A lot of lessons can be drawn from Washington lobbying scandals, and here's a basic one: The FBI may check your household trash for subpoenaed documents.
Cecelia Grimes, a lobbyist whose ties with former Rep. Kurt Weldon have been under investigation since 2006, disposed of records in such a fashion. Today she pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of evidence in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
According to the press release issued by the Department of Justice, the FBI subpoenaed information about her ties to Weldon (referred to as "Representative A" in October of 2006.
"[W]ithin six days of the FBI's service of the two grand-jury subpoenas, Grimes placed some documents that she had stored in her house into trash bags, which she then brought to the front of her house for collection as garbage. These documents included items related to Grimes’s travel and to Representative A’s campaigns,” the release states.
Another purged item was Grimes' BlackBerry, which the Justice Department says was trashed near a restaurant in southeast Pennsylvania.
Grimes won't immediately be sentenced.
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