Greed gives hard lesson to Choctaw

The sheer scope of greed, corruption, dishonesty and outrageous hubris being revealed in a Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation of possible fraud by lobbyist Jack Abramoff almost defies belief.



Abramoff is at the center of the hearings, along with Michael Scanlon, a public relations executive and former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. The committee is investigating whether Abramoff misled the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians about his work on their behalf, mainly concerning casino gambling.



Abramoff is accused of receiving about $80 million from several tribes over four years while misrepresenting his work to tribal leaders and failing to deliver on much of it. All the while, he accompanies lawmakers — including DeLay — on overseas trips now under scrutiny as investigators try to establish how the trips were paid for and whether Native tribes were defrauded.



Senate investigators from the committee, chaired by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recently released documents indicating Abramoff used money from a Mississippi tribal client to set up bogus Christian anti-gambling groups and to fund pet projects.



The high-rolling Republican lobbyist, who is also the subject of a corruption investigation by the Justice Department, laundered tribal money, and, along with Scanlon, set up bogus Christian phone banks to whip up opposition to casinos proposed by rival Native tribes, according to documents released by the committee.



That ploy dragged former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed into the picture. Reed acknowledges receiving $4 million from Abramoff and Scanlon but says he didn't know where the funds were coming from.



Abramoff and his lobbying team discussed how they would "pump up" their bills and expense accounts to the Choctaws by tens of thousands of dollars a month, the documents said.



Tellingly, three former associates of Abramoff and Scanlon declined to testify, citing their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Among the more odious of the revelations was the so-called "gimme five" gambit described in the hearings.



According to the Washington Post, whenever Scanlon pitched his services to a client, Abramoff would remind him of their extra profits. Abramoff once wrote to Scanlon, "Don't forget the ‘Gimme five' aspects."



According to committee member Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., "‘Gimme five" means ‘I'll take a cut of this.'"



There are many lessons to be learned from an adventure in dishonesty of this size — including, we trust, severe punishment for the perpetrators of this latest outrage.



Native tribes succumbing to the easy-money allure of casino revenue should gain from the adage relearned by the Choctaw tribe in their foray into the sty of legalized gambling. You lie with pigs, you're gonna get dirty.



As the Choctaws of Mississippi have learned, there's a good reason for keeping close scrutiny on gambling operations figures. It's the same reason pigs are kept penned up. Greed.