Forged letters to Perriello’s office came from coal group’s lobbying firm

CHARLOTTESVILLE—The Washington lobbying firm that sent forged letters to U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, and at least two other congressmen was working on behalf of a coal industry advocacy group.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said its longtime grass-roots contractor, the Hawthorn Group, hired Bonner & Associates to do “limited outreach” in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the cap-and-trade bill.

Stephen L. Miller, president of Alexandria-based ACCCE, apologized and said he was “outraged” that bogus letters sent to members of Congress originated at Bonner.

“There is no place for this type of deception,“ he said.

Bonner & Associates has blamed the letters on a temporary employee who the company said was fired after it discovered the forgeries.

U.S. Reps. Katherine A. Dahlkemper and Christopher P. Carney, both Democrats from Pennsylvania, also received falsified letters that originated at Bonner, the coal industry group said.

Perriello voted in favor of the energy bill, but Carney and Dahlkemper voted against it.

Perriello’s office discovered six phony letters, one forged to look as though it came from Charlottesville-based Hispanic group Creciendo Juntos and the other five forged to appear as if they originated with the Albemarle-Charlottesville chapter of the NAACP.

The letters, sent on fake letterheads and signed by nonexistent people, urged Perriello to oppose the landmark piece of clean-energy legislation to prevent higher electricity bills.

Jessica Barba, Perriello’s press secretary, said yesterday that two other letters were forged to appear as if they had been sent by the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, a Charlottesville agency, and the American Association of University Women.

In a background document sent to reporters, the ACCCE said Bonner and Associates’ internal process identified the false letters and “it was Mr. Bonner who first brought this to the attention of the Hawthorn Group. . . . It was only by reading last Friday’s media accounts that we learned that these matters had not been satisfactorily resolved.“

U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., co-author of the cap-and-trade bill and chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, announced an investigation into Bonner & Associates last week.

Markey sent a letter to the lobbying firm asking for answers to 12 questions about, among other items, the firm’s practices, details about the employee responsible for the letters and whether faked letters were sent to other members of Congress.

News about the forged letters, broken last Friday by The Daily Progress, has sparked outrage, particularly among environmental groups and other liberal-leaning organizations.

The Sierra Club is requesting that the U.S. Department of Justice open an investigation into the activities of Bonner & Associates.

Patrick Gallagher, legal director of the Sierra Club, sent a letter Monday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that suggests the forgeries may have violated federal laws against wire fraud.

The Sierra Club also is running advertisements about the forged letters this week in Roll Call, The Hill, CongressDaily, Politico and Congressional Quarterly. The ad’s headline reads: “The Coalition To Kill Clean Energy Jobs.“

And MoveOn.org, a political group, has started an online petition drive to urge the Department of Justice to open an investigation into Bonner & Associates.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said: “For years, legislators have told me that they are wary of much of what comes into their office by mail and telephone. . . . They’ve figured out that much of their communications come from trumped-up campaigns that are full of misinformation and prefabricated messages.“