[Texas] U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes on Tuesday acknowledged that he received donations from an Alabama contractor, but denied they had anything to do with him including a $2.6 million no-bid contract for the company in a national defense bill.

Reyes, through a statement from his office, said Tuesday that the donations from the contractor and the $2.6 million funding request for work at Fort Bliss are totally unrelated.

"What Reyes does is request federal funds for projects that are in the best interest of El Paso," the statement said. "In this case, the request for this project was made in consultation with Fort Bliss officials, who said this funding would assist training of Fort Bliss soldiers."

In the fiscal year 2008 defense funding bill, Reyes requested the funding for an existing project at Fort Bliss to help soldiers train for combat, which Digital Fusion Inc., received.

It is this funding request that the Wall Street Journal reported is related to the contributions Digital Fusion employees made to Reyes.

The statement from Reyes' office acknowledged that employees at Digital Fusion have donated to his campaign, but said the contributions are appropriate.

"There is no connection between Congressman Reyes' fundraising efforts and his work in Congress. Any insinuation that Reyes secured federal funding for political reasons is flat wrong," the statement said.

In its article Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that at a private breakfast in Washington, D.C., executives from Digital Fusion met with Reyes and gave him checks totaling $24,000 for his re-election campaign.

The journal article states that the donation came five weeks after Congress had approved a $461 billion defense-spending bill that included the budget item request by Reyes that directed $2.6 million to Digital Fusion for contract work at Fort Bliss.

Steve Ellis, the vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C., non-profit that tracks federal spending and earmarks, said his group did some of the research on this particular earmark, or budget request, by Reyes.

"There are certain people who say this is business as usual," Ellis said about campaign contributions and contracts. "But, when you are elected to Congress you have to be above reproach. This type of earmark and campaign contribution is going to raise some eyebrows, and this is our concern."

Reyes' office said that this request falls in line with other requests the El Paso congressman has made, such as $1.2 million for the El Paso Police Department and $390,000 for Thomason Hospital's emergency department.

Digital Fusion is a publicly held technology and professional-services firm with 300 employees and annual revenue of $45 million. It has been among the fastest-growing local contractors working with NASA and the Huntsville-based Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

In the past five years, its executives have given more than $150,000 to several lawmakers, including Reyes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In the same period, Digital Fusion got at least $31 million in contracts funded by earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Ramon Bracamontes may be reached at rbracamontes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6142.