Last night came the news that Saddam Hussein’s regime paid for a high-profile trip taken by three congressional Democrats to Baghdad in the fall of 2002. The visit, by Democratic Representatives David Bonior, Jim Thompson, and Jim McDermott, was brokered by Muthanna al Hanooti, a Michigan resident with close ties to the Iraqi regime. Hanooti is being prosecuted for spying on behalf of Saddam’s regime. Reacting to the latest news, Mike DeCesare, a spokesman for Jim McDermott, one of the three congressmen, said his boss wasn’t aware that the money came from Saddam Hussein’s regime when he accepted it. He told me the same thing in 2004, when I asked him about the $5,000 McDermott had accepted for his legal defense fund from Shakir al Khafaji, one of Saddam Hussein’s biggest U.S. boosters before the war. Khafaji, who accompanied the congressmen and made the arrangements for their visit, had run “expatriate” conferences in Baghdad for Saddam as recently as 2000. He also provided $400,000 to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter for Ritter’s propaganda film on behalf of the former Iraqi regime. In an interview back in 2001, Ritter told me that Khafaji was “openly sympathetic” with Saddam Hussein. All of this was public record — available to the lawmakers with a Google or Nexis search. But they went anyway. Reacting to the news yesterday, Jim Thompson pleaded ignorance.