications and financial reports SALF submitted to the CDC (which I obtained via FOIA), a good chunk of that dough was supposed to be used by SALF to provide first aid training classes for many thousands of students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and other districts.
During most of those years, Arne Duncan was in charge of CPS and had a close relationship with Spizzirri and her operation. He even appeared as a cartoon character on SALF's website:
Here's one problem. In response to a federal court subpoena and public records requests, CPS can't locate any training records.
So where'd the CDC money go?
In addition to Duncan, one person who should know the answer to that question is Douglas Browne who, according to an October article in The Hill, "served as (SALF's) corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009."
Per The Hill, during those same years Browne was also - can you say conflict of interest? - a Deputy Director at the CDC. From SALF's 2006-07 Annual Report:
(Congressional candidate Tim)Bagwell sent an 8-page letter to Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel Levinson on Monday requesting that the office "review and determine" whether $3.3 million awarded to the Save-A-Life Foundation were "properly administered." ...Bagwell also wants the inspector general to review the relationship between the nonprofit and CDC Deputy Director Douglas Browne, who served as the nonprofit's corporate treasurer from 2004 to 2009.
That resulted in this:
At the beginning of the summer, I spent a frustrating month trying to get answers from the CDC about the status of the IG's request "for further review and appropriate administrative action" about Browne's role.
CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD MPH
After being sandbagged by three CDC departments, including the office of Director Tom Frieden, I wrote congressman Woodall and requested his assistance.
Last Saturday Rep. Woodall hosted a local Town Hall meeting at which I took the opportunity to reiterate my concerns. A few days later, he sent me this. (To download a copy, click here.)
Per the congressman's letter, there's more to come, so keep reading The Sidebar for updates.
Rep. Rob Woodall
In the meantime, I encourage readers to write your own congressional representative, share a link to this item, and request that s/he send a letter of support to Rep. Woodall for his willingness to take a closer look at this rat's nest.
"When (Save-A-Life Foundation founder/president Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her" - Dick Durbin in a 1995 CNN interview (video posted below)
More recently, Senator Durbin's office seems to be doing everything it can to avoid telling the truth about his relationship with Spizzirri and her Chicago-area nonprofit that's now under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General and apparently by at least one federal agency.
In the interests of obtaining more information, I have an idea for an interesting, perhaps even fun, experiment.
It requires the participation of one or more registered Illinois voters. Here's the deal....
Earlier this month I reported that the senator's press secretary, Christina Mulka, provided a variety of false information to a Texas blogger about her boss's relationship with the Save-A-Life Foundation, a Chicago-area nonprofit now under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General.
After running that item, I e-mailed Ms. Mulka and asked her to confirm or deny two claims made by SALF, this one for a fundraiser....
...and this from a list of members of SALF's corporate board that was part of a year 2000 grant application for $50,000 that was submitted by SALF to an Illinois state agency (which approved the request):
I didn't receive a reply so a week later, I sent Ms. Mulka a follow-up that included:
According to this February 17, 2011 Huffington Post article by Will Guzzardi, SALF claimed former president of the Chicago Board of Education Gery Chico was on the board of their organization, but Mr. Chico denied the claim. Two days later I provided the information in Mr. Guzzardi's article to the CTB (the Illinois Attorney General's Charitaible Trust Bureau) in this letter. Similarly, I'm trying to determine if the two claims published by SALF about Senator Durbin that I brought to your attention - that in year 2000 he was a member of SALF's Advisory Council and/or was Honorary Chairman of SALF's Annual Dinner Dance fund raising event - are accurate or not. Your answers could assist the CTB in their efforts to determine whether any irregularities have occurred.
According to Maura Possley, the deputy press secretary for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, a nonprofit misrepresenting the makeup of its board of directors in an annual report would be perjury, a Class 3 felony.
Color me naive, but shouldn't a US senator want to assist an investigation by his home state?
But it's more than a lack of co-operation in this case.
As for Sen. Durbin's ten-year relationship with SALF, his press secretary may not be intentionally engaging in misdirection, but she's doing a boffo job of creating that impression.
For example, in an e-mail last year Ms. Mulka repeatedly indicated that Durbin's only contact with SALF was in 1995 and that:
(He) never worked to appropriated (sic) funding for the organization.
Oops.
A year later most of the loot he requested came through:
If you're the type who prefers to let sleeping dogs lie or doesn't care what happened to the millions of tax dollars awarded to SALF, no need read any further.
However, if you're not that type and may be up for a little experiment in participatory journalism, here's what I've got in mind.
Since Sen. Durbin won't answer me, maybe he'll answer a constituent.
If you're a registered voter in Illinois, just send this or a similar inquiry to him:
The Honorable Dick Durbin United States Senate 711 Hart Senate Bldg. Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Durbin:
I'm a constituent who'd appreciate your answers to the following questions:
1) Were you ever a member of the Save-A-Life Foundation's Advisory Council? If so, during what years?
2) Did you serve as the Honorary Chairman of the Save-A-Life Foundation's Annual Dinner Dance in year 2000?
Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to your reply.
Feel free to courtesy-copy me on your inquiry and let me know the response. I'll publish the results (or non-results) in a future item. Click here for my e-mail address.
Am I asking readers to do my work for me? You betcha. But only because I hit the stonewall.
I'm also interested in learning what happens with this message in a bottle I'm sending into cyberspace. I've never done anything like this and I don't know if any other blogger or reporter has.
Will it generate newsworthy results or bupkis? Dunno, but that uncertainty is one reason why I think it's fun and worth a try.
Also, don't all good citizens share the belief that our elected officials should be accountable? Here's a painless opportunity to see what happens when you try with one of the our nation's most prominent public servants.
1995 CNN report about SALF. Durbin (1:45): "When (Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her."
Perhaps most seriously, she failed to disclose a 1999 request by Sen. Durbin for a $1 million appropriation to SALF, funding that went through the following year.
In year 2000 applications for $50,000 in Illinois state funding, SALF claimed Durbin was a member of the organization's corporate Advisory Board.
That same year, Durbin was listed as Honorary Chairman for a SALF Dinner Dance fundraiser.
And according to an August 28, 2006 press release issued by Mayor Richard Daley's office, SALF partnered in a Chicago emergency preparedness program spearheaded by Durbin.
Three months later, SALF and its founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri were the subject of a scorching ABC I-Team expose.
Durbin isn't the only one in the shadows of SALF. Recently, Illinois newspapers reported that the pending appointment of Gery Chico, another prominent Illinois Democrat, to head the Illinois State Board of Education has stalled as a result of questions being asked about his ties to SALF.
Back to Senator Durbin, here's an e-mail exchange from last year between his press secretary and blogger Lee Cary of Little Elm, Texas (north of Dallas), who was asking about the senator's connection to SALF and Spizzirri. (Click here to view the originals.)
From: Mulka, Christina (Durbin) To: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net] Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 12:51 PM Subject: RE: media inquiry - SALF
Lee,
Senator Durbin’s involvement was limited to the service he would provide for any Illinois constituent – he and his staff helped the founder navigate the bureaucracy in Washington. As you saw in the CNN video, Senator Durbin’s support was personal in nature and did not extend beyond having sympathy with Carol Spizzirri. Senator Durbin wrote no legislation on behalf of SALF and never worked to appropriated (sic) funding for the organization. And, I hardly think that a video – that is 15 years old – of Senator Durbin expressing sympathy for a woman who lost her daughter in a tragic accident is evidence of long-term support.
Christina Mulka
Press Secretary
202.228.5643
From: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 6:18 PM
To: Mulka, Christina (Durbin)
Subject: Re: media inquiry - SALF
Christina,
Thanks for your prompt reply.
Based on your response, my understanding is that the Senator is on the record that his last contact with the Save-A-Life Foundation was in 1995. If that information is incorrect, please get back to me by end of the day Tuesday, 8/3. If you require more time, please advise and I'll do my best to adjust to your schedule.
From: Mulka, Christina (Durbin)
To: Lee Cary [mailto:lee.cary@att.net] Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 2:23 PM
Subject: RE: media inquiry - SALF
Lee –
You have asked about a 15 year old contact between then-Congressman Durbin and a constituent; I explained he was sympathetic to her in the wake of terrible personal tragedy.
You have asked whether Sen. Durbin has provided support for her or her organization; I explained that other than being sympathetic on a personal level, he has not secured federal or private funds for her or her group, and did not introduce any legislation to assist SALF while he served in the House or the Senate.
You asked for an on-the-record statement from our office; we provided you with such a statement. In each case, I have responded as quickly as possible and to the best of my ability about an event that occurred more than a decade ago, and has not been an on-going issue for this office since.
And off-the-record: Given the ideological bent of your website, I will confess that I am suspicious of your motives. I think we will let our responses to your previous questions stand, and move on to other, more timely matters.
Christina Mulka
Press Secretary
202.228.5643
Mulka's "ideological bent" comment is probably because, in a previous e-mail, Cary identified himself as a writer for the American Thinker, a hard-right online magazine.
And a quick aside to potential sources: The Sidebar doesn't publish off the record information. In this case I'm making an exception because last September the American Thinker published Mulka's e-mail in an article by Cary, including her off the record comment.
Regarding Mulka's on the record statements, this may be her biggest fail: an October 31, 1999 request for $1 million for SALF in a letter from Durbin to Sen. Arlen Specter, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education.
Durbin's funding request letter (click here to download) contains what I consider to be these unsupportable claims:
This organization has trained 35,000 Cook County children since October, 1998, with the assistance of 150 firefighters, paramedics, and police officers as their instructors.
For example, although the Chicago Tribune reported in 2009 that "2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools," per my website, the Chicago Public Schools have been unable to produce any training records.
Therefore it's unclear where Durbin's claimed 35,000 Cook County children were trained and who the 150 instructors were. So where did he obtain the numbers?
During the reporting of this story, I posed that and other questions to Christina Mulka.
She repeatedly refused to participate in this report.
Per this suburban Chicago newspaper article, Durbin was involved with SALF since before February 1995.
The article contradicts this claim Mulka made to Cary:
You have asked about a 15 year old contact between then-Congressman Durbin and a constituent....
But according to the 1995 article:
Congressman Richard Durbin (D-Chicago) was an early supporter of Save A Life Foundation President and Founder Carol Spizzini's efforts.
"I received a letter stating, "I am not a resident of your district, but I would like to speak with you in Washington." The chances of me responding to that letter are normally slim and none (sic) but I was so moved by her story," Durbin stated.
Later that year, Durbin told CNN reporter Lisa Price (timestamp 1:45 in the video at the top of this item):
I've found the very best legislation in Washington DC comes from those personal, human, and family experiences. When (Carol Spizzirri) came in and sat down with me and told this story to me face to face, I was with her and decided I would do everything I could to help her.
(Carol) Spizzirri was a darling of politicians and bureaucrats, although it was a matter of record that she had been convicted twice for shoplifting. Save-A-Life began raking in money from government grants.
...But it wasn’t until November of 2006 that ABC 7 News in Chicago, in the first of several broadcasts, exposed more of Spizzirri’s untruthful statements. She had told the station that she was a registered nurse. But the station reported that the institution from which she had claimed to receive her nursing degree had never given her one. A hospital in which she had claimed to be a transplant nurse said she had been a patient care assistant, which is akin to a candy striper.
...(Spizzirri's daughter) Christina filed for an order of protection against her mother. A neighbor who lives four houses away was willing to be Christina’s primary caretaker. The complaint stated that Spizzirri had struck Christina “on several occasions and threatened her on many occasions.” The order of protection, granted the same month, barred Spizzirri from seeing her daughter at several locations such as school and work. Christina “fears her mother will attempt to harass her or retaliate,” said the complaint.
Grayslake's Carol Spizzirri could be spending a lot more time in Washington D.C. this summer...
Spizzirri could do a lot in Washington in addition to using the legislative support she's received from Senator Dick Durbin, but for the time being Spizzirri is concentrating on this part of the country.
In Washington a Durbin legislative aide, Melissa Merz, said the senator has been working on setting national certification standards.
"We have worked with Carol for two years," Merz said. "We will continue to work with her to determine what form this federal legislation will take. Senator Durbin has not introduced legislation yet, but we are working with the U.S. Department of Transportaion and the Illinois Secretary of State's office," she said.
Here's another problematic document, a page from two year 2000 grant applications submitted by SALF for $50,000 in Illinois state funding from the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs that listed SALF's board and executive associates:
Other names on the document (click here to view) include IL Secretary of State Jesse White, former Illinois first lady Lura Lynn Ryan (who died last week), John Wayne Gacy's attorney Sam Amirante, the late Peter Safar MD (who developed CPR), my father, and other notables.
One of Illinois' highest profile charities teaches the Heimlich maneuver to children while maneuvering the truth to get money from government and big business.
It's called the Save-A-Life Foundation and is known across Illinois as an organization that teaches schoolchildren how to respond in emergencies. For the past few years, Save-A-Life has received millions of dollars in government funds and corporate donations. An ABC7 I-Team investigation has uncovered a series of misleading claims and deceptive credentials that raise doubts about Save-A-Life's integrity, funding and training.
Weeks ago I extended to Christina Mulka (and to Sen. Durbin's chief of staff Pat Souders) multiple opportunities to address the false information she provided to Lee Cary. I even graciously offered her this escape route:
(When) you provided the statements to Mr. Cary, you may not have consulted Senator Durbin beforehand and therefore were not in command of the facts...In order to avoid further inaccuracies, this is to request that you share with Senator Durbin the e-mails you sent to Mr. Cary on July 30 and August 2 last year. In the event that you or the senator wishes to revise those statements, please respond by next Monday, June 20. If you require more time, please advise before then and I'll accommodate your schedule.
Below are my final attempts and her last response.
Mulka also declined to answer these questions I previously submitted:
Does Senator Durbin agree or disagree that the Inspector General of HHS should initiate an investigation into the funding SALF received from the CDC?
A former SALF employee has stated that Senator Durbin visited SALF's Schiller Park offices in approximately January 2006. Has Senator Durbin ever visited SALF's offices? If so, on what date(s) and for what purpose(s)?
10/9/11 UPDATE: From the Federal Register, I just found this notation about the appropriation Sen. Durbin helped arrange:
Assistance for this project will be provided only to the Save a Life Foundation. FY 2001 Federal appropriations specifically directs CDC to award funds to the Save a Life Foundation. No other applications are solicited.
