National watchdog group wants Westar to open files

? A national political watchdog group on Tuesday called on Westar Energy Inc. to release more documents related to the company’s alleged efforts last year to influence federal legislation through campaign contributions to key congressmen and their allies.

“There are many unanswered questions that can be addressed only with information in Westar’s files,” Tyson Slocum, research director for the Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen, said in a letter to Westar’s board of directors.

Public Citizen, a watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader, called for an investigation into contributions from former Westar executives to members of Congress after first being alerted by the Lawrence Journal-World about two company memos.

In those memos, the former Westar executives outlined a plan for getting “a seat at the table” through contributions to members of Congress with influence on legislation that would have given Westar a benefit worth millions of dollars. Public Citizen has said the contributions from Westar executives between May and October 2002 totaled more than $50,000.

The congressional negotiators approved the Westar provision but abandoned it after it was announced in September 2002 that Westar was under federal investigation. All the congressmen cited in the memos, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, have denied any wrongdoing.

Both memos, “as well as government records and media reports, strongly suggest the existence of many more such communications between the company’s executives, the company’s Washington D.C., lobbyists and perhaps even members of Congress,” Slocum said.

“But the limited availability of information relating to Westar’s alleged influence peddling with members of Congress raises questions about what is being withheld,” he said.

Westar had released the two memos as part of an internal investigation into the management of former Westar President and Chief Executive David Wittig, who faces bank fraud charges unrelated to Westar business. Wittig has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Odell Weidner, a Topeka banker and co-defendant in the case, pleaded guilty to two charges Tuesday. He told the court Wittig had no knowledge of Weidner’s failure to acknowledge a loan from Wittig that coincided with Weidner’s bank extending Wittig’s line of credit.

Weidner still faces two other counts of making false bank entries, one count of conspiracy and one count of money laundering.

Westar also is the focus of further investigations concerning compensation packages and use of company jets by former executives.

Slocum, with Public Citizen, said the memos “strongly suggest that more internal documents exist” because they referred to previous memos.

Officials with Westar, the state’s largest electric utility, declined to say whether there were more documents and, if so, whether the company would release them.

Westar spokeswoman Karla Olsen said the company had hired Washington attorney Timothy Jenkins to handle “anything pertaining to campaign contributions” that were revealed in the internal investigation.

Jenkins, a former congressional staff member and ethics investigator, did not return a telephone call for comment. He works for O’Connor & Hannan, a Washington law firm that deals primarily with government and corporate law.