Last night porn publicist Harry Weiss helped to expose some questionable fundraising practices by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) on NBC’s Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.
In March, Weiss received a phone call saying that Tom Delay wanted to appoint him as an honorary co-chairman of the Republican Business Advisory Council. In recognition of the appointment Weiss was given a “national leadership award,” which still hangs on Weiss’s wall.
In return he was asked to send some them a check, purportedly to help pay for an ad they that they would include his name on.
“They cashed the check, so I guess they’re happy to have me aboard,” Weisstold the Nightly News.
The honor, which was first reported on AVN.com in March and was also covered by Congressional newspaper Roll Call, caught the attention of the NBC News Washington Bureau, who sent a freelance crew out to interview Weiss.
Weiss was interviewed at an adult bookstore in July. If you watch the segment, you can see VCA’s Sex, with Sunset Thomas on the cover.
Weiss was aware that the “honor” was in reality a fundraising effort, and reported in July that he had been asked to participate in other fundraisers since. “It’s amazing what a hard-push sell they have. For one thing, they offered to break it up into four easy payments for me,” he told AVN.com earlier this year.
Nightly News also discovered that a sex offender and someone who made drug paraphernalia had also been named to the “Republican Business Advisory Council,” though their nominations were pulled once their backgrounds were uncovered.
To see the Weiss segment on NBC, click here.
