MercuryNews.com | 01/05/2006 | GOP leaders ridding themselves of money linked to Abramoff

By Mary Curtius, Janet Hook and John-Thor Dahlberg
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - From the Oval Office to Capitol Hill, prominent Republicans scrambled Wednesday to shed campaign contributions linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, as his guilty pleas in fraud and corruption cases opened a painful debate within the party over its leadership and direction.

President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and DeLay's temporary successor in that post, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., joined a lengthening list of politicians whose campaign committees have returned or donated to charities money they received from Abramoff, his associates and his clients.

More lawmakers were expected to follow suit in what was becoming a stampede by lawmakers to distance themselves from a lobbyist who once enjoyed easy access to Washington's corridors of power.

The cloud surrounding Abramoff grew Wednesday when he pleaded guilty in Miami to federal fraud charges arising from his purchase of SunCruz, a Florida gambling boat fleet. Tuesday, he pleaded guilty in Washington to three federal felonies stemming from his lobbying activities.

Anxieties on Capitol Hill are mounting because Abramoff -- once a key player in a lobbying project that DeLay built into a powerful tool to help maintain Republican majorities in the House and Senate -- is cooperating with federal prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation. The probe is focused on whether at least a half-dozen members of Congress and several aides traded legislative action in return for lavish trips, gifts and campaign contributions orchestrated by Abramoff.

Although some Democrats received Abramoff-linked contributions and favors, the lobbyist -- a Republican activist since college -- focused most of his attention on helping the GOP.

Records have shown he helped funnel at least $100,000 to Bush's re-election campaign. Tracey Schmitt, a press officer for the Republican National Committee, said Wednesday that the campaign had decided to donate to the American Heart Association $6,000 connected to Abramoff. She said that amount covered separate $2,000 donations from Abramoff, the lobbyist's wife and a Michigan Indian tribe he represented.

A representative of DeLay, who had close ties to Abramoff, announced he would donate $15,000 given to his campaign committee by Abramoff and his wife to charities in Texas.

A Frist representative said a $2,000 contribution from the Michigan Indians that Abramoff represented would be given back to the tribe, and Blunt's office said he would be donating $8,500 his campaign received in Abramoff-linked money to charity.