There are no suggestions of criminal acts while Safavian worked on Cannon's staff. However, an analysis of Cannon's positions on key issues during Safavian's tenure shows a trend benefitting clients at Safavian's former lobby firm.
Safavian joined Cannon's staff in 2001, leaving Janus-Merritt Strategies, a lucrative lobbying shop he co-founded where he advocated on behalf of gambling operations, the liquor industry, small telecommunications firms, National Parks police and others.
In the ensuing months, Cannon championed many of those same causes. However, Cannon's current chief of staff says Cannon wasn't influenced into changing his long-held beliefs. "I can assure you that no one sets Chris Cannon's legislative agenda other than Chris Cannon," said Cannon's current chief of staff, Joe Hunter. "If that agenda happens to help or hurt lobbyists, so be it.
"What's important is the motivation, and Congressman Cannon's motivations have been and remain straightforward: good policy, what will be helpful to Utah, and encouraging innovation and economic growth."
Safavian was arrested last week for allegedly lying to federal investigators scrutinizing a golf trip to Scotland he took with lobbyist Jack Abramoff while Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration, the federal government's property manager. The trip was in August 2002, about three months after he left Cannon's staff.
"There are restrictions placed on Hill staff, including members of Congress, in terms of lobbying when they move to the private sector, but there are fewer restrictions on individuals who move from the private sector into a position on the Hill," said Mike Surrusco of Common Cause. "So there is the question of their independence or their loyalties to previous clients and it's something we've seen before."
Perhaps the most notable confluence between Cannon and Safavian was Cannon's resistance to a bill aimed at clamping down on most online gambling. He repeatedly sought to amend the bill to close exemptions for off-track betting and lotteries, arguing it could legalize online gambling in Utah, one of two states that outlaws all forms of wagering.
Backers of the bill called the amendment a poison pill that would guarantee its defeat - the fate desired by clients at Safavian's former firm.
The bill failed in 2001, and by the time it passed the House in 2003, Safavian had left Cannon's office. The Senate never acted on the legislation.
A similar symbiosis came in late 2001, as Cannon led opposition to a proposed satellite television merger between Echostar and DirecTV. He argued it would damage television service in rural America, including Utah.
Janus-Merritt, which had previously lobbied for EchoStar, was registered at the time to represent Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., an ardent opponent of the EchoStar merger. After the FCC rejected the EchoStar-DirecTV union, Murdoch scooped up DirecTV in an acquisition valued at about $6 billion.
Cannon, who had received thousands of dollars in political contributions from opponents of the EchoStar merger, was silent on Murdoch's move.
At the same time Cannon's agenda coincided neatly with the interests of Janus-Merritt's clients, the congressman was paying Janus-Merritt and later its successor, William Mullen Strategies, $19,000 for "fundraising consulting."
