The Modesto Bee | Abramoff donated to Pombo

Most giving came after Tracy legislator took over committee


By MICHAEL DOYLE
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU


Last Updated: December 6, 2005, 05:23:09 AM PST


WASHINGTON ? Tribal lobbyist Jack Abramoff sent a calling card of sorts when Tracy Republican Richard Pombo became chairman of the House Resources Committee.
Two weeks after Pombo took over the committee that oversees tribal issues in January 2003, Abramoff contributed $2,000 to Pombo's re-election effort. Later that year, Abramoff gave an additional $5,000 to Pombo's leadership committee.

"He was a big Republican donor, and I had become chairman," Pombo said Monday night, "and he obviously had a lot of clients who had business before the committee."

Some of those clients likewise began cutting checks for Pombo once he vaulted over more senior members and became committee chairman.

These include at least $27,000 from members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts, who would benefit from tribal recognition legislation backed by Pombo.

Abramoff and the Mashpee Wampanoag have not been alone in their targeting of the one-time Tracy City Council member. Since 1999, Pombo has collected $326,100 from tribes and tribal members, a tally by Political Money Line shows. The bulk of that came following his 2003 promotion to chairman, and it's made him the third-leading recipient of tribal funds in Congress.

"Obviously, they want to have some access," Pombo said of the contributors, adding that tribal disputes "are tough issues; they're things that Congress normally doesn't deal with. No matter what you do, you're going to make half of the people unhappy."

`Investigators are delving into Abramoff's business and that of some of his tribal clients. A one-time Republican high-flier, Abramoff is in serious trouble: He's already under indictment on fraud charges in Florida, and he faces a separate Justice Department investigation into his Capitol Hill dealings.

No allegations against Pombo

There is no indication that Pombo or his staff have been linked to Abramoff's alleged misdeeds, and Pombo said he has been neither subpoenaed nor questioned by investigators. He said he didn't think his staff had been, either, and he stressed Monday that his dealings with Abramoff were strictly casual.

"He never lobbied me," Pombo said. "There's nothing I could tell them."

Spokesmen for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe could not be reached for comment late Monday.

Other tribes, and Abramoff's own lobbying practices, have been getting much more of the attention as Senate and Justice Department investigations proceed.

Skybox events, trips scrutinized

Abramoff, for instance, treated some lawmakers to foreign trips or evenings in luxury skyboxes atWashington-areasporting events. Pombo said he doesn't recall ever visiting any of Abramoff's skyboxes, nor did he travel with the lobbyist.

Once or twice, Pombo said, he did dine at Abramoff's pricey steak restaurant, Signatures, because some constituents asked about it.

"That's not the kind of place I would normally hang out at," Pombo said.

It's possible that Abramoff's one-time colleagues at the lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig did contact staffers with the Resource Committee's tribal affairs staff, Pombo said. In early 2004, the Cape Cod Times reported, Pombo and his staff met several times with a high-ranking Mashpee official named Glenn Marshall.

Marshall and other Mashpee leaders had long been seeking federalrecognitionofthe 1,468-member tribe, with Resources Committee spokesman Brian Kennedy calling it "the poster tribe for the need to reform the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

Until 2003, though, federal records show that the Mashpee tribal leaders were not very active in contributing to congressional candidates.

In September of that year, Marshall gave $2,000 to Pombo's leadership committee. Marshall later followed up with an additional $7,000 to two of Pombo's committees.

In March 2004, the Vietnam veteran got a chance to testify at a hearing Pombo convened. The tribe for which he spoke had been the same one that greeted the Pilgrims on the Massachusetts coast in 1620.

"We find it hard to resolve our history on this land and our dedication to this country with the lack of recognition by the government we helped shape," Marshall testified.

Pombo backed legislation that would speed federal decision-making on tribal recognition petitions that ? like the one filed by the Mashpee Wampanoag ? had been submitted before 1988. The legislation is still pending.