Slobbiest

E-Mails Show Abramoff's Donation Leverage - Yahoo! News

2006-04-11T19:35:00.000-04:00

A Republican Party official and Jack Abramoff's lobbying team bluntly discussed using large political donations as a way to pressure lawmakers into securing federal money for a tribal client, according to e-mails gathered by prosecutors.

The e-mails detail how Abramoff's team worked to leverage assistance from the White House, Congress and the GOP to get a reluctant federal agency and a single Republican congressional aide to stop blocking school construction money for the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. The e-mails were obtained by The Associated Press.

Abramoff's team ultimately prevailed when the congressional aide was overruled, several lawmakers pressured an Interior Department agency and Congress itself set aside the money for the tribe. Lawmakers who helped got thousands of dollars in fresh donations from Abramoff's team.

Federal bribery law prohibits public officials from taking actions because of gifts or political donations and bars lobbyists from demanding government action in exchange for donations.

Abramoff's team repeatedly discussed donations as the reason Republican leaders should intervene for the Saginaw, the e-mails show.

"The tribes that want this (not just ours) are the only guys who take care of the Rs," Abramoff deputy Todd Boulanger wrote in a June 19, 2002, e-mail to Abramoff and his lobbying team, using "Rs" as shorthand for Republicans.

"We're going to seriously reconsider our priorities in the current lists I'm drafting right now if our friends don't weigh in with some juice. If leadership isn't going to cash in a chit for (easily) our most important project, then they are out of luck from here on out," he wrote, referring to political donation lists.

The e-mails have become evidence in a federal corruption probe into whether lawmakers, congressional aides and administration officials helped Abramoff's clients in exchange for gifts and donations.

A former federal prosecutor who specialized in fundraising cases said the e-mails are "circumstantial evidence that the money may have a relationship to certain legislative action" and would be useful in criminal prosecution if bolstered by other evidence.

"It memorializes what a lot of people suspect: that money buys access," said Charles La Bella, who oversaw a 1990s investigation into Clinton-era fundraising. "Politicians, because of the way the system is set up, need money. And money is used as a carrot and a stick by lobbyists to encourage or discourage legislative action."

Abramoff's spokesman, Andrew Blum, declined comment Tuesday on the e-mails.

Abramoff's lobbying began when the Interior Department initially opposed giving the Saginaw — a wealthy tribe with a casino — federal school construction aid.

Abramoff's team turned to Congress, getting Michigan Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow to persuade their party's leaders to request the money in a spending bill. Democrats controlled the Senate in 2002.

Abramoff then turned to Republicans, including Sen. Conrad Burns (news, bio, voting record) of Montana, to overcome the administration's objections and secure $3 million specifically for the Saginaw when the GOP regained control of the Senate the next year.

The plan hit a snag in summer 2002 when a single GOP House appropriations staffer, Joel Kaplan, objected. An angry Abramoff team frantically reached Republican leaders.

A staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee, Jonathan Poe, suggested Abramoff's team compile a list of tribal donations, comparing Republicans with Democrats, to help make the case for lawmakers to overrule Kaplan, the e-mails state.

Poe's "suggestion for me was to have a list of money contributed by tribes broken down r to d so that I can make the cleanest argument that we are about to let the Senate Democrats take credit for the biggest ask of the year by the most Republican-leaning tribes," Abramoff lobbying associate Neil Volz wrote.

Abramoff's team obliged, creating a tally that showed his tribal clients overwhelmingly donated to Republicans — $225,000 compared with $79,000 for Democrats.

Poe declined to be interviewed for comment. NRCC spokesman Carl Forti said he didn't know if the NRCC ultimately helped but that NRCC staff routinely suggest strategy for lobbyists and others.

"We talk to groups and people all the time and recommend strategy. We do that with campaigns. It's part of what we do," Forti said.

The Abramoff team's pressure came the same day the NRCC, the GOP's fundraising arm for Republican House candidates, held its major fundraising dinner with President Bush. The Saginaw were a dinner sponsor, donating $50,000.

Kaplan's resistance drew the ire of Abramoff's team.

"The bottom line is that a staffer received several letters from appropriators, Native American Caucus co-chairs and others supporting a project that costs the federal government ZERO dollars and he is refusing to put it in the bill because it's 'his account,'" Boulanger wrote.

Kaplan, who worked at the White House budget office before becoming an aide on the House Interior appropriations committee, did not return repeated phone calls to his office seeking comment. He currently works for a private firm.

Abramoff's team devised a multi-pronged strategy.

Tony Rudy, an Abramoff colleague who was a former top aide to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, reached out to his old boss' office. Rudy recently pleaded guilty in the corruption probe and is assisting prosecutors.

"I just came out of a meeting with DeLay's folks. Joel ain't budging," Rudy wrote, referring to Kaplan.

Abramoff was copied on each of the e-mail exchanges, at one point affirming the strategy. "This is brilliant," Abramoff wrote.

Abramoff's team persisted, calling the White House intergovernmental affairs office that often deals with Congress.

"Just talked to White House intergovernmental. I'm pretty sure they will weigh in. Just trying to figure out if they should call Joel or some other player in this drama," Abramoff associate Kevin Ring wrote.

Several people familiar with the lobbying effort said the possibility of White House help became moot when congressional leaders intervened.

In early 2003, Kaplan's new boss, House subcommittee chairman Charles Taylor, R-N.C., ended any problems in the House when he signed onto the Saginaw money. Burns' office took up the fight in the Senate.

Both oversaw subcommittees that controlled Interior's budget, and the two lawmakers wrote a letter in May 2003 in an effort to overcome resistance inside Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was arguing the Saginaw shouldn't qualify for the school program.

"It is our belief the Saginaw Chippewa tribal school in question clearly falls within" the school construction program, Burns and Taylor wrote, sharply criticizing the BIA. "We hope our collective response has cleared up any unnecessary confusion."

The blunt letter has caught federal investigators' interest because it referenced correspondence that had been drafted inside Interior but never delivered. Federal agents are investigating whether an Interior official leaked the draft to Abramoff's team so it could be used by the lawmakers to pressure the department.

In addition, both Burns and Taylor got campaign money around the time of their help.

A month before the letter, Abramoff's firm threw Taylor a fundraiser on April 11, 2003, that scored thousands of dollars in donations for the lawmaker's campaign, including $2,000 from Abramoff and $1,000 from the Saginaw. The tribe donated $3,000 more to Taylor a month after the letter.

Burns, likewise, got fresh donations. Several weeks before the letter, Burns collected $1,000 from the Saginaw and $5,000 from another Abramoff tribe. The month after the letter, the Saginaw delivered $4,000 in donations to Burns.

Taylor's office did not respond to several calls seeking comment. The lawmaker had his own interest in the school construction program. The year after the Saginaw money, Taylor arranged for the Cherokee tribe in his home state to get similar money.

In a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee, Burns' lawyer confirmed the senator's staff met with Abramoff's lobbying team about the Saginaw but insisted any "suggestion that funding for this project resulted from Mr. Abramoff's influence is not accurate."

FOXNews.com - Indian Tribe Severs Ties to Federal Abramoff Money - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

2006-04-07T10:09:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON — One of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's former tribal clients is severing ties to millions of dollars in federal aid he helped arrange.

Leaders of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe of Michigan said Thursday in two letters to lawmakers that they will not move forward with plans to build a school on the reservation. The project received $3 million in funding from the federal government with help from Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty in a Justice Department corruption probe.

The letters, obtained by The Associated Press, were addressed to Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Reps. Charles Taylor, R-N.C., and Norm Dicks, D-Wash. The lawmakers chair the Senate and House appropriations subcommittees that oversee the Interior Department.

Saginaw Tribal Chief Fred Cantu and Tribal Sub-Chief Tim Davis said they were "writing to express our appreciation for the $3 million appropriation" approved in November 2003.

But "after careful consideration," they wrote, the tribal council voted against the construction because "it is not financially prudent to pursue this project at this time."

The tribe asked that the funds be redirected to programs targeted for cuts by the Interior Department. Messages were left Thursday with tribal officials.

Through letters and legislation, more than a dozen lawmakers stepped in to protect the school funding program for Indian tribes while receiving political contributions from the tribes, Abramoff or his firm.

One of Abramoff's client tribes, the Mississippi Choctaw, was using the school program, and his team was lobbying to extend it for the Saginaw Chippewas and other clients.

The members of Congress came from both parties, including Taylor, Burns and Dorgan, the top Democrat on the Senate committee which has investigated Abramoff.

Most wrote letters urging the Bush administration to renew a program that provided tribes federal school construction money. Others worked the congressional budget process to ensure it happened, according to documents obtained by The AP.

Most received donations, ranging from $1,000 to more than $74,000, in the weeks just before or after their intervention.

Both Burns and Dorgan received thousands of dollars from Abramoff's tribal clients, money they pledged to give away late last year. Dorgan returned $67,000 in contributions from tribes and other Abramoff associates, while Burns returned or gave away about $150,000.

Burns, who is seeking re-election this year, has said he wrote the letters at the request of Michigan lawmakers who represented the Saginaw and wasn't influenced by Abramoff. Democrats have tried to make Abramoff a campaign issue, running a television ad last year that specifically mentioned the Saginaw school construction money.

The Michigan lawmakers — Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow and Republican Rep. Dave Camp — wrote a letter to the Interior Department on Jan. 23, 2003, on the Saginaw's behalf. All three received donations from the Saginaw.

Officials with Levin, Stabenow and Camp have said there was no connection between the letter and the contributions and said they were working on behalf of Michigan constituents. The tribe is located in Camp's central Michigan district.

Burns spokesman James Pendleton said Thursday that "questions about this issue need to be directed to the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe and Senators Stabenow and Levin since they were the ones who requested the money in the first place."

Levin spokeswoman Tara Andringa said the senators sought the funding from the appropriations subcommittee during the previous year — in March 2002. But she said Levin and Stabenow did not pursue the funding from the subcommittee in 2003.

Abramoff worked for the Saginaw Chippewas from late 2001 to late 2003. The tribe said they paid about $14 million to Abramoff and his former associate, Michael Scanlon.

Scanlon pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge stemming from the investigation into work he and Abramoff performed for Indian tribes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Michigan. In January, Abramoff pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agreed to cooperate in the influence-peddling investigation.

A Senate panel learned in 2004 that Abramoff and Scanlon spent $100,000 to help get eight supporters elected to the Saginaw Chippewas' 12-member council in 2001. Two days after the election, the new council voted to hire Abramoff and Scanlon.

According to a federal complaint against Abramoff issued in January, prosecutors said the lobbyist encouraged the Saginaw Chippewas to expand their contract with the company in June 2002 without telling them he would receive about 50 percent of the profits.

From June 2002 to October 2003, the tribe paid the firm about $3.5 million. About $540,000 was secretly kicked back to Abramoff as part of the scheme, the court documents said.

Capitol Hill: On DeLay's Trail—The E-Mail Factor - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

2006-04-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

April 10, 2006 issue - Federal prosecutors investigating the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal have obtained a road map to the workings of the Republican-controlled House: 1,000 internal e-mails from the office of Rep. Tom DeLay during his time as majority leader. The e-mails were turned over quietly by DeLay late last year as part of an unpublicized effort by the embattled Texas congressman to show he would cooperate with prosecutors. "We didn't hold anything back," says Richard Cullen, DeLay's lawyer, who tells NEWSWEEK the e-mails date to at least 1998 and involve all aspects of the probe. He says the e-mails weren't subpoenaed but were offered as a "Christmas present." Still, it's unclear if thee-mails will clear or help implicate DeLay.

Last week federal prosecutors had one of their biggest coups yet in the probe: a felony guilty plea by Tony Rudy, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, for conspiring with Abramoff to provide House members and their staff with perks in exchange for legislative favors; Rudy, who left DeLay's office in December 2000 to work for Abramoff, will now cooperate with the Feds. Although court papers filed by prosecutors with the plea contain no direct allegations against DeLay, the documents for the first time refer to an unnamed "Representative No. 2" (who is DeLay) whose office repeatedly assisted Abramoff and his clients. The papers allege that Rudy, while still working for DeLay, arranged for the congressman to sign a letter opposing a postal-rate increase to aid an Abramoff client and helped kill an antigambling bill opposed by another Abramoff client. At the same time, Abramoff arranged for $86,000 in consulting payments to be made to Rudy's wife, Lisa, according to the documents. (She was not charged.) Cullen says DeLay had no knowledge of improper dealings by his aides. (He also says the e-mails he gave the Feds don't include any directly from DeLay because the congressman, unlike his aides, doesn't e-mail.) DeLay "has never taken any official action based on anything other than his conscience," he says.

Still, the Rudy documents suggest prosecutors are far from finished. They name a "Lobbyist B" (DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham) who shared clients with Abramoff and allegedly worked closely with him to arrange the consulting payments to Rudy's wife. (Buckham's lawyer didn't respond to a request for comment.) The documents also may further implicate Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, who, the court papers allege, agreed to support legislation benefiting Abramoff clients in the Marianas Islands and an Indian casino tribe in Texas. Ney then went on an all-expenses-paid golf trip to Scotland funded by Abramoff's clients. Rudy, by then working for Abramoff, e-mailed Ney's chief of staff that the trip would involve "drinking and smoking Cubans," the papers state. Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, says his client denies all wrongdoing and has no intention of cutting a deal with prosecutors. "He will be fully vindicated."

Article links Abramoff, co-defendant to '98 Guam election

2006-04-02T10:43:00.000-04:00

by Mindy Fothergill, KUAM News
Sunday, April 02, 2006

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On the heels of the sentencing of former powerhouse Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Wall Street Journal released an explosive article this weekend citing Abramoff's and his co-defendant and former partner Michael Scanlon's involvement in alleged efforts to taint the 1998 gubernatorial election on Guam.

The personal relationships of Scanlon, the former press aide to Congressman Tom DeLay, have opened the doors to information about his wheelings and dealings with former partner Abramoff and his ties to Guam. In the WSJ article, "End of the Affair - Behind Unraveling of DeLay's Team, A Jilted Fiancee", the national newspaper reveals political favors and maneuvers devised by the two men, once raking in millions through lobbying efforts and business dealings.

The article refers to Scanlon and his former fiancee Emily Miller, who both worked in the press office of DeLay, the former majority leader. Assisting in work for delay was former deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy. The Journal obtained numerous e-mails and messages relating to Rudy and Scanlon's activities while working for DeLay and their growing relationship with Abramoff.

The article states, "the two staffers often lent a hand to Mr. Abramoff, according to court documents and former colleagues." Abramoff helped the congressman raise millions of dollars and often treated DeLay and his aides to overseas trips, dinners, casino stays and golf outings.

In return, the aides assisted Abramoff. The WSJ piece further states, "In the fall of 1998, Mr. Abramoff wanted to help a Republican, Joe Ada, get elected as governor in Guam, even though he was trailing incumbent governor Carl Gutierrez badly in the polls." Ada was running with current Guam governor Felix Camacho.

After lunch on October 26, 1998, Abramoff emailed Rudy wanting to know if Congressman DeLay could call for an investigation of the misuse of federal funds on Guam by Gutierrez. The WSJ went on to state that Abramoff suggested he would draft a statement for DeLay, and Rudy could "issue a press release and letter requesting an inspector general, from the Department of Interior, to investigate these matters", saying it should have a major impact on the election next week.

Rudy and Scanlon released a statement from DeLay, along with a letter to the DOI's inspector general, calling for a full federal inquiry into Gutierrez. DeLay said in the letter, "The allegations and materials I reviewed point to serious corruption." The article goes on to state despite their efforts, Ada lost the race and the Department did not conduct an investigation.

DeLay's spokeswoman declined to comment and Rudy's lawyers did not return phone calls made by the national newspaper. KUAM News has also confirmed through sources in Washington, that a congressional inquiry is also underway into Scanlon's involvement on Guam when the Ada-Camacho team disputed the 1998 election results.

KUAM News attempted to obtain comment on the Wall Street Journal article from former governor Ada, however he is currently off-island. Spokesman for Governor Camacho Shawn Gumataotao also did not return calls for comment.
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Former DeLay aide's plea reveals Abramoff’s reach - Politics - MSNBC.com

2006-03-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

Tiny Marianas Islands paid $7.17 million for lobbyist’s aid

By Joel Seidman
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 5:48 p.m. ET March 31, 2006

WASHINGTON - The guilty plea to conspiracy charges Friday by a former top staffer to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, further exposes the degree of influence that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had on Capitol Hill -- even when his clients were halfway across the Pacific.

Tony Rudy, who worked for DeLay as press secretary and then deputy chief of staff from 1995 to 2000, entered the plea in United States District Court here Friday. Court papers show that while working in DeLay's office, Rudy provided Abramoff with assistance in stopping legislation opposed by one of the lobbyist's clients.

In exchange, Rudy was lavished with free trips, sporting tickets, meals and golf games and $86,000 to a consulting firm he set up and was run by his wife - all courtesy of Abramoff. Rudy, 39, joined Abramoff's lobbying firm after working for DeLay.

There were no allegations against DeLay in the documents released Friday as part of Rudy's plea agreement.

But the documents do reveal the extent of Abramoff's influence on Capitol Hill. One case in point: The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The CNMI was a very lucrative Abramoff client. In order to help his client, Abramoff had to make an investment of his own - secure the help of Rudy, an influential Hill staffer.

The volcanic islands are located just north of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The Marianas may be far away but they have a unique manufacturing advantage - they are exempt from U.S. tariffs as well as minimum wage and immigration standards. The Marianas are known for their low-paying garment factories. The exemption allows garment makers there to put "Made in the U.S." labels on their clothing. Human rights groups argue this has fostered an exploitive working environment in the commonwealth's booming garment industry.

According to an internal audit of its lobbying contracts, The Marianas government paid Abramoff a total of $7.17 million in lobbying fees from 1996 to 2001. Auditors questioned Abramoff's lobbying expenses. They said they were "excessive." But Abramoff wanted to make sure garment factories in the Marianas didn't lose their exemptions so he took care of Capitol Hill insiders like Rudy.

Just days before Abramoff himself was sentenced in an unrelated Florida fraud case this week, the current governor of the Marianas Islands wrote to the Miami judge, pleading for leniency. Abramoff, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial wrote, was a "personal friend and political champion" of the "beleaguered" Pacific islands.

Using official government stationery, the governor wrote of Abramoff, "he was a natural crusader and political activist, with great sympathy for our un-represented Commonwealth." Fitial was a former executive of a clothing company.

But court papers filed Friday reveal that Rudy was deeply involved with Abramoff and his associate Michael Scanlon in the Marianas lobbying effort.

- In January 2000, Rudy agreed to arrange for another staff member to travel to CNMI with Scanlon and others in part to assist Abramoff.

- In 2000, Rudy worked with others to secure certain appropriations projects for CNMI, which he knew would help Abramoff's lobbying business.

And, court papers reveal that Rudy provided things of value to a Member of Congress ("Representative #1") and members of his staff, "to use their official positions and influence to assist Abramoff." It is widely believed that the reference to "Representative #1" refers to Bob Ney, R-Ohio. One of the "things of value" provided to Ney and cited in the filing: partial payment of a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland.

Court papers cite Representative #1's agreement in March 2001 to support legislation that would enable Abramoff's clients to continue to manufacture clothing with "Made in the U.S." without being subject to the same wage and labor standards as companies operating in the continental United States.

Rudy also asked lawmakers to vote against an Internet-gambling bill, which, according to the plea papers, "Representative #1" helped out Abramoff's Indian tribal clients. The congressman as co-chairman of a Conference Committee of House and Senate Members of Congress agreed to introduce and pass legislation that would lift an existing federal ban against commercial gaming in order to benefit Abramoff's tribal client in Texas.

A statement released Friday by Ney's communications director, Brian Walsh, said Abramoff lied to Ney. "They lied to their clients, they lied to their colleagues and they lied to Members of Congress."

Walsh also wrote that the Scotland golf trip was never solicited by Ney. "Congressman Ney in fact never solicited the trip to Scotland. He remains absolutely confident that when the full facts of Abramoff's schemes are revealed, fiction will continue to be separated from fact and it will be made clear that he did absolutely nothing wrong."

Meanwhile, Rudy has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in their ongoing investigation of congressional influence peddling schemes orchestrated by Abramoff.

Abramoff Fallout Finds Former DeLay Staffer - Los Angeles Times

2006-03-31T16:09:00.000-05:00

By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

11:04 AM PST, March 31, 2006

WASHINGTON — The former deputy chief of staff for Texas Republican Tom DeLay pleaded guilty today in the widening influence-peddling scandal surrounding fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Tony Rudy, 39, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington to a single charge of conspiracy in connection with the scandal, admitting that he violated the law while a top aide to DeLay and after he left the government to work for Abramoff.

Rudy admitted to corruptly accepting things of value from Abramoff and others, including $86,000 in cash, tickets to sporting events and golf trips. Among the perquisites: an all-expenses-paid junket to the 2000 U.S. Open golf tournament. The gifts were in exchange for a number of official acts for Abramoff clients, including advising members of Congress to vote against legislation limiting gambling on the Internet, the former aide acknowledged.

Rudy, who worked for DeLay from 1995 through December 2000, left government to join forces with Abramoff at a Washington-based law and lobbying firm, where the illegal conspiracy continued, according to his plea agreement with prosecutors. The court papers described a pattern of lavishing gifts and outings on a member of Congress identified as "Representative #1," including a trip to Scotland in August 2002 that involved golf, "drinking and smoking Cubans," the papers said.

The agreement is the third secured by prosecutors tunneling into the congressional bribery scandal surrounding Abramoff, who was sentenced to 70 months in prison by a federal judge in Miami on Wednesday in connection with a separate fraud scheme. The former lobbyist has also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges in connection with his lobbying work in Washington but has yet to be sentenced.

Rudy faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but his sentence is likely to be reduced because of an agreement he has made to cooperate with the Justice Department in the ongoing investigation.

His guilty plea signals trouble for Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney, who was not named in the plea agreement, but who took a golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff and Rudy in August 2002.

The plea agreement contains no allegations that DeLay, described in the papers as "Representative #2," did anything wrong.

Through their lawyers, Ney and DeLay have denied any wrongdoing.

United Press International - Abramoff clients spent $72M on lobbying

2006-03-31T11:50:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- Clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff spent $72 million on political influence, including contributions to about 500 members of the U.S. Congress.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group in Washington that investigates money in politics, said it arrived at the $72 million by adding amounts given the political candidates and fees charged by firms Abramoff worked for from 1998 through 2004.

While Abramoff is most often linked to Republicans, his clients' largess was unbound by party limitations. CRP, pointing out that the donations appear to be legal, said the Abramoff clients made donations to the presidential campaigns of Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry, but also chipped in on the campaigns of 99 U.S. senators and 384 House of Representatives members. The donations totaled about $22 million, CRP said.

"What also becomes clear through this latest review is how widespread the reach of a single lobbyist can be is he represents politically generous clients," CRP said in a release.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to a series of charges related to bilking clients out of millions of dollars. He entered a plea agreement with a promise to aid the influence-peddling investigation on Capitol Hill.

After sentencing Abramoff to remain free for at least three months

2006-03-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

By CURT ANDERSON
AP Legal Affairs Writer

MIAMI -- Lobbyist Jack Abramoff has at least three months before he has to don a prison uniform thanks to a judge who has put off his sentence while he and former partner Adam Kidan assist in a corruption investigation involving Congress and the Bush administration.

U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck sentenced Abramoff and Kidan to five years and 10 months in prison for fraud in the 2000 purchase SunCruz Casinos, the minimum sentence recommended under federal guidelines.

Huck also agreed to postpone prison reporting dates for the men. That is to allow them to continue cooperating in an investigation of the broad Washington corruption scandal as well as a probe into the 2001 killing in Fort Lauderdale of former SunCruz owner Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. Both deny having any role in the death.

Ultimately, if prosecutors are satisfied with Abramoff's and Kidan's cooperation in the other investigations, the sentences initially imposed on them could be reduced.

"They are both trying to atone for their conduct by cooperating with the government," said Lawrence LaVecchio, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the SunCruz case. "I have every reason to believe they will continue to cooperate."

Huck also ordered Abramoff, 47, and Kidan, 41, to pay $21.7 million in restitution to lenders victimized by their fraud scheme. Both must serve three years' probation after they get out of prison.

Abramoff, dressed in a dark business suit, said in brief remarks prior to sentencing that the day was "incredibly painful" for himself, his friends and family but that he intended to make amends.

"I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful over the reckless and hurtful things I have done in my life, especially those which have brought me before you today. I can only hope that the Almighty and those whom I have wronged will forgive me my trespasses," Abramoff said.

Kidan also expressed remorse, saying his goal in life now is to become a better role model for his 2-year-old daughter. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it and wish it would have turned out differently," Kidan told the judge.

Both men pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud for concocting a $23 million wire transfer to make it appear they were contributing a sizable stake of their own money to the $147.5 million SunCruz purchase. Based on the transfer, lenders gave the pair $60 million in financing.

The SunCruz fleet of 11 ships had 2,300 slot machines and 175 gaming tables and sailed from nine Florida ports and Myrtle Beach, S.C., to international waters. The company continues to operate gambling cruises under new ownership after emerging from bankruptcy.

Abramoff and Kidan were charged in a six-count grand jury indictment in August. The remaining four counts of the indictment were dismissed.

The same week in January that Abramoff pleaded guilty to the SunCruz fraud, he entered guilty pleas to three federal charges as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe that could involve up to 20 members of Congress and aides, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. No date has been set for his sentencing in that case.

That investigation arose from Abramoff's representation of six Indian tribes, which he and a partner billed for $80 million between 2001 and 2004. They directed the tribes to give thousands of dollars in political campaign contributions. Tribal leaders have said in many cases they were unaware of what was happening to their money.

Abramoff Gets Almost 6 Years in Prison - Yahoo! News

2006-03-29T14:05:00.000-05:00

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a former business partner were sentenced Wednesday to five years and 10 months in prison for fraud related to their 2000 purchase of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.

The sentences were the minimum under their plea agreement in the case.

Abramoff and Adam Kidan, who both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud, won't start their sentences immediately so they can continue cooperating in a Washington corruption investigation and a Florida probe into the murder of former SunCruz owner Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis.

In court, Abramoff said the case was "incredibly painful" for himself, his family and his friends.

"In the past few years I have begun the process of becoming a new man," he said.

Abramoff had arrived at the courthouse several hours early, avoiding the media before his sentencing. Under the plea agreement, both faced a sentence of between five years, 10 months, and seven years, three months in federal prison.

Both were also ordered to pay restitution of more than $21 million.

The two admitted concocting a fake $23 million wire transfer to make it appear they had made a large cash contribution to the $147.5 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos. Based on that fake transfer, lenders provided the pair with $60 million in financing.

The same week Abramoff pleaded guilty to the SunCruz fraud, he entered guilty pleas to three federal charges as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe that could involve up to 20 members of Congress and aides, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. No date has been set for his sentencing in that case.

Abramoff Supporters Appeal to Judge for a Reduced Sentence - Los Angeles Times

2006-03-28T10:59:00.000-05:00

Scores of the lobbyist's relatives, friends and colleagues ask for a light prison term due to his 'faith, generosity and remorse.'
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

March 28, 2006

WASHINGTON — Whatever his shortcomings, Jack Abramoff still has connections — more than 250 of them, to be precise — including prominent lawyers, religious leaders and even a member of Congress.

They are encouraging a federal judge to give the disgraced lobbyist a reduced sentence Wednesday in a Miami fraud case. They have written letters to U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck, saying that the picture of Abramoff that has emerged through the news media is a gross distortion, and that he deserves a break.

Far from the image of the greedy Beltway operator who stole from Indian tribes, defrauded the Internal Revenue Service and tried to bribe public officials, they say, Abramoff is a man of charity and good works. In their letters, they cite his generosity to others, his deep religious faith and his devotion to his family.

Abramoff boarded underprivileged children in his home, they said. He opened a kosher deli in Washington "so that Jews would have a place where they could dine in comfort."

The sole member of Congress who wrote on Abramoff's behalf is a longtime friend, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach.

"I think when he is being punished for the things he did that were wrong, some of the things that he did that were right and admirable in the past should be taken into consideration," Rohrabacher said in an interview. "I think that balance is necessary for justice. I think even Jack Abramoff deserves that."

In his letter to the judge, Rohrabacher described "a far different Jack than the profit-seeking megalomaniac portrayed in the press."

"Jack was a selfless patriot for most of the time I knew him," the congressman wrote, recalling his friend as an ardent anti-communist during the Cold War.

Rohrabacher said he was concerned that an inordinately stiff sentence might prevent Abramoff from eventually starting a new life with his wife and children.

Abramoff, 47, pleaded guilty in January to charges that, along with a business partner, he fraudulently obtained $60 million in loans to buy a line of casino cruise ships based in Miami. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he agreed to a sentence of from 70 to 87 months in prison. Abramoff's supporters are urging Huck to set the punishment at the lower end of the range.

The Florida deal is separate from a plea agreement in Washington, where Abramoff has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion related to dealings with members of Congress. No date has been set for his sentencing in that case.

The sentences in the two cases are to run concurrently and might be further reduced because Abramoff is cooperating in an investigation examining official misconduct by several members of Congress.

The outpouring of support in the Miami case is an attempt to counter an onslaught of media reports and late-night TV barbs that his lawyers say have turned Abramoff into a "caricature" and "distorted a lifetime of accomplishments beyond recognition."

"As large a figure as he has been painted in the media," the lawyers said, "he is an even larger figure in matters of family, faith, generosity and remorse."

In a sentencing memorandum filed with the court in Miami, the lawyers asserted that in some years, Abramoff gave away as much as 80% of his income, and that his munificence left him with no real assets beyond his home and its contents.

"Now, Mr. Abramoff is broke," the court filing noted. "He is tormented daily that his wife will not be able to support the large family on her own."

The letters of support include handwritten appeals from his five children, along with letters from friends, associates and even strangers, describing how they had been recipients of random acts of kindness from Abramoff over the years.

In a letter to Huck, 16-year-old Alex Abramoff wrote, "I personally do not know a lot about you or your morals, but I know that if you were to take a look into how my father leads his life, you would see that he is not the kind of person that should be sent to prison."

Abramoff's 12-year-old daughter, Sarah, wrote how she burst into tears when actor George Clooney derided her father on the Golden Globes awards show this year.

The letters include stories of how Abramoff covered medical bills of a rabbi's daughter who was seriously injured in a car accident and how he loaned a needy family the down payment for a home. On another occasion, he threw a wedding party for a friend's daughter who was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

A former executive assistant to a partner at Greenberg Traurig, the law and lobbying firm where Abramoff worked, told Huck that Abramoff intervened on her behalf after she said she was being sexually harassed by her boss.

A top investigator on a Senate subcommittee vouched for Abramoff as "a caring, pious, and generous man who dotes on his friends and family."

The trappings of wealth that he accumulated did not always work to the benefit of the rich and powerful, some letter-writers said.

Monty Warner, a GOP media strategist, said Abramoff gave away "hundreds of meals" at the Washington restaurant he owned, Signatures, to people seeking personal, rather than political, favors.

Dave Jackson, a National Hockey League referee, wrote that he befriended Abramoff after being impressed that the lobbyist had invited 14 children and a rabbi to his skybox for a hockey match.

Nathan Lewin, a Washington lawyer, said Abramoff should be credited for operating a kosher restaurant in Washington, Stacks, where observant Jews could have lunch or dinner. Lewin said Abramoff kept Stacks open "at great personal financial sacrifice just so that Jews would have a place where they could dine in comfort."

At least one former client — Benigno R. Fitial, governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — was among those who wrote. A former apparel industry executive, Fitial was instrumental in hiring Abramoff to stop Congress from enacting minimum-wage laws affecting island workers.

Labor activists said the moves led to abusive sweatshop conditions for workers. Fitial said Abramoff "championed our cause of democratic self-government and economic opportunity and self-sufficiency."

Lobbyist Abramoff gets subpoenaed in Boulis murder case: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

2006-03-24T11:07:00.000-05:00

By Jon Burstein
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted March 24 2006

Fallen super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his former business partner soon will be subpoenaed by defense attorneys to give sworn statements in the Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis murder case.

The attorney for murder suspect Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello filed paperwork this week asking to question Abramoff and Long Island businessman Adam Kidan about the SunCruz Casino founder's gangland-style slaying. Broward Circuit Judge Michael Kaplan granted the request Thursday after prosecutors agreed to it.

Prosecutor Brian Cavanagh said the Broward State Attorney's Office had been concerned about subpoenaing Kidan and Abramoff because it didn't want to give them any form of immunity. Kidan has not been eliminated as a suspect in the murder case, Cavanagh said.

"The point we made in court was we weren't saying he would be a suspect in place of the present defendants, it's a question of whether he will be an additional defendant," Cavanagh said. "All the defendants are innocent until proven guilty and certainly at the present time Mr. Kidan is not under indictment so there has not even been a formal allegation at this juncture."

Attorneys for Kidan and Abramoff declined to comment Thursday, but they have said their clients had nothing to do with the murder plot.

Kidan's attorney, Joseph Conway, said last month that Kidan is ready to testify as part of a plea deal he cut with federal prosecutors. Kidan and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to lying on financial statements and creating phony documents to convince lenders to back their bid for SunCruz, a Dania Beach-based gambling ship fleet.

The SunCruz fraud case enabled prosecutors to leverage Abramoff into cooperating with a potentially wide-ranging federal investigation into congressional bribery and influence peddling.

Moscatiello's attorney, David Bogenschutz, wrote in court papers that he needed to question the two men because "the SunCruz Casino sale is at the heart" of the murder case.

Boulis was ambushed Feb. 6, 2001, shortly after he left his Fort Lauderdale office. One car stopped in front of his BMW; a second car pulled up alongside the self-made millionaire and he was sprayed with bullets.

In the months leading up to his murder, Boulis and Kidan had been locked in an acrimonious battle over SunCruz. Boulis had cut a deal to sell SunCruz to a partnership including Kidan and Abramoff, but the business agreement had soured and Boulis wanted to regain control.

A Broward County grand jury indicted Moscatiello, 67; Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, 49; and James "Pudgy" Fiorillo, 28, in September for Boulis' slaying. All three have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors have suggested the three defendants killed Boulis to ensure he didn't take back SunCruz. While Kidan ran SunCruz, he paid $145,000 in consulting fees to companies tied to Moscatiello, who had admitted ties to the Gambino crime family and to late mob boss John Gotti, according to court records A company controlled by Ferrari received an additional $95,000 for security from Kidan's SunCruz, court records show.

Attorneys for Moscatiello and Fiorillo have been arguing that the state's case isn't strong enough for them to be in jail without bond. Their bond hearing will continue this afternoon.

CNN.com - Abramoff's sentencing delayed to further cooperation - Mar 17, 2006

2006-03-17T17:34:00.000-05:00

Judge approves motion sought by federal investigators

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal judge Friday delayed sentencing of Jack Abramoff, a move the prosecutors requested to further the former lobbyist's cooperation with their investigation.

In January, Abramoff plead guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges, charges in Washington.

Federal investigators, citing Abramoff's cooperation, wanted to defer until at least June a status conference, initially set for next week, that could have led to Abramoff's sentencing.

The delay is "in order to allow Mr. Abramoff's cooperation to continue uninterrupted," according to a joint motion for a new status conference filed late Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle signed the order proposed by prosecutors in the Public Integrity and Fraud sections, along with Abramoff's defense counsel, Abbe Lowell.

A judge in Miami, Florida, earlier this month refused to grant a similar sentencing delay on Abramoff's guilty plea to separate fraud charges there. U.S. District Judge Paul Huck moved the sentencing date only from March 16 to 29 but rejected an open-ended deferral. He said, "I just don't want to get involved in a situation where it just goes on and on and on."

The length of Abramoff's sentences in both cases will depend on the level of help he provides to investigators as they continue their probe of corruption among public officials.

According to court documents in the case, Abramoff and a business partner supplied gifts to a member of Congress identified only as "Representative 1." The gifts were in exchange for the lawmaker's help on behalf of their clients, including support of specific bills and statements in the Congressional Record.

Government sources have identified the lawmaker as longtime Ohio Republican Rep. Robert Ney, who has denied wrongdoing. Soon after Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption charges in January, Ney relinquished his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee and has since acknowledged being subpoenaed.

In September, Rep. Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, gave up his majority leader post after being indicted in his home state on charges he improperly steered corporate donations in 2002 to state legislative candidates.

A longtime associate of Abramoff, DeLay has denied wrongdoing, remains in Congress and continues to fight the charges.

Although there are no known ties to the Abramoff affair, another Republican, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, resigned in November after pleading guilty to taking bribes from defense contractors.

Stalled reform
Since the lobbying scandal broke, members of Congress have pledged quick reform but have had difficulty meeting timetables for action.

At last word, the House had missed a February schedule to consider ethics legislation and now expects action before spring break in April.

The Senate last week suspended debate because of controversy surrounding the port security deal. It's not clear when it will consider any ethics bills.(Details)

Also swept up in Abramoff's lobbying activities is the Bush administration.

Abramoff was a Pioneer-level fund-raiser during Bush's re-election campaign, meaning the lobbyist raised more than $100,000.

The White House has given $6,000 of Abramoff's donations to charity.

Investigators have also been examining the activities of some officials at the Interior Department and the General Services Administration, sources have told CNN.

One former GSA official, David Safavian, was indicted in October on charges of obstructing a GSA proceeding, obstructing a U.S. Senate proceeding and making false statements in connection with the investigation. His lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, and a hearing on that motion is set for March 24.

DenverPost.com - Gale Norton resigns from Cabinet

2006-03-10T17:22:00.000-05:00

By Mike Soraghan
Denver Post Staff Writer
DenverPost.com

Washington - Gale Norton resigned today after serving more than five years as secretary of the Interior and overseeing a dramatic expansion of drilling, logging and development on the public lands of the West.

But the former Colorado attorney general is to leave office at the end of the month without achieving her highest-profile political goal, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.

“Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector,” Norton said in a two-page resignation letter to President Bush.

"Gale Norton has been a strong advocate for the wise use and protection of our Nation's natural resources and a valuable member of my Administration," Bush said. "I appreciate Gale's dedicated service to our country, and I wish Gale and John all the best."

A source who requested anonymity said she is not leaving because of any problems, and is expected to cite water issues and her push for "cooperative conservation" among her accomplishments.

"She wants to go home for a while," the source said.

No successor has been named, but the confirmation hearings could give Democrats an opening to highlight their dissatisfaction with Bush on environmental issues. They could also use it as a way to highlight administration connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who lobbied the department on Indian casino issues.

Norton, who was the first female Interior secretary, has served since the earliest days of the Bush administration. Her background working with polarizing former Interior Secretary James Watt for logging and mining interests made her one of Bush's most controversial cabinet nominees.

A much more careful speaker, she proved less fiery than Watt, but achieved more in the way of opening up public lands for development. Under her watch, the department stripped protection from areas previously managed as wilderness, opened up forests to increased logging, sent snowmobiles back into Yellowstone and pressed federal land managers to speed up drilling for gas on public lands.

While natural gas supplies increased, the environment suffered, according to environmentalists and government auditors. A report by the Government Accountability Office last year found that the focus on processing drilling permits for gas companies often left environmental monitoring undone.

Norton, however, stressed that she was working toward "cooperative conservation," a way to achieve environmental results by partnering with landowners and developers rather than regulating them.

Norton's tenure was also marked by repeated ethical controversies. Norton cleared her top deputy, former lobbyist J. Steven Griles, after her inspector general said his conduct showed that the department's ethics system was "a train wreck waiting to happen." Griles is now under investigation for allegations that he did the bidding of convicted Indian casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Norton is still supporting him.

Abramoff also funneled more than $500,000 to one of Norton's former political aides, Italia Federici, to gain access to her department, which makes key decisions about which tribes can open casinos. Norton said she had no qualms about Federici's activities.

Federici, president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, quickly released a statement praising Norton.

“The environmental benefits of her actions on behalf of Cooperative Conservation will be reaped for years to come,” Federici said in the statement.

Norton also suffered bad publicity when the head of the National Park Service police was fired after talking to a reporter and congressional staff about budget shortfalls.

Norton was also the first Bush cabinet official to be held in contempt, though the ruling regarding Indian trust issues was later overruled by an appeals court.

The Indian trust case metastasized from an obscure bookkeeping mess to a drain on Norton's entire department. She once said the issue occupied her top staff more than any other issue.

In the National Journal Political Insider's Poll last year, she was voted the second-most underrated Bush cabinet secretary by Republican operatives who credited her with pursuing Bush's pro-development agenda with a minimum of bad publicity.

$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush - New York Times

2006-03-10T00:32:00.000-05:00

By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, March 9 — The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction, according to documents and interviews.

The payment was made to Americans for Tax Reform, a group run by Grover G. Norquist, one of the Republican Party's most influential policy strategists. Mr. Norquist was a friend and longtime associate of Mr. Abramoff.

The meeting with Mr. Bush took place on May 9, 2001, at a reception organized by Mr. Norquist to marshal support for the president's 2001 tax cuts, which were pending before Congress. About two dozen state legislators attended the session in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The meeting was called to thank legislators for support of the tax-cut plan, an issue on which the tribal leader had no direct involvement.

Mr. Norquist attended the meeting, along with Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. It is not clear what role, if any, Mr. Norquist played in getting Chief Garza into the meeting, and there is no suggestion that the White House was aware of the $25,000 payment.

But the transaction adds new details to what is known about how Mr. Abramoff used his links to well-connected conservatives to establish himself among his lobbying clients as having access to the highest levels of power in Washington. Mr. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials and is cooperating with the Justice Department investigation.

The transaction could also focus further attention on Mr. Norquist's group, which is already under scrutiny by the Justice Department and Congressional investigators over its ties to Mr. Abramoff. On being presented with a copy of a letter dated May 10, 2001, in which one of its officials acknowledged receipt of the $25,000 donation, Americans for Tax Reform responded that it did not seek money for White House access.

John Kartch, the group's communications director, said, "No money was ever collected for admission to these events."

Mr. Kartch described the reception as one of several gatherings with President Bush sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform in support of his economic policies. "No lobbying occurred at these events, which were similar in nature to a bill-signing, with people listening to the president speak," he said.

Mr. Kartch said the anti-tax group "did not want liberals unfairly smearing tribes that supported the president's agenda."

There is only one other documented instance in which Mr. Abramoff was able to obtain a White House meeting for one of his tribal clients through Mr. Norquist, and it occurred the same day of the visit by the Kickapoo leader. On that day, a leader of a Louisiana tribe has said he attended a separate event by Americans for Tax Reform that was also attended by Mr. Bush.

Documents obtained by investigators for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee show that the second tribe, the Louisiana Coushattas, also paid $25,000 to Mr. Norquist's group shortly before the meeting, although the tribe has been unwilling to say if its chief had the same opportunity as the Kickapoo chief to talk briefly with Mr. Bush and be photographed with him.

The May 9 reception attended by Chief Garza was photographed by a White House photographer. One of the photographs became public last month, and showed Mr. Abramoff in the far background as Mr. Bush greeted Chief Garza. It was the first picture showing Mr. Abramoff in the same setting with Mr. Bush, who has said he does not remember meeting the lobbyist.

A former senior tribal official, Isidro Garza, who is not related to Raul Garza, said the $25,000 donation to Americans for Tax Reform was solicited days earlier by Mr. Abramoff, who often encouraged his clients to donate to Mr. Norquist's group. Most of the tribe's money comes from a casino it operates near the Mexican border.

Isidro Garza said Mr. Abramoff did not say directly that the $25,000 was the price of admission to the meeting with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Abramoff, he said, described the donation to Mr. Norquist's group as a "good investment" in the tribe's lobbying efforts in Washington. Mr. Garza said he arranged for the payment although he saw little direct connection between the tribe's interests and those of Americans for Tax Reform.

A White House spokesman, Dana Perino, said that White House officials were "absolutely not" aware of the Kickapoos' $25,000 payment to Americans for Tax Reform and that the May 2001 reception was an effort to thank "people who had expressed support for the president" on the tax cuts.

Isidro Garza and Raul Garza are both under indictment in Texas on federal embezzlement charges involving the use of tribal money.

Isidro Garza, who functioned as the chief counselor to Chief Garza, said he was willing to reveal details about the $25,000 payment and the White House meeting in hope of having the government determine whether anyone in Washington manipulated their ouster from the tribe, the act that led to the criminal charges.

Mr. Abramoff might have had reason to want an overhaul of the tribe's leadership. In 2001, Isidro Garza said, the Kickapoos rejected a proposal from Michael Scanlon, Mr. Abramoff's business partner, that the tribe pay $2 million in fees for a lobbying campaign on behalf of the tribe's casino. A lawyer for Raul Garza, Jason Davis of San Antonio, said Chief Garza "got caught in the crossfire of tribal politics" when he was ousted as the tribal leader in 2002, and "the question is whether he also got caught in the crossfire of national politics."

Through his lawyers, Mr. Abramoff had no comment on the White House meeting with the Kickapoos. A lawyer for Mr. Scanlon, who has also pleaded guilty in the case, did not return telephone calls.

In a letter dated May 10, 2001, the day after the White House reception, Americans for Tax Reform acknowledged the contribution from the Kickapoos, who had sought help from Mr. Abramoff in lobbying on behalf of its casino. "Thank you for your generous support of our work," wrote Jennifer Kuhn, the tax group's vice president for finance. "I have received your contribution for $25,000."

A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by Isidro Garza and was then forwarded to Americans for Tax Reform for comment. The group did not comment on the document or explain the detailed circumstances of the Kickapoo's invitation to the White House.

Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff - Yahoo! News

2006-03-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff.

Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady.

"He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?"

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said of Abramoff on Jan. 26. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people."

"I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," Bush added. "I don't know him."

A few days later, Abramoff wrote to Washingtonian magazine that he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.

Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he once was invited to Bush's Texas ranch where he would have joined with other big Bush fundraisers. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, said he didn't go because the event fell on the Sabbath.

The lobbyist said that when Bush made a speech to fundraisers in 2003, he sat just a few feet from the president. Abramoff, the only lobbyist on the dais, was seated between Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Three former associates of Abramoff have told The Associated Press the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through its deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove.

Asked about the former Abramoff associates' accounts, the White House said Rove and Abramoff were leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy has said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

According to Vanity Fair, Rove's relationship with Abramoff was deeper.

After Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administration assistant, assumed the same post with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once, the magazine said.

Rove dined several times at Abramoff's former restaurant in Washington, Signatures, and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box of the NCAA basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game at Abramoff's side, Vanity Fair reported.

The White House has not released any photos that Bush took with Abramoff, but acknowledged the authenticity of one that has been made public. In the 2001 photo, Bush is seen shaking hands with the leader of an Indian tribe that was an Abramoff client. The lobbyist is in the background.

Abramoff said he thought about, but decided against, selling his photos with the Bushes for money. Publications were making Abramoff offers that rose to the low seven figures, Vanity Fair reports.

He blames the Bush administration for the media attention.

"My so-called relationship with Bush, Rove and everyone else at the White House has only become important because instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," Abramoff told the magazine.

"The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq."

The Raw Story | Washington nonprofit where Abramoff was director wrote articles favoring Abramoff clients

2006-03-08T20:19:00.000-05:00

Filed by John Byrne and Ron Brynaert

Norquist, Traditional Values Coalition also lent support to Marianas measures

The Washington nonprofit whose president appeared before a Senate committee as a victim of fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s congressional bribery net wrote repeated articles that aligned with the positions of the lobbyist’s clients, suggesting possible coordination between the lobbyist and the group in violation of federal law.

In a series of editorials between 1999 and 2001, National Center for Public Policy Research president Amy Ridenour went to bat for the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands, a small U.S. territory in the Pacific. Her releases bemoaned efforts to expand federal immigration laws to the island, defended the islands' meager wages and attacked Clinton Administration attempts to tighten labor laws.

Ridenour also lent her support to the Western Pacific Economic Council, a trade group composed of Marianas garment manufacturers. Her group’s name appeared in a Saipan newspaper backing the Council in 1999.

Both the Marianas and the Economic Council were clients of Jack Abramoff at the time. The Marianas paid Abramoff’s firm Preston Gates $1.9 million in 1999 and 2000 and his second firm, Greenberg Traurig, $1.1 million in 2001. The Western Pacific Economic Council paid Preston Gates $2.3 million in 1999 and 2000.

Ridenour did not return calls and emails asking for comment. Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, also declined to comment. Abramoff pled guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in January.

The National Center took to the national stage when it emerged that Abramoff – who was a member of the nonprofit’s board from 1997 to 2004 – had laundered $2.5 million through the group to increase personal holdings and pay for congressional trips. The money underwrote overseas trips taken by House Administration Committee Chairman Robert Ney (R-OH) and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

In her testimony before Congress, Ridenour portrayed herself as a victim of Abramoff’s guile. Describing her impression of when she first met the lobbyist, Ridenour said he appeared a “dedicated conservative” whose “managerial skills, it seemed to me at the time, exceeded my own.”

When discussing how the Center had received millions of dollars from Abramoff’s firm and his lobbying clients, she described the lobbyist’s proposals as “quote a new kind of lobbying unquote.”

She did not, however, discuss work she had done that benefited Abramoff’s clients.

While RAW STORY previously revealed that Ridenour had written an article attacking the political rival of another Abramoff client – former Malaysian Prime Minister Mathahir bin Mohamed – her work on issues surrounding the Marianas was far more extensive.

Ridenour’s lobbying on the Marianas began in April 1999, when her group issued a release decrying bipartisan efforts to ban goods manufactured on the islands from carrying the “Made in the USA” label. Legislators proposed the measure after numerous labor complaints were filed against Saipan manufacturers, who were repeatedly accused of flouting labor laws.

“The National Center for Public Policy Research believes that any concerns about employment conditions in the CNMI should be handled as they are on the mainland: by U.S. and local government inspectors who have the authority to enforce government employment regulations,” the group’s release said. “These inspectors are on the job in the CNMI.”

The following day, The Saipan Tribune, the Commonwealth’s leading newspaper, reprinted the release in full.

Three other nonprofits lent name to Marianas effort

Several months later, the National Center’s name appeared in another Saipan Tribune article. This time, Ridenour’s group was supporting a coalition of Marianas garment manufacturers who bemoaned U.S. efforts to impose tighter labor laws.

Ron Sablan, chairman of the Western Pacific Economic Council trade group, lauded Ridenour’s group. RAW STORY has discovered that Sablan also praised three other nonprofits, two of which would later work with Abramoff on Indian gaming issues.

"Fortunately with the help of our public affairs firm others have joined to argue against this intrusion into our economic sustenance. The Americans for Tax Reform, the Council with Citizens Against Government Waste, the Traditional Values Coalition, and the National Center for Public Policy Research supported the WPEC's stance,” Sablan said.

Americans for Tax Reform, led by conservative maven Grover Norquist, is already under scrutiny in the Abramoff scandal, and the new revelation that they abetted a Marianas concern may further raise questions about their relationship with Abramoff. ATR got $25,000 at Abramoff's direction from an Indian tribe to set up a meeting with Bush. The Traditional Values Coalition, meanwhile, was paid $25,000 at Abramoff's instruction to lobby on Indian gaming in 2000.

In August 1999, Ridenour attacked the Clinton Administration’s Interior Department for using federal resources to aid Democratic efforts to impose federal labor standards on the islands. The islands are a haven for sweatshops, as they enjoy the privileges of a U.S. territory but do not have to follow laws enforced on U.S. states.

Ironically, Abramoff would use Bush Administration Interior Department officials just a few years later to thwart measures that would jeopardize the well-being of his Indian tribal clients.

Abramoff took a hiatus from representing the Marianas for much of 2000. RAW STORY can find no articles from the Center on the islands during that time.

The lobbying heavyweight re-signed the Marianas with his new firm, Greenberg Traurig, in March 2001. In April, the center issued a release blasting a bill from a Republican senator which aimed to federalize immigration laws in the islands.

“Legislation providing for a federal takeover of the immigration authority of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), a U.S. possession near Guam, is designed to shut down the Islands' garment industry and should be understood as such, says The National Center for Public Policy Research,” the group said in a release.

The release appeared again in the National Center’s newsletter, “The Relief Report.” It was credited to Amy Ridenour.

Group has a history of pay for play allegations

In 2001, Ridenour penned an editorial in the Washington Times which attacked the rival of Abramoff’s then-client, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamed. Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Bush.

Her article, titled "The U.S. Must Tread Carefully to Avoid Creating More Fundamentalist Islamic Governments," touted Malaysia as a "prosperous, stable and democratic state" and smeared Mahathir opponent Anwar Ibrahim as an Islamic radical.

Ridenour described Ibrahim as “a former government official with close links to radical Islamic fundamentalist groups has begun an international public relations effort to destabilize the government in Kuala Lumpur.”

Lim Kit Siang, a member of the Malaysian parliament, all but accused Ridenour of being paid to write the article in 2001.

Malaysians, he said, were entitled to know whether Ridenour and NCPPR "have been hired in a campaign to win the hearts of Washington, whether taxpayers' monies are involved in the retention of American lobby groups to provide ‘sweeteners’ to pave the way for a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Bush, and whether the KMM and the militant Islam issues are being used to win the ear of Washington.”

Ridenour denied being paid by the Malaysian government.

NCPPR also came under fire for “Envirotruth,” a website which attacks progressive and environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Exxon Mobil ponied up $55,000 to the group that year.

Ridenour was also attacked in 1995 when a memo by Phillip Morris executive Frank Gomez surfaced during national tobacco litigation, in which she offered Gomez "to use any information [he could] provide re [sic] the current anti-tobacco onslaught."

Bloomberg.com: Abramoff's Florida Sentencing May Force Details of Cooperation

2006-03-07T00:13:00.000-05:00

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- A federal judge in Miami set a March 29 sentencing date for lobbyist Jack Abramoff in connection with a wire-fraud case, prompting prosecutors and defense lawyers to warn that his cooperation in a separate federal corruption probe may be hindered.

U.S. District Judge Paul Huck moved Abramoff's sentencing from its original March 16 date and said he's willing to consider delaying the lobbyist's surrender, as well as that of his business partner Adam Kidan, to aid their continued cooperation. Abramoff's lawyer said he may be forced to make public details of his cooperation to help make the case for a lenient sentence.

``We would be naming names, and we would be providing evidence of what's going on out there,'' Abbe Lowell, one of Abramoff's lawyers, told Huck. ``This is not going to be good for the government.''

Abramoff, 47, pleaded guilty in Miami on Jan. 4 to conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a $147.5 million purchase of a Florida gambling-boat company in 2000. The day before, he pleaded guilty in Washington to fraud and conspiracy to corrupt public officials. He is now working with U.S. investigators, and assistant U.S. attorney Lawrence LaVecchio described Abramoff at today's hearing as ``very cooperative.''

The lobbyist faces as many as seven years in prison for conspiracy and wire fraud in the Florida case.

Abramoff, a former top fund-raiser for Republicans and President George W. Bush, is at the center of a Washington scandal. His connections in government extended to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Ohio Representative Bob Ney.

Ney temporarily gave up his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee in January, citing the ``distraction'' of allegations that he received gifts and other benefits from Abramoff. Ney denies wrongdoing.

Miami judge refuses to delay sentencing for lobbyist Abramoff: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

2006-03-06T14:23:00.000-05:00

By VANESSA BLUM
sun-sentinel.com

March 6, 2006, 12:15 PM EST

MIAMI -- A federal judge on Monday refused to delay sentencing 90 days for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff despite statements from government lawyers that sending Abramoff to prison could jeopardize his cooperation in ongoing criminal probes.

U.S. District Judge Paul Huck set sentencing for Abramoff and co-defendant Adam Kidan for March 29 but said he would probably not require an immediate surrender, allowing the men to remain free and available to assist investigators.

Abbe Lowell, Abramoff's Washington D.C.-based defense lawyer, warned Huck that he might be obligated at a sentencing hearing to reveal details of the government's pending investigations into the Capitol Hill lawmakers who did business with Abramoff.

"We will name names. We will provide the public with evidence of what is going on out there," Lowell said. "It seems to me that is not in the interest of law enforcement."

Huck defended his decision to proceed with sentencing, remarking that Abramoff and Kidan's cooperation with federal investigators could go on for years.

"I'm not persuaded we should treat Mr. Kidan and Mr. Abramoff any differently than anyone else," Huck said.

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and Kidan fabricated a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable chunk of their own money into the $147.5 million purchase of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Kidan pleaded guilty late last year.

Abramoff also pleaded guilty in January to charges stemming from an investigation into his ties to members of Congress and the Bush administration.

Both guilty pleas require extensive cooperation from Abramoff in exchange for possible leniency at sentencing. In the Florida case, Abramoff and Kidan both face a maximum of just over seven years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

E-mails undermine Reed claim | ajc.com

2006-03-03T22:10:00.000-05:00

By JIM GALLOWAY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/04/06
Ralph Reed has said he didn't know it until last year, but emails suggest he was informed that eLot — a firm then in the online lottery business — was behind his effort to fend off a ban against internet gambling in 2000.

The e-mails passed between Reed and Jack Abramoff, the now disgraced Washington lobbyist. Abramoff was lobbying for eLot Inc. of Connecticut, parent company of eLottery Inc., against a bill in Congress that would have banned most online betting. ELottery opposed the bill because it wanted to help states sell tickets online.

Reed, a lifelong opponent of gambling, said last year that he did not know in 2000 he was actually working on behalf of eLottery.

But e-mails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show Reed was offered the name of the company at the beginning of his involvement in the campaign, in May 2000. The e-mails emerged as dozens of federal investigators have increased their focus on events surrounding the defeat of the Internet gaming ban.

Abramoff included the company's name — referring to "the elot project" — in an e-mail he forwarded to Reed, as the two worked out details of Reed's contract for the campaign.

A spokesman for Reed, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, said the e-mail does not contradict Reed's earlier statements that he did not know eLot, or eLottery, was financing the gambling fight. Campaign manager Jared Thomas declined to discuss the apparent inconsistency of Reed's earlier statements and the date of the "elot" e-mail.

Another e-mail exchange written only months after the gambling ban was defeated suggests that, much earlier than Reed implied last year, he knew of Abramoff's ties to elottery.

In the Jan. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed teased Abramoff when the lobbyist asked about the White House's choice for a new "technology czar."

"Tell your elottery friends that the next czar will be an anti-gambling [Pentecostal] Christian whose main interest in life is banning smut from the Internet," Reed wrote.

Thomas acknowledged for the first time that Reed learned several years ago that Abramoff had a business relationship with eLottery, but said it wasn't until the gaming ban was defeated. And he said Reed didn't know the company funded the gaming ban's defeat until last year.

Reed's work on behalf of eLottery came at the same time he was doing other work for Abramoff. That work had Reed conducting anti-gambling campaigns across the South on behalf of two Indian tribes that feared the expansion of gambling would generate competition and harm their interests.

Although Reed's opponents in the lieutenant governor's race have made an issue of his work on behalf of gambling interests, Reed has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to bilking his Indian clients of $25 million, and to conspiring to bribe public officials.

Reed says Abramoff, a lifelong friend, assured him that he wouldn't be paid with money derived from gambling. And Reed has expressed remorse for his association with Abramoff.

"If I had known then what I know now, I would have turned that work down," Reed told a Republican student group at Emory University last weekend.

Where it started

The eLottery story began in 1997, when a bill banning most Internet gambling was filed by U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) — with the backing of Reed, then head of the national Christian Coalition. Reed left the coalition shortly afterward to start Duluth-based Century Strategies, a political consulting firm.

The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act didn't gain traction until three years later, when a deal was struck among sponsors of the bill, representatives of the gambling industry, and some of the nation's most prominent religious conservatives.

On May 17, 2000, James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family; Charles Donovan, then the acting head of the Family Research Council; Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority; and Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, put their names to a compromise that gave the bill serious heft.

In a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the religious leaders said they were willing to accept "minor" exceptions to an Internet gaming ban, for such things as dog racing and horse racing.

But essential to the bill, they said, was a ban on the sale of state lottery tickets over the Internet — which put the biggest names in Christian conservatism in conflict with eLot.

That's when Reed entered the picture. Abramoff's law-lobbying firm at the time, Preston Gates, hired Reed's firm for $20,000 a month to rally grass-roots voters against the ban in targeted congressional districts.

In an interview with the AJC in October, Reed said he found out that he had worked for eLottery five years after the fact — as a result of federal probes into Abramoff's activities. "I believe we learned as the facts emerged during the ongoing inquiry," he said.

But the e-mails obtained by the AJC indicate he was provided the company's name in 2000.

'Elot' mentioned by name

Within five days of the evangelicals' letter to Hastert, Abramoff had drawn up a contract for the services of Reed and his firm. Abramoff e-mailed the draft to his boss, Jonathan Blank, managing partner of Preston Gates.

It was preceded by a personal note: "Jonathan, here is a draft for the retainer letter with Reed on the elot project. Can you review and approve, or give me your edits?"

Blank made his revisions and sent the entire message back to Abramoff, including the reference to "the elot project."

On May 23, 2000, Abramoff forwarded the contract to Reed, with the "elot" reference still intact, and the notation: "Ralph, are these changes okay?"

Reed responded, "Yes."

The letter of retainer itself did not mention eLot, or eLottery. Nor did it include restrictions as to what kind of funds — gambling-related or not — Reed was to be paid with.

The contract had three basic points: Reed would be paid a stipend of $20,000 a month plus expenses; his services would be "at the direction of Jack Abramoff," and none of his activities would "require registration as a lobbyist in any state or with the federal government."

The latter clause allowed Reed to keep his work against the gambling ban quiet until last year.

Facts on record

At the time of the lobbying effort, there was a public record of Abramoff's association with eLottery.

Several days after Preston Gates retained Reed, Abramoff's firm registered as eLottery's representative on Capitol Hill, citing the Internet gaming ban as the company's chief interest. The information was available to anyone who inquired with the secretary of the U.S. Senate. Asked whether Reed ever checked the register, his spokesman declined to comment.

Through direct mail and other tools, Reed's task was to persuade religious conservatives in the districts of wavering congressmen that that the exceptions agreed to by Robertson and the others had turned the ban on Internet betting into an endorsement of gaming.

ELottery paid Abramoff's firm $1.15 million to defeat the Internet gaming ban. Expense money from eLottery was routed to Reed's firm through two organizations. Documents and copies of e-mails from Abramoff, obtained by The Washington Post last year, documented the flow of cash.

First the money was sent by eLottery to Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist, who knew both Reed and Abramoff from their days as college Republicans.

Norquist then wrote a check for $150,000 to a group called Faith and Family Alliance of Virginia Beach. Faith and Family Alliance wrote a check for the same amount to Reed's Century Strategies. That wasn't the only connection between the groups: One of Faith and Family's founders, Tim Phillips, was a vice president for Century Strategies.

This month, the Senate Finance Committee received unpublished documents generated by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, detailing transfers of cash by Abramoff to nonprofit organizations. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee's chairman, said it would review the evidence as part of its "ongoing, broad-scale look at whether tax-exempt groups are misused for financial or political gain."

The Internet gaming ban was defeated on July 17, 2000.

Goodlatte, the sponsor of the ban on Internet gaming, has placed blame for the 2000 defeat on "the efforts of Jack Abramoff and those who acted on his behalf."

Goodlatte reintroduced the measure last month, and predicts victory this time.

Abramoff pushed plan to drill for oil in Israel - The Boston Globe

2006-03-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

Established firm with two Russians
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | March 1, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked with Russian partners to establish a company that envisioned a high-risk plan to drill for oil in Israel, which he hoped would bring him riches and reshape the Middle East, according to documents and his former lobbying partners.

The oil drilling plan, which has not been reported among Abramoff's many other schemes, casts new light on the scope of the disgraced lobbyist's dealings and the possible reach of the federal investigation into links between his clients, business partners, and members of Congress.

Documents reviewed by the Globe show that in November 2001 Abramoff sought a banker's letter vouching that his newly created company, First Gate Resources, could undertake a $5 million project. The letter was addressed to the then-Israeli oil commissioner.

A former Abramoff lobbying partner, Ronald Platt, said in an interview that he was shown a brochure about First Gate that listed the company officers as Abramoff and two Russian energy company executives of a Moscow firm called Naftasib.

''They supposedly had some kind of technology for determining oil and gas resources, they had discovered vast oil and gas deposits in the Israeli desert, and [Abramoff believed that] if these were exploited it would change the whole dynamic of the Middle East," Platt said.

Abramoff's venture never got off the ground, but the plan provides significant new insights into the lobbyist's ties to Naftasib and its two senior executives.

Federal agents are probing Abramoff's dealings with the Russians as part of the larger investigation into whether he bribed members of Congress into helping his clients and then reaped huge fees and cash for his personal businesses. Federal investigators have sought information about Naftasib's interest in congressional support for Russian projects financed through the International Monetary Fund.

Naftasib executives helped arrange a trip Abramoff took to Moscow in 1997 with former House majority leader Tom DeLay, a close Abramoff friend.

Investigators have been trying to connect the dots on Abramoff's various activities for more than a year. In January, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion in connection with his representation of Indian tribes, and agreed to cooperate with federal agents probing members of Congress.

His drilling company was set up in a way that shields the names of its officers. A company called First Gate Resources was set up under Delaware incorporation laws on Feb. 6, 2001, and dissolved in 2004, according to records.

E-mails released by a Senate committee probing Abramoff show that he counted on his Russian partners to write a letter to Israeli officials pledging financial support for his plan to drill for oil. The Russians, Alexander Koulakovsky and Marina Nevskaya, were top executives of the Moscow energy giant Naftasib and were connected to a company that paid $2.1 million in lobbying fees to Abramoff and his partners, according to former Abramoff associates.

Abramoff wrote an e-mail to a lobbying partner on Nov. 4, 2001, with the subject line of ''first gate," saying he needed the letter ''mega fast. This is something Alexander and Marina were supposed to get but have not done so. Our permit in Israel depends on it and we are running short of time."

Abramoff then began looking for an alternative way to vouch for his financial standing.

In one e-mail, Abramoff described himself as ''the principal of First Gate" and told his lobbying partner to have a banker write a letter vouching for him, suggesting that the letter say ''that my companies are well regarded and have integrity, that I have a fine reputation in Washington, D.C., that they believe I have the means and financial backing to undertake a project/transaction in the $5 million range."

When Abramoff's colleague responded via e-mail that a bank might be hesitant to write such a letter for a company that has just been established, Abramoff responded that ''it's really, really important to me to be able to do this." The two then discussed by e-mail putting large sums of money into accounts at the bank to smooth the way for the letter to be written.

Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew who frequently expressed a desire to help Israel, then drafted a letter to be sent by a bank to Yehezkiel Druckman, who was Israel's oil commissioner at the time.

The draft said that ''based on our experience with First Gate Resources Inc. we believe that the company has the means and the financial backing to undertake a project/transaction costing $5 million."

The e-mails do not make clear whether the letter was sent or what happened to Abramoff's dream of finding oil in Israel. Druckman, who is no longer the oil minister, could not be reached for comment.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington said it had no information on the Abramoff effort.

However, an Israeli oil specialist, Philip Mandelker, said that First Gate Resources did try to get a lease for petroleum.

''My understanding is that First Gate Resources had been in contact with the Israeli authorities in about 2001 about the possibility of acquiring petroleum exploration rights," said Mandelker, who works for Zion Oil and Gas, a Texas company with no connection to Abramoff that is looking for oil in Israel.

Mandelker, who has discussed the matter with Israeli officials, said First Gate never got the required permits.

Israel does have significant natural gas resources, but the country imports nearly all of its oil. A report by the US Department of Energy says that about 460 oil wells have been drilled in Israel since the 1940s ''with little success."

But the report quotes Israeli officials as saying that the country could have large oil reserves beneath natural gas fields.

Within weeks of the effort to establish the oil-drilling plan, Abramoff discussed with the same Russian partners a plan to purchase night-vision equipment for settlers in territory occupied by Israel, according to his e-mails.

One e-mail sent to Abramoff on Oct. 15, 2001, says that it will cost $28,000 to purchase the equipment, and is signed by a person identified as ''Vadim, assistant to Mrs. Nevskaya." It is from an e-mail account at ''naftasib.com," the company where Nevskaya worked.

Shortly thereafter, an Abramoff-related group, Capital Athletic Foundation, listed an $18,000 ''donation of thermal imager," suggesting the equipment was bought and sent to the settlers.

A Washington representative of Naftasib declined comment, and Nevskaya did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. An Abramoff spokesman also declined comment.

Abramoff ties to Russians probed - The Boston Globe

2006-02-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

US inquiry widens to energy concerns
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | February 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The federal investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff has broadened to examine his dealings with the Russian government and a pair of high-profile Russian energy company executives, according to documents made available to the Globe.

A subpoena in the case, issued this month to an Abramoff associate, says the US government is seeking information on Abramoff-related activities with ''any department, ministry, or office holder or agent of the Russian government." The subpoena, which has not been made public, was given to the Globe by a person who is involved in the case.

Abramoff's work on behalf of Indian tribes has been widely scrutinized, but his work for Russian interests has received far less public notice.

It is legal for foreigners to hire lobbyists, but Abramoff's dealings in this area have come under federal investigation because his fees were so large and because investigators are examining whether he might have bribed members of Congress.

Abramoff pleaded guilty recently to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion in connection with a scheme to direct funds from his Indian clients toward government officials.

The subpoena seeks information about ties between Abramoff-related groups and a Moscow energy giant that is called Naftasib, a major supplier to the Russian military.

Investigators have asked for any information about Abramoff's dealings with two top Naftasib executives, Alexander Koulakovsky and Marina Nevskaya. Senior Naftasib executives helped arrange a trip Abramoff took to Moscow in 1997 with former House majority leader Tom DeLay, a longtime Abramoff friend.

The subpoena specifically requests information about dealings between the Abramoff associate receiving the subpoena and DeLay.

Separately, several former Abramoff lobbying partners have told the Globe that a key connection between Abramoff and Russia is an obscure Dutch firm called Voor Huisen.

Voor Huisen was one of Abramoff's biggest clients, paying $2.1 million in lobbying fees to Abramoff and his partners from 2001 to 2004, according to public records that were filed by Abramoff in the US Senate.

But there has been no explanation as to why the company had paid such large fees, and Abramoff's former partners say they are not aware of work that would justify that level of payment.

Voor Huisen has been shrouded in mystery, and is rarely mentioned in the thousands of articles about Abramoff. A Dutch magazine, Vrij Nederland, reported last month that Voor Huisen was a shell company that had no activity and no assets. Dutch records do not list any shareholders.

However, several of Abramoff's former partners, who also lobbied for Voor Huisen, said in interviews this month that they were told the Dutch company was connected to Naftasib executives.

A private housing link
Abramoff's lobbying records also suggest that the money paid to Abramoff by Voor Huisen was used to promote Russian interests. One lobbying report said Abramoff was hired by Voor Huisen to ''promote private housing in the former Soviet Union and other projects in energy and economics." Other reports that Abramoff filed said he lobbied for Voor Huisen on matters ranging from aviation safety to disaster preparedness to unspecified issues ''pertaining to defense and security."

Since Voor Huisen has no business of its own, the work done by Abramoff's firm, and the high fees he collected, made Abramoff's partners concerned that hidden interests were behind the firm and its payouts.

Ronald Platt, who was registered as a lobbyist with Abramoff on the Voor Huisen account, said in an interview that he was originally told by Abramoff or another colleague -- he doesn't remember which -- that the firm was a Dutch enterprise with an interest in housing, but that he later learned that it had ties to the Russians.

''I was told that they had an interest in developing moderate-priced middle-income housing in Russia," Platt said. ''This would be a good thing to bring stability to Russia.

''The company, in order to pursue this," Platt added, ''was hoping to get funds from the US government because it was theoretically in the interest of the US government. At the time, I said, 'I think this will never happen.' "

Platt said that after he left the firm where he and Abramoff worked, Greenberg Traurig, he was ''made aware that this may have been nothing but a paper corporation and that people who purported to have owned it were either one or two Russians" -- Koulakovsky and Nevskaya.

'Agent of influence'
Two other lobbyists who also worked on the Voor Huisen account with Abramoff said in interviews that they, too, were told by either Abramoff or another colleague that the company was tied to the Russians.

Abramoff's work on Russian affairs began in the mid-1990s, according to J. Michael Waller, the former editor of a Washington-based newsletter, Russia Reform Monitor. Waller said he was contacted by two Abramoff associates in 1997, and was asked to help organize Abramoff's trip with DeLay to Russia.

''I was told by two of Abramoff's colleagues that he wanted to represent the Russian government," Waller said. He said Abramoff's colleagues explained that Abramoff was working for Naftasib, the Russian energy company, and that ''if he performed well on Naftasib then the Russian government would retain him."

That made Waller uncomfortable, he added, because he had read Russian documents that said Naftasib supplied oil to the Russian military, so he declined to help Abramoff plan the trip.

''I was concerned that Abramoff was going to become an agent of influence for the Russian government and that he would mask that relationship," Waller said.

Confirmations in e-mails
E-mails released in the course of a Senate investigation into Abramoff confirm that he had Russian clients. In one, he mentions receiving payments from unnamed Russians. In another, he wrote that he was surprised that unnamed Russians often came to the United States and visited his luxury suite at FedExField, the Washington Redskins' stadium.

''The Russians, oddly, came quite a bit," Abramoff wrote. ''Weird."

One reason may be that the Russians helped pay for the suite through a now-defunct Abramoff-related nonprofit group called the US Family Network.

That group, established by an Abramoff colleague, was supposed to provide money to evangelical Christian charities.

But much of its money went to other Abramoff's friends, and some of it went to pay for Abramoff's luxury suite at FedExField, according to the group's former president, a church pastor in Frederick, Md., named Christopher Geeslin.

Geeslin said he was told by the group's founder that Russian investors gave $1 million to US Family Network, a link first reported by The Washington Post last year.

At first, Geeslin said, he could not believe the Russians would want to donate $1 million. Then, he said, he learned that Abramoff was escorting them to Capitol Hill.

''The Russians came over and Abramoff was ushering them around town," Geeslin said. ''I said: 'Man, this is true. It is just incredible.' "

'A shell operation'
Geeslin, who said Abramoff personally thanked him for paying for the FedExField suite, said he now feels ''duped" into heading the US Family Network.

''We had no idea it was just a shell operation for Abramoff," Geeslin said, referring to himself and other volunteer board members. He said he thought the money would be used for evangelical purposes.

''We were stupid enough to believe everything," he said.

The Russians, Koulakovsky and Nevskaya, did not reply to a request for comment. Ellen Levinson, who is registered to lobby for Naftasib in Washington, declined to comment.

The subpoena indicates that investigators want to establish what the Russians were trying to accomplish through Abramoff.

It asks for records relating to Naftasib's interest in legislation, tax policy, and the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF, which is financed partly by the US government, has provided billions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees to the Russian government.

Geeslin said he had been told that the money was aimed at influencing the vote of DeLay, the former House majority leader, on legislation that shored up the IMF's financing for Russia.

A DeLay spokesman, Michael Connolly, said: ''Congressman DeLay votes based on his deeply held principles and his determination about what is best for his constituents and his country."

Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy, said: ''We haven't heard about the subpoena, so we don't know anything about links between Mr. Abramoff and any Russian entity."

In addition to being a lobbyist, Abramoff registered in 1999 as a foreign agent.

This means he represents a foreign government, according to government documents. He did not specify a country.

Abramoff resigned from Greenberg Traurig in March 2004. Within days, Voor Huisen was dissolved, according to Dutch records.

A spokesman for Abramoff's attorney declined to comment.

Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to answer questions on the latest Abramoff matter.

''We can't comment on the issuance of subpoenas," Sierra said.

The Raw Story | Senate inquiry into Abramoff-linked nonprofits advances; Reed, Norquist likely eyed

2006-02-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has sent nearly 100 pages of documents regarding ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s use of nonprofit groups to the Senate Finance Committee, opening a second avenue into Congressional probes surrounding the admitted felon, ROLL CALL's Paul Kane reports Tuesday. Excerpts:

Indian Affairs agreed Feb. 10 to send a limited batch of files to the Finance Committee, covering how Abramoff and his network of nonprofits helped conceal a multimillion-dollar bribery conspiracy. These documents will allow Finance to engage in the probe it announced almost a year ago into Abramoff and his nonprofits. The Finance Committee said the Abramoff documents would be part of an ongoing probe into whether some nonprofits are violating laws by taking on roles beyond what their tax-exempt status allows.

Grassley and Baucus declined to spell out what was in the Indian Affairs documents, but another source who was familiar with them said there were between 80 and 100 pages of e-mails and other files related to nonprofits.

A source told ROLL CALL that roughly 75 percent of the material sent hasn't been publicly aired.

"The committee’s probe could also shine new light on the activities of two of Abramoff’s closest political allies, Grover Norquist, who runs the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the GOP activist who took more than $4 million in Abramoff cash," Kane writes. "Reed, a self-proclaimed opponent of gambling, sometimes received payments from Abramoff — money that originated from tribes who operated wealthy casinos — after it had first been routed through Norquist’s anti-tax group or other Abramoff-linked entities."

The Indian Affairs probe released many e-mail exchanges between Abramoff and his two friends regarding financing of Reed’s efforts to shut down casinos in the South that would have been rivals to Abramoff’s clients.

Chicago Tribune | Abramoff allegedly was paid $1.2 million

2006-02-21T11:33:00.000-05:00

Items compiled from Tribune news services
Published February 21, 2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to organize his 2002 meeting with President Bush, but he denied the money came from the Malaysian government.

Mahathir said in Kuala Lumpur that he was aware a payment was made to Abramoff, but he didn't know who made it.

Abramoff pleaded guilty last month to charges that he and a former partner concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a 2000 purchase of casinos.

Chicago Tribune | Casinos bet on D.C. clout

2006-02-20T11:24:00.000-05:00

Tribes, private operators pour tons of cash into influencing lawmakers

By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau
Published February 20, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Along with tawdry tales of bribery, money laundering and sham charities, the corruption scandal surrounding former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has thrown new light on the rising tide of gambling money pouring into the nation's capital.

As more states have moved to legalize gambling in one form or another and Indian tribes have turned to casinos as a lucrative source of income, the gambling industry's annual revenues have swelled to more than $78 billion. And with that wealth has come a determination to deploy larger sums to influence decisions made in Washington that can affect the bottom line.

Federal campaign contributions from the gambling industry have jumped more than 27-fold, from $478,000 in 1990 to more than $13 million in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan watchdog group. Washington lobbying expenses disclosed by the industry have nearly doubled in six years, from $6.1 million in 1998 to $11.4 million in 2004, according to the Center for Public Integrity, another monitoring group.

One California tribe, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, rents a $1,500-a-night luxury suite at Washington's MCI Center that it lends out for fundraisers benefiting members of Congress friendly to their casino interests, including at least once to Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.).

During the 2004 Republican National Convention, casino tribes helped foot the bill for an after-hours Wild Wild West Saloon party for a congressional committee chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), at a New York nightclub. The party featured a mechanical bull and music by big-name bands including the Charlie Daniels Band, .38 Special and Otis Day.

At least three of President Bush's premier Pioneer fundraisers were gambling industry chief executives. For years, the industry paid to fete senior congressional staff with annual three-day trips to Las Vegas, where casino operators made their case on legislative issues.

In Washington, the commercial casinos' trade group is headed by a former head of the GOP, Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., who has a $5.5 million budget at his disposal. Indian casinos have their own trade association with a similar budget.

"Twenty years ago, a member of Congress or a governor wouldn't want to be connected with the gambling industry. Now, they fly out to Vegas for a fundraiser," said Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a 25-year veteran of Capitol Hill who has tangled with gambling interests.

Fahrenkopf, executive director of the American Gaming Association, makes no apologies.

"There's no question that, like every other industry, the gaming industry wants to make sure it is heard," Fahrenkopf said. "Fundamentally, it's to make sure that the federal government doesn't, fairly or unfairly, intentionally or unintentionally, do anything that damages the industry."

While casinos, Indian tribes and other gambling interests once heavily favored Democrats with their campaign contributions, they have gradually shifted money toward Republicans as first Congress and then the White House came under GOP control. Now gambling donations are about evenly divided between the two parties.

That has created conflict among Republicans, some of whom are social conservatives morally opposed to gambling. The Republican National Committee in 1999 rebuffed a resolution that would have barred the party from accepting gambling money, despite vigorous backing from prominent Christian radio host James Dobson, founder of the group Focus on the Family.

`Deaf ear . . . . on this issue'

"It is troubling that Republicans have really turned a deaf ear to social conservatives on this issue by and large. And I think it's tied to the vast amounts of money gambling interests are pouring into the party," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an influential Washington advocacy group for conservative social values.

The gambling industry can muster political arguments that are in tune with the anti-regulatory philosophy espoused by business interests and libertarians in the Republican Party. And the effect of the conflicts with social conservatives over gambling has been diminished because that movement has emphasized issues such as abortion, gay rights and judicial appointments, where it is in sync with the party.

"This splits the Republican coalition," said Marshall Wittman, a senior fellow at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council who once lobbied for the Christian Coalition. "It's only because social conservatives view other issues as more important that they have been able to overlook this transgression."

The spread of legalized gambling also means that more influential members of Congress represent districts with an economic interest in the industry. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) hail from a state where Gulf Coast casinos have had a major economic effect. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada represents the mecca of legalized gambling. The Senate's second-ranking Republican, Mitch McConnell, represents Kentucky, where the prosperity of the horse-breeding industry is tied to racetrack betting.

In the House, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has two riverboat casinos in his district, in Aurora and Elgin. House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) represents a district with two Indian-operated casinos, one of them the largest private employer in the city of San Bernardino.

Building on such pillars, the industry has amassed considerable clout in Washington. For more than five years, gambling interests have stymied bills to clamp down on Internet betting, even though the Justice Department has determined that the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar business is illegal.

Casino interests also stopped cold a NCAA-backed effort to ban betting on college sports following a series of point-shaving scandals. Attempts to revisit the 1988 law regulating Indian casinos have foundered. And when the 1997 tax package was being put together, even Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), who was then chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, was rebuffed when he tried to include a tax on Indian casino income.

Meanwhile, casino allies led by Illinois' Weller managed to get a tax break for the purchase of new slot machines included in the post-Sept. 11 economic stimulus package passed by Congress. The Mississippi Choctaws, a casino operator with a well-funded lobbying operation, prevailed on Cochran to exempt their tribe from oversight by the National Indian Gaming Commission, the agency set up by Congress to regulate gambling on reservations. The provision was tucked away in a 40,000-word appropriations bill passed in 1997.

The Abramoff scandal illustrates how much money that gambling interests are willing to expend to influence public policy, and why. Indian tribes--and sometimes outside investors in Indian casinos or the management companies they employ--can have a large stake in decisions the Interior Department makes about recognition of a tribe and other matters.

Abramoff and his partners received more than $80 million from six Indian tribes with casino interests over four years, most of that channeled through activities such as public relations fees and "grass-roots" lobbying that would never have been disclosed to the public but for the criminal investigation.

`Payoffs are enormous'

The amount of money at stake for individual tribes' casino operations were far larger. Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, reaped more than $30 million from one tribe, the Louisiana Coushatta Indians. But the tribe was protecting a $300-million-a-year casino business from competition, employing Abramoff to work against federal approval of an agreement that another tribe had reached with the state to open a casino.

Even a delay in federal approval would have provided the Coushattas a return on their investment. And the approval was in fact delayed, though it remains unclear how significant a role Abramoff played.

"The payoffs are enormous," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers. "If you pay a lobbyist a few hundred thousand dollars, or even millions of dollars, it's pocket change compared to what you can make with a casino."

Abramoff's Sentencing In Fla. Case May Wait

2006-02-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

Defense Seeks Time For Ex-Lobbyist To Cooperate More

Associated Press
Saturday, February 18, 2006; A14

MIAMI, Feb. 17 -- The Justice Department and defense lawyers asked a federal judge Friday to delay the March sentencing of lobbyist Jack Abramoff in a Florida fraud case to allow him more time to cooperate in a broader government corruption investigation.

Abbe Lowell, Abramoff's lawyer in Washington, said in a telephone conference with U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck that if sentencing went forward as scheduled on March 16, it would be "upsetting to what's happening behind the scenes."

"It's based solely on the sensitivities of cooperation," Lowell said of the request.

Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into the $147.5 million purchase in 2000 of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet. Kidan also pleaded guilty.

Abramoff also pleaded guilty last month to charges stemming from an investigation into the former lobbyists' ties to members of Congress and to the Bush administration.

Both guilty pleas require extensive cooperation from Abramoff in exchange for potential leniency at sentencing. The motion, signed by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers, seeks a maximum delay of 90 days in the March sentencing date.

"Mr. Abramoff has been working very hard in terms of his cooperation," said Neal Sonnett, Abramoff's attorney in Miami.

Huck said he would consider the request, which also includes Kidan, now scheduled to be sentenced March 1.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

The Seattle Times: Local News: Tribes' new clout threatened by Abramoff fallout

2006-02-18T11:04:00.000-05:00

By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — Indian tribes are bracing for their first test of political power following the scandal over lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who admitted defrauding tribes and trying to corrupt public officials.

At stake, the tribes say, is whether they can maintain their newfound clout in Congress.

Fallout from the Abramoff controversy has prompted a House bill that would bar tribes from making campaign donations directly from casino revenues, by far the largest source of money for many tribes.

The bill would make tribes follow the same political-donor rules as corporations, which are banned from giving their revenues directly to campaigns.

"With a group that has so much business before Congress that they even have their own congressional committee, they need to have the same rules as we do," said Lyle Beckwith, senior vice president of the National Association of Convenience Stores, which has clashed with tribes over tax policy on gasoline and cigarettes sold on tribal lands.

"They shouldn't have undue influence."

Tribal leaders say the proposal threatens whatever political influence they've gained.

"Indians have only been able to become players in the political process in recent years, and they rely on income from tribal casinos," said W. Ron Allen, president of the Washington Indian Gaming Association and a member of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, which has its reservation near Sequim.

The bill, Allen said, is supported by interest groups that want to limit tribal influence. "There is a public-relations campaign now to make this an issue and shut us down."

Currently, tribes are free to donate casino revenues, as long as they stay within the federal contribution limit of $4,200 per campaign to an individual candidate.

About 99 percent of tribal political contributions have come from tribes with casino operations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Cantwell a recipient

The move to regulate Indian contributions more closely comes during a crucial re-election campaign for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., whose narrow victory in 2000 was aided by donations from casino-operating tribes and their well-funded voter-mobilization efforts.

Cantwell beat incumbent Sen. Slade Gorton, a Republican who supported proposals that tribes claimed would undercut their sovereignty. Cantwell's Republican challenger this year is former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick.

The Puyallup and Tulalip tribes alone have donated $65,000 toward her re-election, federal campaign records show.

Since 2000, the Puyallups, Tulalips and Muckleshoots have contributed nearly $700,000 total to federal campaigns. Donations from all state tribes since 2000 top $1.2 million.

The Abramoff scandal has become a vehicle for several lobbies that want to limit tribes' growing political influence. In addition to the National Association of Convenience Stores, those lobbies include gas-station owners and some components of the oil industry.

The controversy also has energized anti-gambling activists.

In 2004, the National Association of Convenience Stores retained Gorton and his employer, Seattle-based law and lobbying firm Preston Gates, to lobby for a bill that would restrict tobacco sales by Web sites, many of which were based on tribal reservations. The bill stalled in the House.

Republican activist Cleta Mitchell said the new bill by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., to regulate tribal contributions further would close a longtime "loophole" in federal election law.

"You can't take corporate money and launder it through an account, but tribes do this all the time," said Mitchell, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has worked on tax-equality issues.

Rogers' bill would force tribes to form political-action committees, or PACs, in order to give money to candidates. But PACs cannot take money directly from businesses either, including from casinos.

"If we have to form PACs, Indians across America and in our state will be disenfranchised," Allen said.

The bill also could make tribes adhere to rules that restrict the total amount of money certain donors can give to candidates and campaigns during a two-year election cycle, a spokeswoman from Rogers' office said. That limit is $101,400, but tribes are excluded from it.

Changing that exclusion could affect some Washington state tribes. In the 2004 election cycle, the Puyallups and Tulalips donated $109,000 and $110,000 respectively, federal campaign records show.

Nationally, tribal contributions to the 2004 federal elections, including the presidential race, totaled about $8.6 million. By comparison, PACs operated by Democratic and Republican party leaders contributed $32 million, while lawyers and law firms gave $182 million.

McCain weighs in

At a hearing last week, Allen told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that federal election law gives tribes a special status because they are considered sovereign nations.

But he agreed that tribes should be more transparent about their political contributions.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the committee and an aggressive advocate of election reform, has pounced on the Abramoff scandal as an example of problems in campaign financing.

Since the start of 2005, he has held nine hearings on Abramoff's lobbying and campaign-finance-related issues involving tribes.

Abramoff and a public-relations partner collected $82 million in payments from casino-rich Indian tribes, primarily in the South, which hired the lobbyist to protect their gambling interests. Abramoff's clients also donated millions to congressional campaigns.

No Northwest tribe has been connected to the Abramoff scandal. But Allen said he met Abramoff once, at the lobbyist's D.C. restaurant, Signatures.

"He was friendly," Allen said, adding that he understood how tribes could find Abramoff's links to power "enticing, intoxicating and seductive ... because he would get them access to the highest levels of national leaders."

Playing a name game?

During last week's hearing, McCain complained that some tribes have many names, which makes it difficult for the public to track their contributions.

One of Abramoff's clients, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians near Palm Springs, Calif., used 78 variations of its name for campaign donations, according to Political Money Line, a database of political contributions.

But Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, said any problems involving tribal donations are neither large nor egregious.

He also said tribes need the exceptions in election law because they've been largely disenfranchised until recently.

Cantwell, who also serves on the Indian Affairs Committee, was noncommittal about possible changes to Indian political contribution rules.

In a written statement, her spokeswoman said Cantwell would work with McCain and her Democratic colleagues on campaign-finance changes.

McCain didn't discuss his views on Rogers' House bill in last week's hearing. But representatives of the National Congress of American Indians, a tribal advocacy group, say they believe he does not support it.

Still, the tribal "loophole" issue isn't dying down soon.

Said McCain: "I feel it is appropriate to examine how and why tribes, which truly are unique entities, are treated the way they are ... and whether the law should be changed."

Researcher Gene Balk contributed to this story.

WBNS-10TV Columbus, Ohio: Clooney not sorry he made fun of Abramoff

2006-02-17T12:32:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES George Clooney isn't sorry for his Jack Abramoff joke at the Golden Globes. Last night, the actor told Larry King on C-N-N that "the person who's disparaged the Abramoff name is not me."

The lobbyist has pleaded guilty to fraud and bribery. He has acknowledged providing lavish trips, golf outings, meals and more to public officials "in exchange for a series of official acts."

At the Golden Globes last month, Clooney made a crude reference to Abramoff's name as he accepted a best supporting actor award for "Syriana."

The comment triggered an angry letter from Abramoff's father. He wrote to a California newspaper, saying the "glib and ridiculous" attack caused his granddaughter to cry.

Clooney says he admires Abramoff's father for sticking up for his son.

Casey's Abramoff-linked donations draw flak from GOP, Santorum

2006-02-16T13:16:00.000-05:00

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WASHINGTON -- Republican officials and Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign yesterday accused Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate candidate, state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., of hypocrisy because Mr. Casey's campaign does not plan to return contributions from two former associates of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The controversy is part of the struggle between Washington's Democrats and Republicans to avoid the taint of the Abramoff scandal after the ex-lobbyist pleaded guilty last month to tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy to bribe public officials resulting from a federal investigation into his activities promoting Indian tribes.

As Democrats have tried to brand the GOP as a corrupt party because of Mr. Abramoff's dealings with prominent Republicans including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Republicans have retaliated by scouring Federal Election Commission records to find contributions to Democrats from Mr. Abramoff's associates or the tribes for which he lobbied.

That exercise this week has turned up two contributions to Mr. Casey from lobbyists who worked closely with Mr. Abramoff while he was at the firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP. Officials of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and at Mr. Santorum's campaign are making an issue of $5,500 that the Democratic challenger received last year from two former employees of that law firm: Michael Smith and Edward Ayoob.

Even though the contributions by both men were made more than a year after Mr. Abramoff was pressured to resign by Greenberg Traurig and at a time when both were working for new firms, the Republican campaign committee and Mr. Santorum's campaign yesterday said Mr. Casey was applying a double standard for contributions to his campaign and those to the senator's.

Earlier this year, Mr. Casey's campaign pounded Mr. Santorum for not immediately returning contributions from several of Mr. Abramoff's tribal clients. Within the week of Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea, Mr. Santorum decided that he would donate the tribal contributions to charity because his campaign said it was virtually impossible to determine whether the money was related to Mr. Abramoff's lobbying activities.

"[Mr. Casey] is basically saying one thing and doing another," said Santorum campaign spokeswoman Virginia Davis. "Both of these gentlemen were part of Abramoff's team, and there are reports of their close connections with Abramoff. ... For Casey to not contribute these contributions to charity or return them is completely hypocritical."

Mr. Smith, who gave Mr. Casey $4,000 last June and is now a lobbyist at Cornerstone Government Affairs, declined to comment yesterday.

Mr. Ayoob also declined to comment, other than to say he was frustrated that contributions he made more than a year after he last spoke with Mr. Abramoff were being used for what he views as obvious political purposes. Mr. Ayoob, who donated a total of $1,500 on June 29 and Sept. 19 of last year, is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the Duquesne University law school who worked with Mr. Abramoff after his time as a senior aide for current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Mr. Ayoob now works for the firm of Barnes & Thornburg LLP.

Mr. Casey?s spokesman Larry Smar emphasized that neither Mr. Ayoob or Mr. Smith had been accused of wrongdoing and said the back and forth was "nothing more than a smokescreen by Santorum to try to cover up his ethical problems with the K Street project and his weekly meetings with lobbyists."

ABC News: Democrats Want Gonzales Off Abramoff Probe

2006-02-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

31 Senate Democrats Ask Attorney General Gonzales to Step Aside in Abramoff Probe
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Thirty-one Senate Democrats on Thursday asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to remove himself from the investigation into the Jack Abramoff scandal, saying the lobbyist's dealings with President Bush and others in the administration should compel Gonzales to step aside.

"FBI officials have said the Abramoff investigation 'involves systemic corruption within the highest levels of government,'" the Democrats wrote in a letter to Gonzales. "In light of your previous service as White House Counsel and your close connection to many Administration officials, the appearance of conflict looms large."

The attorney general "can avoid any appearance of impropriety by recusing himself," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, one of the signers of the letter. "If there was ever a case that was both sensitive and rife with potential conflict it is this one."

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said career attorneys in the public integrity section of the criminal division are handling the Abramoff probe, that Gonzales has followed all department guidelines and there is "no reason for him to recuse himself from the investigation at this time."

New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. The White House would not release the photo or any others that Bush had taken with Abramoff.

Bush has said that he, like all presidents, is frequently photographed with people at various events and that Abramoff is not a personal friend.

Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.

Three former associates of Abramoff told The Associated Press this week that the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.

David H. Safavian, Bush's former top procurement officer, is under indictment on five counts of obstructing investigations into whether he aided Abramoff in efforts to acquire property around the nation's capital controlled by the General Services Administration.

Abramoff helped arrange Bush meeting for Malaysian leader: report - Yahoo! News

2006-02-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and corruption charges, may have helped arrange a 2002 meeting between President George W. Bush and then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, a US newspaper reported.

The report printed in The Los Angeles Times comes after the White House has repeatedly denied it had dealings with Abramoff, who is charged with defrauding American Indian tribes that sought his services in establishing their gambling operations and influence peddling in the US Congress.

Mahathir Mohamad had been chastised by the Clinton administration for repeated anti-Semitic statements and for jailing political opponents and thought a meeting with Bush would help improve his image, The Times said.

Citing an unnamed witness, the newspaper said Abramoff had contacted presidential advisor Karl Rove on at least four occasions in a bid to arrange a meeting.

Finally, the former associate said, Rove's office called to tell Abramoff that the Malaysian leader soon would be getting an official White House invitation, according to the report.

In May 2002, Mahathir met with Bush in the Oval Office and his photograph with the president was beamed around the world.

The paper said Abramoff received 1.2 million dollars from the Malaysian government for his lobbying services in 2001 and 2002, and documents obtained by Senate investigators appear to confirm at least 900,000 dollars of that amount.

It is not clear how central Abramoff was in arranging the Oval Office session, The Times pointed out. The White House says the meeting was arranged through normal channels.

Last month, Abramoff pleaded guilty to improperly influencing members of Congress and their aides by offering foreign travel and other benefits and later seeking favors from some of them.

He often routed lobbying fees through nonprofit organizations to evade taxes or hide the sources of the funds, the paper said.

The Malaysian payments were made to the American International Center, a bogus think tank that an Abramoff partner, Michael Scanlon, set up at a Delaware beach house, according to the report.

Abramoff and Scanlon have admitted using the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients.

By routing the money in that way, Abramoff identified his client on federal lobbying disclosure forms as the Delaware-based center and avoided having to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government, The Times said.

Abramoff Bragged of Ties to Rove - Los Angeles Times

2006-02-15T13:31:00.000-05:00

The disgraced lobbyist helped get Bush to meet the leader of Malaysia, a former associate says.
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

February 15, 2006

WASHINGTON — When the government of Malaysia sought to repair its tarnished image in the U.S. by arranging a meeting between President Bush and its controversial prime minister in 2002, it followed the same strategy as many other well-heeled interests in Washington: It called on lobbyist Jack Abramoff for help.

It was a tall order. The then-prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, had been chastised by the Clinton administration for repeated anti-Semitic statements and for jailing political opponents. But it was important to the Malaysians, according to a former Abramoff associate who attended meetings with the Malaysian ambassador and the lobbyist.

Abramoff contacted presidential advisor Karl Rove on at least four occasions to help arrange a meeting, the witness said.

Finally, the former associate said, Rove's office called to tell Abramoff that the Malaysian leader soon would be getting an official White House invitation.

Neither the former Abramoff associate nor any others who spoke about the Malaysian contacts wanted their names used, out of fear they might damage future business opportunities.

In May 2002, Mahathir met with Bush in the Oval Office; his photograph with the president was beamed around the world.

Abramoff received $1.2 million from the Malaysian government for his lobbying services in 2001 and 2002, the former associate said. Documents obtained by Senate investigators appear to confirm at least $900,000 of that amount.

It's not clear how central Abramoff was in arranging the Oval Office session. The White House says the meeting was arranged through normal channels.

But it was clear, the former associate said, that Abramoff took credit for it. His reputation for close relationships with the White House and congressional officials enabled him to charge stratospheric fees from his lobbying clients — and the president's meeting with Malaysia's prime minister enhanced that reputation.

The Malaysia episode sheds new light on the practices of Abramoff, the man at the center of a burgeoning corruption scandal, and suggests closer ties than previously acknowledged between the disgraced lobbyist and the highest levels of the Bush White House.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to improperly influencing members of Congress and their aides — offering foreign travel and other benefits and later seeking favors from some of them. He often routed lobbying fees through nonprofit organizations to evade taxes or hide the sources of the funds.

The Malaysian payments were made to the American International Center, a bogus think tank that an Abramoff partner, Michael P.S. Scanlon, set up at a Delaware beach house. Abramoff and Scanlon have admitted using the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients.

By routing the money in that way, Abramoff identified his client on federal lobbying disclosure forms as the Delaware-based center and avoided having to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government.

After the Malaysian leader's White House meeting, the former associate said, Abramoff was invited to a dinner honoring the prime minister at the Malaysian Embassy and was given a seat near the head table.

At least one other Washington lobbying firm — Alexander Strategies, which was run by an Abramoff friend and former chief of staff to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) — was compensated during this period for helping boost Malaysia's reputation in Washington. That firm was also given credit in some circles for helping to arrange the White House meeting and separate trips for leading members of Congress, including DeLay and several Democrats, to Malaysia.

The former associate was the only person to observe Abramoff's direct contacts with Rove, and he heard only Abramoff's end of the conversation. He recalled Abramoff picking up his ringing cellphone, looking at the caller identification and saying, "It's Karl." Abramoff listened for a few seconds and gave the former associate the thumbs-up sign. Abramoff then closed his phone and said the official invitation was forthcoming. "Call the ambassador," he said.

Apart from the direct contacts between Rove and Abramoff, the former associate's description of the Malaysia episode was backed by another former Abramoff associate and by documents released last year by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Both said Abramoff talked of his access to Rove and cited his relationship with Susan Ralston, Rove's administrative assistant. Before joining the White House staff, Ralston was an assistant to Abramoff.

One of the former associates said Abramoff referred to Ralston as his "implant" in the White House.

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said Tuesday that Rove had "no recollection" of any conversations with Abramoff regarding the Malaysian meeting.

She said the meeting was arranged through "normal staffing channels."

The meeting took place as Malaysian and U.S. officials were discussing that nation's participation in the post-Sept. 11 campaign against terrorism. Malaysia is a heavily Muslim country.

"At the time [Mahathir] was Asia's longest-serving prime minister and an influential Islamic leader," Healy said. "The president met with him to discuss Malaysia's role in the war on terrorism."

Healy said Rove considered Abramoff a "casual acquaintance."

White House officials said Ralston's hiring had nothing to do with her prior association with Abramoff. Healy said she was a "valued member of the White House team."

Although White House officials have taken pains to distance Bush and his aides from Abramoff, hoping to shield the president from the scandal's political fallout, former associates say Abramoff often bragged of his ties to the highest levels of the administration.

One lobbyist recalls Abramoff's frequent refrain when confronting important legislative issues: "I'll call Karl on that."

The Malaysian Embassy did not respond to requests for comment on Abramoff's work.

Bills from the American International Center to the Malaysian Embassy have been turned over to a Senate committee investigating Abramoff's representation of Indian tribes, which he has admitted to defrauding.

Lobbying records show that Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the center but did not disclose that the funds originated with the government of Malaysia.

According to one of Abramoff's former associates, Abramoff said he did not need to disclose Malaysia as a client on federal lobbying disclosure forms — or to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department — because the money had come from the American International Center.

Abramoff's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, declined to comment on any aspect of Abramoff's work for Malaysia.

The failure of Abramoff and his colleagues at Greenberg Traurig to register as foreign agents was initially a topic of interest to the Justice Department, which is investigating Abramoff's contacts with lawmakers and executive branch officials as part of an ongoing fraud and bribery case. Abramoff has pleaded guilty in that case and is helping federal prosecutors. But a person familiar with that inquiry said the issue had not been pursued recently, perhaps because the law had many loopholes.

This person, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Abramoff's relationship with Rove had "not been a matter of any great significance" in the Justice Department inquiry.

The Oval Office meeting with Mahathir, on May 14, 2002, was publicly warm, with Bush praising Mahathir for his "friendship" and "strong support" in the war on terrorism.

The meeting rehabilitated the Malaysian leader's reputation only temporarily, and the appearance of friendliness between the two emerged as a political headache for Bush.

Eight months after the meeting, Mahathir surprised the opening session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by warning the U.S. against its looming invasion of Iraq — "out-terrorizing the terrorists," he called it.

Later that year, he said the U.S. was fighting terrorism "through attacking Muslim countries and Muslims, whether they are guilty or not."

He went on to make anti-Semitic comments, charging that "Jews rule this world" and get "others to fight and die for them."

Democrats charged that Bush was slow to rebuke the prime minister.

In October 2003, he pulled Mahathir aside at an international economic conference to express his disapproval, calling the remarks "wrong" and "divisive," according to a White House spokesman.

Mahathir later emerged as an issue in Bush's reelection campaign, as Republicans aggressively courted Jewish voters.

One such GOP outreach featured Mahathir pictured beside Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat above a Kerry quote in which he said "foreign leaders" wanted him to win the election. The campaign mailer suggested Mahathir and Arafat, "renowned for their hatred of the Jewish people," supported Kerry.

On one occasion, Abramoff — an orthodox Jew and a supporter of Israel — was asked whether he was comfortable representing a country led by a man known for anti-Semitic comments.

Abramoff responded, "They pay their bills on time."

The Raw Story | Before lobbying scandals, Abramoff group had hand in apartheid wars

2006-02-15T13:30:00.000-05:00

Filed by Danny Schechter

Lobbyist tied to group supporting apartheid South Africa; Spokesman vehemently denies

It was a quiet night in June 1985 in the equatorial heat of Jamba, a small town in the heartland of Angola, the oil and diamond-rich African nation that was divided by a bloody civil war for 30 years. Jamba at the time was a base for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement, a tribal secessionist army bizarrely funded by Communist China and the CIA at the same time.

A top-secret meeting was then underway between Savimbi and his boosters, led by a young American Republican activist named Jack Abramoff. He was there representing an organization he founded, the International Freedom Foundation. The group was codenamed "Pacman."

Also present, a South African newspaper reports, "Leaders of the Afghan mujahedin, Nicaraguan contras, Laotian guerrillas and members of the Oliver North American right."

UNITA's strongman, the late Jonas Savimbi, who fancied calling himself Dr. Savimbi, was a masterful guerilla fighter who became the darling of the American right wing as it rallied to the cause of UNITA's main ally, racist South Africa. Conservatives dubbed him a freedom fighter, heralding him as their Che Guevara. In the end 600,000 people, mostly civilians would die in this bloody conflict, many as a result of atrocities perpetuated by UNITA.

Abramoff's trip to Angola had been paid for by right-wing New York financier Lewis Lehrman as part of an effort to create a global anti-communist alliance. (Lehrman later fired Abramoff, who would go on to become the most notorious lobbyist in America, for inflating his expense reports, a portent of practices to come.)

Abramoff, an ultra-orthodox Jew recalled an incident when he left the meeting to pray in the bush. "When I went out to pray," he would later write, they thought he was a "mystic."

There was nothing mystical about the U.S. policies Abramoff was then covertly advancing.

Savimbi was invited by President Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1986, where Reagan spoke of UNITA winning "a victory that electrifies the world." The African strongman was also supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which sent analysts to to visit with Savimbi in his clandestine Angolan camps. They also offered the rebel leader political and military guidance in his war against the Marxist Angolan government.

Savimbi's U.S.-based supporters ultimately convinced the CIA to covertly channel weapons to Savimbi's war, which kindled the conflict.

This early period in Abramoff's career has been largely ignored in most of the American media. It was the period in which he began building relations with tribal people, a practice he would parlay into serving as a very well-compensated lobbyist for American Indian tribes in the lucrative gambling industry.

His fascination with Africa would lead to a lobbying contract for the Congo's Mobutu Seso Seko, a Savimbi supporter and then the richest and most corrupt dictator on the continent. Mobutu's critics charged he ran a "kleptocracy" -- government by thieves -- based on the violent suppression of human rights while Abramoff represented him.

Abramoff would later be accused of becoming a kleptocrat in his own right.

South African training ground

Apartheid South Africa offered Abramoff the chance to make a big name and big money. At that time, the country was rocked by uprisings in the townships and challenged by the artists who backed a cultural boycott of South Africa's "Sun City," the top gambling resort and entertainment venue. South Africa's apartheid's rulers decided to fight back against the likes of activists like singer Little Steven Van Zandt by channeling state funds into media projects they could later deny they were linked with.

Jack Abramoff had first visited South Africa in 1983, as head of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). South Africa's Mail and Guardian reported on the International Freedom Foundation on February 10, 2006: "The IFF was officially headquartered in Washington, where the South Africans were given entrance into the American political establishment by Abramoff and the Young Republicans. But, it was effectively run from Johannesburg. Newsday reported that the Johannesburg office was "the nerve centre of IFF operations worldwide."

In 1995, South Africa's Truth Commission revealed that the apartheid regime helped launch the IFF, funneling it $1.5 million a year to allay "image problems" and to smear Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

Abramoff enlisted in South Africa's cultural war and suddenly found himself sitting pretty as the head of a Hollywood movie studio called Regency Enterprises. The idea was to make anti-communist films that could denigrate the anti-apartheid movement. Jack became a credited screenwriter.

The movie was "Red Scorpion" starring the very Aryan-looking Dolph Lundgren. It pictured African liberation fighters as surrogates for Soviet totalitarians. The plot: "A Russian KGB agent is sent to Africa to kill an anti-Communist black revolutionary." The tagline: "He's a human killing machine. Taught to stalk. Trained to kill. Programmed to destroy. He's played by their rules... Until now."

Abramoff's African work was now on the big screen.

The movie, made in South African-occupied Namibia, was denounced by Hollywood supporters of the cultural boycott like Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee and Robert DeNiro for supporting apartheid. Other critics called it "homoerotic" and overpatriotic." Abramoff later was executive producer of a sequel, Red Scorpion 2.

Anti-communist movie 'got apartheid funds'

For years, Abramoff publicly denied South African financing, but on January 24, 2006, the Mail & Guardian quoted one-time apartheid spy Craig Williamson as now admitting that the money came directly from the South African military.

Wrote the Mail & Guardian, "Among Abramoff's South African projects was the anti-communist film Red Scorpion, made in South African-occupied Namibia and, according to Williamson, funded by the South African military."

Why the military? The newspaper reveals: "The IFF was ostensibly founded as a conservative think-tank, but was in reality part of an elaborate South African military intelligence operation, code-named Operation Babushka. Established to combat sanctions and undermine the African National Congress, it also supported Jonas Savimbi and his rebel Angolan movement, Unita."

The movie was modeled romantically on Savimbi's "War for Freedom" but was also riddled with stereotypes and crude propaganda.

Sample exchange: "Colonel Zayas: Are you out of your mind?"

"Lt. Nikolai: No. Just out of bullets. [Burps]."

Through his connections, Abramoff procured a Soviet-made WWII-era T-34 tank with a 76mm cannon for the final battle sequence.

An amateur reviewer posted an insightful comment on a film website which may have foreseen the off-screen drama that Abramoff himself is now starring in. "Looking beyond the mindless action scenes (which, despite the countless guns and explosions), there is a good fable about the possibility of manipulating truth, and how appearance is not always truth."

Spokesman calls claims of apartheid support 'defamatory'

IFF sought to destabilize the African National Congress and took up the cause of discrediting Nelson Mandela. The African National Congress leader's freedom was demanded by millions at the time, with the exception of politicians like then-Congressman Dick Cheney, who voted against a Congressional resolution calling for Mandela's release from prison. (Cheney also opposed overturning Ronald Reagan's ban on sanctions against South Africa, a ban Jack Abramoff personally worked in Hollywood to support as a Pretoria-funded agent.)

Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, denied that Abramoff had ever supported apartheid and called any such implications "false and defamatory."

"It is untrue that Jack Abramoff ever supported apartheid," Blum said in an email to RAW STORY. "As the media at the time reflected, Mr. Abramoff's involvement in the Washington office of IFF occured in the mid-1980s, was short-lived, and was when IFF came out against apartheid and for the release of Nelson Mandella. In fact, Mr. Abramoff was criticized at the time in pro-South African governmentcircles for these positions. Mr. Abramoff did no work to advance the agenda of the South African apartheid government.

He added, "Mr. Abramoff's anti-apartheid positions were clear and never contradicted in any forum. Any suggestion, implication or reporting that Mr. Abramoff was ever pro-apartheid or working for the interests of the South African government are false and defamatory."

Abramoff's spokesman and a second individual at the lobbyist's lawyer's office did not reply to a second inquiry seeking examples of Abramoff's anti-apartheid positions.

#

Print Story: Abramoff Said to Claim Close Ties to Rove on Yahoo! News

2006-02-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

By JOHN SOLOMON and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers
Tue Feb 14, 2:45 AM ET

Three former associates of Jack Abramoff say the now-convicted lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.

The White House said Monday night that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.

New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. The White House would not release the photo or any others that Bush had taken with Abramoff. Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family.

Three former business associates of Abramoff, who worked with the lobbyist in various roles between 2001 and 2004, told The Associated Press that Abramoff routinely mentioned Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

One said he was present when Abramoff took a call from Rove's office to confirm a White House meeting had been approved between Malaysia's prime minister and Bush in May 2002. Abramoff was being paid by Malaysia for helping it in Washington, according to evidence the Senate has made public.

All three associates would describe the Abramoff comments only on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation of Abramoff's work and fears that speaking out could affect their current businesses. At least one said he had been interviewed by the FBI.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.

According to one of the three former associates, frequently Abramoff's cell phone would ring and the lobbyist would tell the associate that the White House was calling. To prove that he wasn't making up what he was telling the associate, Abramoff occasionally would hold up the phone so that the associate could see the incoming call was indeed a White House phone number.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery conspiracy case and is cooperating with the investigation into those in Congress and the administration he used to lobby.

Asked about the three former Abramoff associates' account, the White House said Rove shared a common past with Abramoff as leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

Healy said Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about the Malaysian prime minister's meeting in May 2002. She said Bush first met the prime minister at a foreign summit in October 2001 and that the 2002 meeting in the Oval Office was "another opportunity to get together to discuss the war on terror."

AllAroundPhilly -White House Acknowledges Abramoff Photo

2006-02-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Sunday acknowledged the authenticity of the first photograph made public that shows President Bush and embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, while stressing it does not mean the two had a personal relationship.

The photo, published by The New York Times and Time magazine, shows Bush shaking hands with an Abramoff client, chairman Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Indian tribe in Texas. Abramoff's bearded face appears in the background, small and slightly blurry.

White House spokesman Allen Abney said the photo was taken in 2001, when the president dropped by a meeting of about two dozen state legislators to thank them for supporting tax relief.

Originally, the White House said it had no record of Abramoff's attendance at the meeting.

"We now know that Mr. Abramoff attended this meeting," Abney said Sunday. "The president has taken tens of thousands of pictures. This does not mean he has a personal relationship with each individual that is in those pictures."

The White House would not release the photo or any others that Bush had taken with Abramoff, who helped raise more than $100,000 for the president's re-election campaign. Abramoff has since pleaded guilty to federal charges related to an influence-peddling scandal on Capitol Hill.

Bush has said that he had his picture taken with Abramoff an unknown number of times, but he doesn't remember any of them.

TIME.com Print Page: Nation -- First Photo of Bush and Abramoff

2006-02-11T20:55:00.000-05:00

White House had initially said there was no record of disgraced lobbyist at 2001 meeting
By ADAM ZAGORIN AND MATTHEW COOPER/WASHINGTON
Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a journalist friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush "has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, He "saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids." The White House, however, has continued to assert that the President had no recollection of ever meeting Abramoff. When TIME reported in January that it had viewed unpublished photographs of Abramoff with Bush, aides responded that the pictures meant nothing since the President is photographed with thousands of supporters and White House visitors every year.

Now, finally, the first such photo has come to light. It shows a bearded Abramoff in the background as Bush greets an Abramoff client, Raul Garza, who was then the chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas; Bush senior advisor Karl Rove looks on. The photograph was provided to TIME by Mr. Garza. The meeting took place in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House on May 9, 2001. Told about the photograph in January, the White House said it had no record that Abramoff was present at the meeting. Shown the photograph today, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the White House had still found no record of Abramoff's presence but confirmed that it is Abramoff in the picture. McClellan told TIME: "The president has taken countless, tens of thousands of pictures at home and abroad over the last five years. As we've said previously a photo like this has no relevance to the Justice Department's investigation (of Abramoff)."

This meeting, however, was a relatively small gathering attended by some two dozen people, including Garza and another Indian tribal leader who was Abramoff's client. At least two tribes, the Coushatta of Louisiana and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw, contributed $25,000 each to the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, a well-known conservative ally of the White House. Garza, who is also known by his Indian name, Makateonenodua, meaning "black buffalo," is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe. (More photos of him with the President are available on his website Makateonenodua.com).

Talking about the photo, Abramoff has told friends, "I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked." A photograph of that scene as described by Abramoff was shown to TIME two weeks ago. Abramoff's lawyers have said that their client has long had photographs of himself with Bush, but that he has no intention of releasing any of them. Abramoff would not comment on the matter.

Benigno Fitial, the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, told TIME he attended the 2001 meeting as well. Then an Abramoff client, the governor recalled asking the President a question about tax policy as part of a discussion among the small group after Bush had given a short speech on the subject. Fitial was seeking low-tax and relaxed labor regulations for the Northern Marianas at the time. Fitial said he used a photograph of himself with President Bush taken at the meeting in his campaign for governor.

Fitial recalled that the President was "very gracious" at the session. "He knew quite a few of the people in the room; I know that because he called them by their first name. The responses showed that the President was no stranger to these people, he said. "And the response was very warm on both sides."

Photograph Shows Lobbyist at Bush Meeting With Legislators - New York Times

2006-02-11T20:53:00.000-05:00

By PHILIP SHENON and LOWELL BERGMAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — After weeks in which the White House has declined to release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small, partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr. Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001.

By itself, the picture hardly seems worthy of the White House's efforts to keep it out of the public eye. Mr. Abramoff, a leading Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public officials, is little more than a blurry, bearded figure in the background at a gathering of about two dozen people.

But it provides a window, albeit an opaque one, into Mr. Abramoff's efforts to sell himself to Indian tribes as a man of influence who could open the most secure doors in Washington to them. And it leaves unanswered questions about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were supporting Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut plan.

The White House confirmed the authenticity of the photograph. It was provided to The New York Times by the Indian chief, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of southwest Texas. Mr. Garza, who is under indictment on federal charges of embezzling money from his tribe, said he was eager to demonstrate that he had "nothing to hide" in his dealings with the White House and Mr. Abramoff.

A lawyer for Mr. Garza said Mr. Abramoff arranged for the chief to attend the meeting, in a conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. The meeting took place at a time when the lobbyist was seeking a contract to represent the 800-member tribe and its casino, which was producing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in revenue. Mr. Abramoff never got the contract.

It is not clear what contact, if any, Mr. Abramoff had with Mr. Bush during the 20 minutes or so that the session lasted.

Mr. Garza said he had been offered money from news organizations to reproduce the photograph, which also shows in partial profile Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, at the May 9, 2001, meeting. The chief did not seek payment from The Times for the photo — and two others in which he appears with Mr. Bush — but insisted without explanation that they be published only in black and white.

The picture was taken by a White House photographer.

The president's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Friday that the presence of the lobbyist and Mr. Garza at the meeting, which was organized to thank a group of state legislators who supported the president's 2001 tax cut program, did not suggest that Mr. Abramoff had any special influence at the White House. Mr. Bush has said he cannot recall having met Mr. Abramoff, though the White House has not disputed accounts that Mr. Abramoff visited the White House on several occasions.

Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Abramoff's name had not appeared on the invitation list of the May 2001 meeting and that it was unclear how the lobbyist had entered the White House grounds. A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff had no comment on the photograph or on his contacts with Mr. Garza.

It is not clear how Mr. Abramoff might have gotten Mr. Garza included in the president's meeting. White House records show the meeting was also attended by Grover Norquist, a friend of Mr. Abramoff's who is a leading conservative strategist and president of the group Americans for Tax Reform, which was helping to rally support for Mr. Bush's tax cuts. A spokesman for Mr. Norquist declined to comment on Mr. Norquist's involvement in the meeting.

Abramoff Pressed GSA Contact on Getting Land

2006-02-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 11, 2006
Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson charged yesterday that he and his wife, ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, are victims of character assassination by the Bush White House.

"This administration used national security information for political ends, notably to compromise my wife’s identify as a CIA clandestine officer. There is no doubt about that," Wilson said at the Ohio Newspaper Association’s annual meeting in Columbus.

But the 25-year diplomat, who also served under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said the issue is much larger.

"This is not just about two people. This is a debate over what sort of country are we."

Wilson offered an insider assessment of the Iraq war and the Bush administration in a candid 45-minute speech at the Hyatt on Capitol Square.

"What I worry about, and what all Americans should worry about, is the extent to which the national security rationale for collecting information was perverted by political types for political reasons."

White House spokesman Allen K. Abney would not respond directly.

"He’s making all these comments in the context of an ongoing investigation," Abney said. "We’re not going to comment on this."

Wilson came under scrutiny in 2003 after he challenged President Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa in an effort to build a nuclear arsenal.

Having been assigned to check out that allegation on a trip to Niger in 2002, and finding it without basis, Wilson said he was surprised to see the president use it as a rationale for the Iraq war.

"It was . . . my duty to call my government to account."

He did that in a 1,500-word New York Times opinion-page piece titled "What I Did Not Find in Africa."

Shortly after that, columnist Robert Novak disclosed the identity of Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative, possibly in violation of federal law forbidding disclosure of people in sensitive intelligence positions. Wilson said it was Bush administration retaliation.

The disclosure triggered a federal investigation that led to Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, and resulted in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that documents filed by federal special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicate that Libby told a federal grand jury that his superiors approved leaking sensitive security information to the news media to support the Iraq invasion.

Wilson said the administration misled the American people about the invasion.

"I believe . . . that when you send your soldiers, sailors, Air Force and Marines off to kill and to die in the name of the American people, we need to know precisely what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, why we’re asking them to pay that price."

The "longest-lasting wound" of the war, Wilson said, will be losing "our ability to lead the world."

While Wilson acknowledged that he and his wife are facing formidable opponents, he dismissed it as insignificant compared to his challenges as ambassador in Iraq during the Gulf war.

"If in your life you’ve been able to face down Saddam Hussein, facing down the likes Scooter Libby isn’t all that challenging."

Wilson, who is a registered Democrat, supported U.S. Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign. He has also written a book, The Politics of Truth.

Aaron McLear, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said, "Joe Wilson’s insatiable quest for the limelight continues to be long on selfpromotion and short on facts. Misstatements, inaccuracies, partisan rants and outright untruths have been hallmarks of his sensational attempts to smear this administration while promoting his favorite product: Joe Wilson."

Los Angeles Times: Abramoff's Charity Began at Home

2006-02-11T10:01:00.001-05:00

The lobbyist admits he used nonprofits to evade taxes, pad his pockets and bribe officials.
By Chuck Neubauer and Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writers

February 11, 2006

WASHINGTON — In his own way, disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff engaged in many charitable endeavors over the course of his decade-long career as a Washington insider.

There was the time he laundered money through a religious group's accounts to try to bribe a congressional aide. He diverted funds from a youth athletic foundation to bankroll a golf junket for a congressman and to bolster the bank account of his Washington restaurant. He used two other nonprofits to line his own pockets with millions of dollars defrauded from clients.

Charities are supposed to advance the public interest, which is why they aren't taxed. But Abramoff, by his own admission, used them to evade taxes, enrich himself and bribe public officials, according to a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in January.

"One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence," said Mark Everson, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Abramoff's use and misuse of nonprofits played a key role in each of the three counts of his indictment: conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion. He admitted evading $1.7 million in income taxes over three years, in part by using nonprofits to conceal personal income from the IRS.

The fast-growing ranks of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations are tailor-made for operators like Abramoff.

The number of tax-exempt groups in the United States has tripled over the last three decades, but nonprofit groups usually pay no tax, so there is little incentive for the IRS to keep an eye on them.

The lack of oversight is especially meaningful in Washington, where trade associations, public-interest groups and grass-roots lobbying organizations all have tax-exempt status under generous IRS rules designed to foster public debate. Members of Congress are also getting into the act and forming their own charities.

Abramoff and a partner, Michael P.S. Scanlon, a onetime aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), admitted bilking Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars and attempting to bribe public officials. They used a network of charities and other nonprofits — some existing, some they created — to forge a full-service influence-peddling operation.

They included:

• The Capital Athletic Foundation, created by Abramoff as a sports-oriented youth charity. He funded it with millions improperly diverted from his lobbying clients and treated it as his "personal piggy bank," a lawmaker said, spending money on pet projects that had nothing to do with its stated purpose.

• The American International Center, a bogus "international think tank" at a beach house near Rehoboth Beach, Del. Abramoff and Scanlon used the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients and then send it to their personal bank accounts.

• Toward Tradition, a nonprofit in Mercer Island, Wash., that promotes "traditional Judeo Christian values" and was used to help Abramoff funnel an alleged $50,000 bribe of an aide to DeLay.

• The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, an obscure conservative organization that Abramoff used to defraud an Indian tribe and an offshore gaming alliance of at least $2 million for his and Scanlon's personal enrichment.

Abramoff's story is not just one of clever fraudsters, but of the seeming willingness of some donors and charities to look the other way. They say that they too are victims, although some experts question whether they were diligent enough.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the head of Toward Tradition, said he had no reason to be suspicious of a gift from an Abramoff client called eLottery, even though his organization is avowedly anti-gambling. Abramoff, a former board member of the group, was considered a trusted friend.

"Toward Tradition and I interact with thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations every year," Lapin said in a statement. "It is just unrealistic to suppose that none of these relationships are ever going to become problematic. There was no reason for Toward Tradition to spurn Jack Abramoff's support."

Some experts say charities ask for trouble when they accept gifts with strings attached.

"The moment the donor appears to have a vested interest in who I hire and how I conduct my business … I think I have an obligation to look into that," said Diana Aviv, the president and chief executive of Independent Sector, a Washington-based coalition that lobbies on behalf of nonprofit groups.

The story of Abramoff's misuse of charities and nonprofits was pieced together from his plea agreement, nonprofit tax returns, interviews, and e-mails and other documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, as well as testimony from the committee's hearings on Abramoff.

The Senate Finance Committee is investigating Abramoff's use of charities and other tax-exempt organizations, and has requested detailed information from the Capital Athletic Foundation and the National Center for Public Policy Research

Abramoff, a Republican activist since college, became a lobbyist when the GOP captured control of Congress in 1994. He was good at his job. Among his early handiwork was helping to preserve tax breaks for the $20-billion-a-year Indian gaming industry, which bankrolls schools, hospitals and tourist attractions for the tribes.

By the new millennium, he was viewed as one of the most powerful and effective lobbyists in Washington. In January 2001, he moved his lobbying business to the new Washington office of the Greenberg Traurig law firm of Miami, which would become the base for an even more aggressive operation.

Abramoff, by then secretly in partnership with Scanlon, aggressively recruited new Indian tribes as clients. In addition to paying lobbying fees to Greenberg, Abramoff persuaded the tribes to send millions to Scanlon's consulting firm, Capitol Campaign Strategies, which performed "grass-roots and public relations work" for inflated fees.

Through that arrangement, according to their guilty pleas, the men secretly split about $40 million they stole from the tribes between 2001 and 2004.

Less than a year into his new job, Abramoff engineered his first major fraud involving a charity, converting a $1-million check that one of his new tribal clients, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, had written to Greenberg for lobbying services.

He persuaded his new partners at Greenberg Traurig that the Coushatta intended the money as a contribution to a charitable organization, the Capital Athletic Foundation. Abramoff had organized the group a few years earlier. The law firm forwarded the money.

But he told Scanlon he wanted the money to first go through Greenberg to pump up its lobbying revenues so it did not drop out of the ranks of the top 10 lobbying firms. The tribe believed that the money was being used for lobbying or political activities on its behalf. Scanlon sent the tribe a fraudulent $1-million invoice on behalf of Greenberg — misspelling it "Greenburg" — for "public affairs services." Greenberg had not authorized the invoice; the Coushatta had not authorized giving the money to the Capital Athletic Foundation.

Abramoff had thus achieved an unusual twofer: He defrauded the tribe out of its money using the false Greenberg invoice, and then shook the money loose from Greenberg by telling his partners that it was a charitable donation from the Coushatta.

"In my personal view, this payment reveals the extent of Mr. Abramoff's shamelessness," David Sickey, a Coushatta tribal council member, told a Senate panel investigating Abramoff last fall.

Getting money from the Coushatta was "an absolute cake walk," Scanlon e-mailed Abramoff.

Greenberg Traurig fired Abramoff nearly two years ago after learning of "conduct we found unacceptable," the firm said in a statement. The firm said it was cooperating with investigators.

Abramoff's spokesman had no comment for this story. Scanlon's attorney did not respond to written questions.

The Coushatta check was the first of several large payments that Abramoff and Scanlon diverted from clients, often by laundering the sums through friendly charities. Abramoff used the $1 million as seed money for the athletic foundation, which he had formed in 1999 and was apparently his favorite "charity." It was established with the stated mission of funding sports programs in the Washington area. But tax records show that little money went for that purpose.

Soon after the Coushatta check was received, for example, Abramoff and a business associate discussed in e-mails depositing the $1 million in a Maryland bank headed by a friendly banker to help "grease" the way for obtaining a favorable bank reference letter for an oil-drilling venture in Israel. They deposited the money in the athletic foundation's account at the bank in November 2001, but it is not clear whether he got his letter or what happened to the oil deal.

In early 2002, the bank account grew when another tribal client — the Mississippi Choctaws — made the first of two $500,000 payments to the athletic foundation. Tribal leaders testified that they had been led to believe it would be "passed through" to other organizations that would support grass-roots projects to educate voters about Indian gaming issues.

Around the time the first $500,000 was received in the foundation's bank account, $200,000 was transferred out of the account to Livsar Enterprises, the holding company that Abramoff had set up to establish Signatures, the high-end restaurant he was getting ready to open the following month in Washington, The Times learned.

An e-mail exchange with his restaurant partner showed that Abramoff had been anxiously awaiting the Choctaw money as they scrambled to get the restaurant opened. The Choctaw money arrived Jan. 3. His partner wrote that night that a banker "really saved us today" by transferring money from the athletic foundation to the restaurant account. Money was transferred back a few weeks later.

The restaurant became a centerpiece of Abramoff's lobbying operation, where he wined and dined congressmen and their staffs as part of his acknowledged bribery schemes.

The athletic foundation gave Abramoff an aura of respectability around town. He once persuaded Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to lend his name to a fundraiser for the foundation, although the benefit never took place.

The athletic foundation also gave Abramoff access to millions for his pet causes, many of which dovetailed with his orthodox Jewish beliefs. The biggest beneficiary was Eshkol Academy, an Orthodox Jewish boys school he founded in Columbia, Md., which at least one of his sons attended. The foundation also sent $100,000 to an Israeli settler who ran a sniper training workshop for militant Jews.

Abramoff has admitted that he used the foundation to pay the $166,000 cost of a trip to play the storied St. Andrew's golf course in Scotland, which included Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), two top aides and others.

Abramoff admitted in his plea agreement that the trip was part of a bribery scheme intended to offer "things of value" to Ney and his staff in exchange for a series of official acts. Ney, who has denied any wrongdoing, is under federal investigation.

Abramoff also acknowledged that in raising money toward the golf outing, he defrauded two clients that thought they were donating to an athletic foundation. He obtained $25,000 apiece from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and SPI Spirits Group, the manufacturer of Stolichnaya vodka. Officials of the Chippewa tribe have said they made the donation because Abramoff told them it would impress DeLay.

There is no indication that DeLay knew his name was being used this way.

"The congressman would never allow his name to be used for nefarious purposes as is the case here," said DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty.

Abramoff told a fellow lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig, Tony Rudy, in an e-mail that the athletic foundation was "a foundation doing some issues education." But another lobbyist at the firm, Todd Boulanger, suspected something was awry.

Asked by Rudy to help raise funds from the Chippewa, Boulanger responded in an e-mail, "I'm sensing shadiness."

Rudy, a top aide to DeLay before going to work for Abramoff, figured in an earlier chapter of the lobbyist's saga.

It involved another node in Abramoff's network of nonprofits: Toward Tradition, the Judeo Christian group that supports "a moral public culture," according to its website.

In 2000, Abramoff got lobbying clients to give Toward Tradition $50,000 and he set the condition that it be used to hire Rudy's wife, when Rudy was on DeLay's staff. She was hired to organize a Washington political conference the nonprofit was planning.

Abramoff admitted in his plea bargain that the payment was intended to bribe the DeLay aide to help block legislative restrictions on Internet gambling and increases in postal rates. The money came from eLottery, an Internet lottery firm, and the Magazine Publishers Assn. The proposed Internet restrictions were voted down, and the rate increases were slowed.

Both organizations said they didn't know what the money would ultimately be used for. They said the contributions were made at the direction of Abramoff and his lieutenants in the hope of burnishing the clients' images among conservatives in power in Washington.

Rudy did not respond to several requests for comment.

For all the money that was coursing through his operation, Abramoff seemed under constant financial stress because of the drain from his school and restaurant.

Moreover, some of his tribal clients were starting to balk at his stiff fees. But he managed to tide himself over, and nonprofits were once again the vehicle.

One was the National Center for Public Policy Research, a small conservative Washington think tank on whose board Abramoff had sat for years. It was run by his old friend Amy Ridenour.

"I completely trusted Jack," Ridenour told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigating Abramoff in June. She told them she now believed he lied to her and defrauded her organization and the tribe.

Abramoff used the group as a money laundromat.

In 2002, he had the Choctaws write a $1-million check to the center, purportedly to educate the public on the benefits of Indian gaming. He convinced Ridenour that the tribe wanted to donate $450,000 to the athletic foundation and pay $500,000 to Capitol Campaign Strategies, Scanlon's consulting firm, for the educational work. The final $50,000 would go to a businessman to run the program.

She later learned the $50,000 paid a personal debt of Abramoff's. She also said she hadn't realized Scanlon was sharing his fees with Abramoff, or that the tribe had not authorized the payment to the foundation.

At a hearing in June, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) accused Abramoff and Scanlon of profiting by $1 million in this deal and committing what "appears to be a $1-million fraud."

In 2003, Abramoff used the center again to convert $1.25 million from an offshore gambling client to a company called Kaygold, which turned out to be his personal holding company. It operated from his home and had no other employees.

Meanwhile, Scanlon turned to the "global think tank" he had set up in 2001, the American International Center, a nonprofit based near a vacation home he owned on the Delaware shore and which had no discernible assets or expertise. McCain called it a "gigantic scam."

Scanlon and Abramoff had convinced the Coushatta that their profitable central Louisiana casino was endangered by competition from another tribe and the possibility that Texas would legalize casino gambling.

On April 9, 2003, the Coushatta tribe paid the American International Center $2.3 million for political and grass-roots work. Four days later, Scanlon transferred $1.3 million to his consulting firm and $991,000 to Kaygold. Scanlon spent all but $15,000 of his share for work on his home and other personal needs.

"Where it went after that, the committee cannot yet say," McCain said at the Indian Affairs Committee hearing in November. "What it can say, however, is that the Coushatta apparently received little of the intended benefits for the vast sums it paid."

Later in 2003, a tiny Alexandria, La., newspaper, the Town Talk, revealed that the Coushatta had paid Scanlon's company $13.7 million for public relations work, a grossly inflated sum. Members of the tribe began to suspect they had been duped.

In early 2004, the Washington Post revealed more details of the fraud, including the fact that four tribal clients had paid $31 million to Scanlon's company at Abramoff's recommendation, triggering the Senate investigation.

Last month, Abramoff pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in a wide-ranging corruption probe of members of Congress and their staffs. He faces nine to 11 years in prison and penalties totaling $26.7 million.

Scanlon, who pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to defraud the Indian tribes and to bribe public officials, also is cooperating with investigators.

Abramoff's charities are dormant. His restaurant business is closed. His Jewish academy has shut down and is being sued by its former teachers for back pay.

Los Angeles Times: Abramoff's Charity Began at Home

2006-02-11T10:01:00.000-05:00

Lobbyist Confirms Talks With Reids Office

2006-02-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

One of Jack Abramoff's ex-colleagues confirmed Friday he contacted Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's office on behalf of the influential lobbyist but said he doesn't believe Abramoff's billing records accurately reflect the extent of his work.

Ronald Platt, a lobbyist who worked with Abramoff at the Greenberg Traurig firm between 2001 and 2004, said he contacted Reid's office in 2001, as the billing records show, about the timing of minimum wage legislation affecting Abramoff's Northern Mariana Islands client.

"When Abramoff first arrived at Greenberg Traurig, I did a new colleague a favor by simply asking Reid staffers about when the minimum wage legislation affecting the Mariana Islands would be voted upon by the Senate. I communicated this to Abramoff," Platt said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

AP reported Thursday that lobbying firm billing records obtained under public records law from the Northern Mariana Islands showed Abramoff billed the islands for 21 contacts in 2001 with Reid's office.

The records listed the minimum wage as the issue and Platt as the point of contact for most of those contacts. Platt had formally registered with the Senate in 2001 to lobby for the Marianas as well as some Abramoff tribal clients.

Reid's office confirmed this week it had "routine contact" with Platt over the years on lobbying issues such as the Marianas, tribes and other issues but said it could not verify all the contacts listed in the billing records.

In his statement, Platt sought to minimize the extent of his lobbying of Reid's office on behalf of Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery case.

"These contacts were incidental, insofar as I simply bumped into Reid staffers at Democratic Party functions or occurred incidental to discussions regarding my clients, not Abramoff's," Platt said. "Any contacts that I may have had in regards to Abramoff's tribal clients would have been similarly incidental."

As for the 21 contacts listed in the billing records, Platt noted Abramoff has pleaded guilty to defrauding clients and said the references in the AP story were inaccurate. He was not more specific.

Audits of Abramoff's work for the Marianas during the 1990s, when he worked for the Preston Gates lobbying firm, concluded more than $1 million in expenses could not be substantiated.

However, the 2001 Marianas billing records cited by AP were similarly audited and the island's government raised no concerns. In fact, the island's auditor concluded Greenberg Traurig had provided "more lobbyist services ... in terms of time spent" for less money than had been seen in earlier years.

Platt also said the AP did not attempt to reach him for comment before its story moved Thursday.

AP contacted Platt's new lobbying firm in late December seeking to interview him about the billing records and was referred to Greenberg Traurig.

Platt also did not return two phone messages Friday renewing a request for an interview, sending an e-mail statement instead.

Greenberg Traurig declined to comment. "Consistent with our ethical obligations to clients, our firm continues to cooperate fully with ongoing government investigations," the firm said.

Three more lawmakers tied to lobbyist

2006-02-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

Friday, February 10, 2006 · Last updated 7:22 p.m. PT

Three more lawmakers tied to lobbyist

By TONI LOCY AND PETE YOST
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS

WASHINGTON -- Three members of Congress have been linked to efforts by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a former General Services Administration official to secure leases of government property for Abramoff's clients, according to court filings by federal prosecutors on Friday.

The filings in U.S. District Court do not allege any wrongdoing by the elected officials but list them in documents portraying David Safavian, a former GSA chief of staff, as an active adviser to Abramoff, giving the lobbyists tips on how to use members of Congress to navigate the agency's bureaucracy.

Abramoff is cooperating with federal investigators in a wide-ranging probe of corruption on Capitol Hill that threatens several powerful members of Congress and their staff members. Last month, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.

Safavian is charged with lying to a GSA ethics officer when he said Abramoff was not seeking business with the agency at the time the lobbyist paid for Safavian and several others to go on a golf outing to Scotland in August 2002.

At the time of the trip, prosecutors said, Abramoff was trying to get GSA approval for leases of the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington for an Indian tribe to develop and for federal property in Silver Spring, Md., for use by a Jewish school.

Two of the elected officials referred to in Friday's filings have been identified in published reports as Reps. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, and Don Young, R-Alaska. According to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, the two representatives wrote to the GSA in September 2002, urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals for the Old Post Office.

LaTourette maintains he did nothing improper by advocating special opportunities for certain small businesses in areas known as HUBzones, or Historically Underutilized Business zones. His spokeswoman, Deborah Setliff, said that the letter was reviewed by Young's chief of staff and counsel and that it did not advocate any particular business over another.

A spokesman for Young did not return telephone calls.

Friday's filings by prosecutors refer to a third member of Congress, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Her name appears in e-mails that suggest she was trying to help Abramoff secure a GSA lease for land in Silver Spring for a religious school.

Capito claims to know nothing about the effort. "The action taken by her former chief of staff was done without her knowledge, approval or consent," said her spokesman, Joel Brubaker. "She was not aware of any contact with GSA of any type on this matter."

Mark Johnson, Capito's former chief of staff, said he did not bring the issue to Capito's attention. He said he was contacted by Neil Volz, a colleague of Abramoff's and a former chief of staff for Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio.

Johnson said Volz asked him to check on the status of a project involving the GSA. Johnson said he believes he called a friend at the GSA but doesn't recall the outcome.

Prosecutors included the e-mails in documents filed in response to a request by Safavian's lawyers to dismiss the indictment against him. Safavian's lawyers want a federal judge to throw out the charges on grounds there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

In their filing, prosecutors laid out a series of contacts between Abramoff and Safavian that show the former GSA official gave inside information and advice to the lobbyist.

Safavian used his personal e-mail during business hours to communicate with Abramoff several times, according to prosecutors. He also edited the draft of a letter that was probably sent under LaTourette and Young's names.

And Safavian advised Abramoff to tell his wife to use her maiden name during a meeting with GSA officials so she wouldn't draw attention to her politically connected husband's involvement in the project.

In a July 23, 2002, e-mail to a GSA official, Safavian discussed getting information about the Silver Spring site to Capito's office. But Volz discovered a complication the next day.

Volz told Abramoff that someone at the GSA wanted the congresswoman to put her request in writing. "We can't ask the most vulnerable Republican incumbent member of Congress in the House to put something in writing that can be made public," Volz wrote. "The congresswoman's office has already put the request in and you would think that would be enough!!!"

Ex-Abramoff client subpoenaed in Republican fundraising probe | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

2006-02-10T11:26:00.000-05:00

Channel One's parent donated to TRMPAC before education board's vote on resolution
By CLAY ROBISON and R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - New subpoenas issued by Travis County prosecutors on Thursday cast light on a campaign contribution made by Primedia Inc. in 2002 just two days before the State Board of Education cast a vote that could have affected the company's profits in Texas.

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Documents requested by the subpoenas show the New York publishing company gave $2,500 to Texans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee founded by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, on Nov. 13, 2002. The money was solicited for TRMPAC by the husband of a board member, Dallas businessman Vance Miller, according to a document obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

While the subpoenas call attention to the Primedia donation to TRMPAC at the time of the board vote, they do not appear to signal an expansion of District Attorney Ronnie Earle's investigation of DeLay and TRMPAC to include the State Board of Education.

Two days after the contribution, the education panel was scheduled to vote on a nonbinding resolution by board member Judy Strickland urging school districts to cancel their contracts with Primedia's Channel One education service because it subjects children in the classroom to commercials.

Channel One co-founder Jim Ritts flew in from New York to appear before the board in opposition to the resolution.

Miller's wife, Geraldine, offered an alternative resolution that simply emphasized that school districts should give close scrutiny to relationships with commercial entities and the marketing of products to children in schools.

The Miller resolution thwarted a possible statewide fight for Primedia to retain its Texas contracts. The resolution passed the board 12-3.

Miller is now chairman of the state education board. She said Primedia's donation to TRMPAC through her husband was not connected to the Channel One vote. "I have nothing to do with this. It (the TRMPAC contribution) had no relationship with Channel One, whatsoever," she said.

Whit Clay, a spokesman for Channel One, said the company had not yet been served with the subpoena but will comply.

The subpoenas specifically request documents relating to Primedia in regard to "pending or proposed federal legislation intended to affect the interests" of Primedia in 2002 or 2003.

The subpoenas seem to target relationships that DeLay, R-Sugar Land, had with convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff and his Washington lobby clients' donations to TRMPAC.

Abramoff was the registered lobbyist for Primedia at the time of the 2002 donations.

The subpoenas do not mention him, but former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed also was lobbying for Channel One at the time.

Several Texas public interest groups have complained to Travis County Attorney David Escamilla that Reed violated state law by failing to register as a lobbyist in 2002. Among the claims is that he called board of education members urging them to vote against Strickland's resolution.

"Clearly, Ralph Reed was contacting members of the State Board of Education on behalf of Channel One and its owner, Primedia," said Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice.

DeLay is accused of participating in a 2002 scheme to launder illegal corporate money through the Republican National Committee in exchange for legal donations to seven candidates for the Texas House.

Abramoff says he met Bush "almost a dozen" times - Yahoo! News

2006-02-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

By Andy Sullivan

Jack Abramoff said in correspondence made public on Thursday that President Bush met him "almost a dozen" times, disputing White House claims Bush did not know the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal.

"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail to Kim Eisler, national editor for the Washingtonian magazine.

Abramoff added that Bush also once invited him to his Texas ranch.

The messages were made public by the American Progress Action Fund, a liberal activist group. Eisler confirmed their accuracy to Reuters but said he did not intend them to become public.

"They reflect the feeling of frustration he has not just with Bush but with all these guys claiming they didn't know him," said Eisler, who knew Abramoff through a book he wrote about the Pequot Indian tribe.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in early January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption probe that could implicate lawmakers and officials across Washington.

Bush has said he never had a discussion with Abramoff and does not remember having his picture taken with him.

The White House has said Abramoff attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House.

Eisler said he had seen five photographs of Abramoff with Bush, none taken at Hanukkah parties.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Thursday that the revelations did not prove Bush knew him well.

"I think as the president also indicated, he's taken at least five photos with many people in this room at the annual holiday reception. And so I think you need to put this in context," McClellan said.

Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum declined to comment.

Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, a feat that won him an invitation to Bush's ranch in August 2003, the National Journal reported at the time.

"I was invited during the 2004 campaign," Abramoff told Eisler.

Abramoff said he did not make the trip because as an Orthodox Jew he cannot travel on Saturdays.

In the wake of Abramoff's indictment, the Bush-Cheney campaign said it would donate to charity $6,000 in contributions made by Abramoff or his clients, but not the money he helped raise.

The White House has acknowledged he participated in a few staff-level meetings at the White House.

Although the Abramoff scandal has mostly focused attention so far on prominent House Republicans, including former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, at least two Bush administration officials have been implicated.

David Safavian, a former White House budget official, has been charged with lying and obstructing investigations into his 2002 golf outing to Scotland with Abramoff.

Stephen Griles, the former No. 2 official at the Interior Department, has come under scrutiny after allegations he tried to block a casino at Abramoff's request.

Reid Aided Abramoff Clients, Records Show on Yahoo! News

2006-02-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

By JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writers
1 minute ago

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator's staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist's team about legislation affecting other clients.

The activities — detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press — are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbying partners and clients.

Reid's office acknowledged Thursday having "routine contacts" with Abramoff's lobbying partners and intervening on some government matters — such as blocking some tribal casinos — in ways Abramoff's clients might have deemed helpful. But it said none of his actions were affected by donations or done for Abramoff.

"All the actions that Senator Reid took were consistent with his long-held beliefs, such as not letting tribal casinos expand beyond reservations, and were taken to defend the interests of Nevada constituents," spokesman Jim Manley said.

Reid, D-Nev., has led the Democratic Party's attacks portraying Abramoff's lobbying and fundraising as a Republican scandal.

But Abramoff's records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone.

Most were to discuss Democratic legislation that would have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory and Abramoff client, but would have given the islands a temporary break on the wage rate, the billing records show.

Reid also intervened on government matters at least five times in ways helpful to Abramoff's tribal clients, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action.

Ethics rules require senators to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in collecting contributions around the times they take official acts benefiting donors.

Abramoff's firm also hired one of Reid's top legislative aides as a lobbyist. The aide later helped throw a fundraiser for Reid at Abramoff's firm that raised donations from several of his lobbying partners.

And Reid's longtime chief of staff accepted a free trip to Malaysia arranged by a consulting firm connected to Abramoff that recently has gained attention in the influence-peddling investigation that has gripped the Capitol.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery case and is now helping prosecutors investigate the conduct of lawmakers, congressional aides and administration officials his team used to lobby.

Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum declined to comment on the Reid contacts.

Reid has assailed Republicans' ties to Abramoff while refusing to return any of his own donations. He argues there's no need to return the money.

"Senator Reid never met Jack Abramoff and never has taken contributions from him, and efforts to drag him into this are going to fail," Manley said. "Abramoff is a convicted felon and no one has suggested the other partners we might have dealt with have done anything impermissible."

While Abramoff never directly donated to Reid, the lobbyist did instruct one tribe, the Coushattas, to send $5,000 to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, in 2002. About the same time, Reid sent a letter to the Interior Department helpful to the tribe, records show.

Abramoff sent a list to the tribe entitled "Coushatta Requests" recommending donations to campaigns or groups for 50 lawmakers he claimed were helpful to the tribe. Alongside Reid's name, Abramoff wrote, "5,000 (Searchlight Leadership Fund) Senate Majority Whip."

Following a pattern seen with Abramoff and Republicans, Abramoff's Democratic team members often delivered donations to Reid close to key events.

Reid himself, along his Senate counsel Jim Ryan, met with Abramoff deputy Ronald Platt on June 5, 2001, "to discuss timing on minimum wage bill" that affected the Marianas, according to a bill that Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's firm, sent the Marianas.

Three weeks before the meeting, Greenberg Traurig's political action committee donated $1,000 to Reid's Senate re-election committee. Three weeks after the meeting, Platt himself donated $1,000 to Reid.

Manley said Reid's official calendar doesn't list a meeting on June 5, 2001, with Platt, but he also said he couldn't say for sure the contact didn't occur. Manley confirmed Platt had regular contacts with Reid's office, calling them part of the "routine checking in" by lobbyists who work Capitol Hill.

As for the timing of donations, Manley said, "There is no connection. This is just a typical part of lawful fundraising."

The Marianas, U.S. territorial islands in the Pacific Ocean, were one of Abramoff's highest-paying clients and were trying to keep their textile industry exempt from most U.S. laws on immigration, labor and pay, including the minimum wage. Many Democrats have long accused the islands of running garment sweatshops.

The islands in 2001 had their own minimum wage of $3.05 an hour, and were exempt from the U.S. minimum of $5.15.

Republicans were intent on protecting the Marianas' exemption. Democrats, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record) of California, wanted the Marianas to be covered by the U.S. minimum and crafted a compromise.

In February 2001, Kennedy introduced a bill that would have raised the U.S. hourly minimum to $6.65 and would have covered the Marianas. The legislation, which eventually failed, would have given the islands an initial break by setting its minimum at just $3.55 — nearly $3 lower than any other territory or state — and then gradually increasing it.

Within a month, Platt began billing for routine contacts and meetings with Reid's staff, starting with a March 26, 2001, contact with Reid chief of staff Susan McCue to "discuss timing and status of minimum wage legislation," the billing records say.

In all, Platt and a fellow lobbyist reported 21 contacts in 2001 with Reid's office, mostly with McCue and Ryan.

One of the Marianas contacts, listed for May 30, 2001, was with Edward Ayoob, Reid's legislative counsel. Within a year, Ayoob had left Reid's office to work for Abramoff's firm, registering specifically to lobby for the islands as well as several tribes. Manley confirmed Ayoob had subsequent lobbying contacts with Reid's office.

Manley cast doubt on some of the contacts recorded in the billing records, saying McCue was out of Washington for a couple of the dates. But he acknowledged the contacts could have occurred by cell phone.

In January 2002, McCue took a free trip, valued at $7,000, to Malaysia with several other congressional aides. The trip, cleared by Senate ethics officials, was underwritten by the U.S. Malaysia Exchange Association, a group trying to foster better relations between the United States and Malaysia.

The trips were part of a broader lobbying strategy by Malaysia, which consulted with Abramoff and paid $300,000 to a company connected to him, according to documents released by Senate investigators. The arrangements included a trip by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his wife to Malaysia in October 2001.

While Abramoff worked behind the scenes, the Alexander Strategy Group run by two former DeLay aides, Ed Buckham and Tony Rudy, publicly registered to lobby for the U.S. Malaysia Exchange Association.

Rudy, who was cited in Abramoff's court case, had worked temporarily for Abramoff before joining Buckham at Alexander Strategy, and the three men were friendly. In January 2002, Alexander Strategy arranged two congressional trips to Malaysia underwritten by the association.

One trip took a delegation of Republican congressmen. A Democratic consultant hired by Alexander Strategy, former Clinton White House aide Joel Johnson, invited McCue and went on the second trip with congressional staffers.

Johnson said he invited McCue on behalf of Alexander Strategy and went on the trip with her but said he knew of no connections to Abramoff. "My interest was in getting Democrats to travel to the country and to learn more about Malaysia," Johnson said.

Reid intervened on other matters.

On March 5, 2002, he sent a letter to the Interior Department pressing the agency to reject a proposed casino by the Jena band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Fellow Nevada Sen. John Ensign (news, bio, voting record), a Republican, also signed.

The Jena's proposed casino would have rivaled one already in operation in Louisiana run by the Coushattas, and Abramoff was lobbying to block the Jena. The day after Reid's letter, the Coushattas wrote a $5,000 check to Reid's Searchlight group at Abramoff's suggestion.

Reid and Ensign recently wrote the Senate Ethics Committee to say their letter had nothing to do with Abramoff or the donation and instead reflected their interest in protecting Las Vegas' gambling establishments.

"As senators for the state with the largest nontribal gaming industry in the nation, we have long opposed the growth of off-reservation tribal gaming throughout the United States," Ensign and Reid wrote. Reid authored the law legalizing casinos on reservations, and has long argued it does not allow tribal gambling off reservations.

On Nov. 8, 2002, the Nevada Democrat signed a letter with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record) urging Interior Secretary Gale Norton to reject a proposal by the Cuyapaipe Band of Mission Indians to convert land for a health clinic into a casino in southern California.

The casino would have competed with the Palm Springs gambling establishment run by the Agua Caliente, one of Abramoff's tribes.

Two weeks later, Reid went to the Senate floor to oppose fellow Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow (news, bio, voting record)'s effort to win congressional approval for a Michigan casino for the Bay Mills Indians, which would have rivaled one already operating by the Saginaw Chippewa represented by Abramoff.

"The legislation is fundamentally flawed," Reid argued, successfully leading the opposition to Stabenow's proposal.

The next month, Reid joined six other Democratic senators in asking President Bush in mid-December 2002 to spend an additional $30 million for Indian school construction. Several Abramoff tribes, including the Saginaw and the Mississippi Choctaw, were seeking federal money for school building.

Six weeks after that letter, three Abramoff partners — including Platt and Ayoob — donated a total of $4,000 to Reid's Senate re-election campaign. Later in 2003, the Agua Caliente contributed $13,500 to Reid's political groups while the Saginaw chipped in $9,000.

Reid sent a fourth letter on April 30, 2003, joining Ensign a second time to urge Interior to reject the Jena casino.

Two months later, Abramoff's firm threw a fundraiser for Reid at its Washington office that netted the Nevada senator several more donations from Greenberg Traurig lobbyists and their spouses. Ayoob was instrumental in staging the event, Reid's office said.

___

Associated Press Writer Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this story.

Blogger: Slobbiest :: Publish Status

2006-02-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

By DAVID HAMMER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Feb 8, 3:18 AM ET

A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff's firm show.

Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.

The government of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands extended the invitations to Jackson and other high-level GOP House leadership staff while Congress was considering legislation to control immigration and labor practices in the remote Pacific island territory.

Abramoff, the central figure in a wide-ranging Justice Department investigation of influence peddling in Congress, lobbied for the Marianas in Washington. The commonwealth's government was accused of permitting egregiously low wages and poor conditions for immigrants working in sweatshops.

According to bills from Abramoff's former lobbying firm to the Marianas government, Abramoff's staff contacted Boehner's office about island issues at least 10 times in the first four months of 1996. Copies of the billing records were obtained by The Associated Press through open-records requests to the territorial government.

Typically, the contact was made by David Safavian, who later became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in the Office of Management and Budget. Safavian recently was indicted on charges of obstructing investigations of his ties to Abramoff. Safavian was the first administration official indicted in the Abramoff scandal.

On March 15, 1996, two weeks before the Saipan trip, Abramoff's lobbying records show Safavian went over trip plans with Jackson and Mimi Simoneaux, then spokeswoman for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. On April 1, the day the congressional aides flew to the Marianas, Safavian called Boehner's office "to ascertain the location of B. Jackson." Abramoff's employee called about Jackson again the following day.

Jackson does not recall why he decided not to make the trip, given that it occurred 10 years ago, Healy said.

Since Boehner started campaigning early this year to replace DeLay as the No. 2-ranked House leader, he has denied having any relationship with Abramoff. Boehner has promised reforms to shake the GOP's Abramoff-related troubles.

When asked about the contacts between his office and Abramoff's, including a dinner Boehner attended in May 1996, Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday: "Some of his (Abramoff's) underlings worked with some low-level employees of my office. I'm telling you I never met the man."

Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said Tuesday that Boehner now does recall meeting Abramoff once, in "a brief, incidental conversation at a widely attended event that he estimates was about five years ago."

In an e-mail to the AP, Seymour also said Boehner did not intentionally downplay Jackson's role on his staff.

Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, saying his own work on tribal issues justifies the contributions. He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff represented them.

WSJ.com - White House Can't Sweep Aside Abramoff

2006-02-08T11:57:00.000-05:00

Indicted Aide Safavian Heads to Court,
And Questions Still Swirl About Griles and Rove
By JEANNE CUMMINGS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 8, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- The scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has shaken up Capitol Hill. But it still poses significant problems for the Bush White House.

A court hearing scheduled later this month may bring fresh attention to the case of former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.

"Their refusal to release information is inexcusable," says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal "is now in the White House."

The president has said his connections to Mr. Abramoff didn't amount to much. "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well," Mr. Bush said at a recent news conference, calling Mr. Abramoff one of "thousands" of White House visitors with whom he might have been photographed.

Mr. Rove has known Mr. Abramoff for about two decades, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Both are former top officials of the College Republicans, many of whose alumni have gone on to national prominence within the party.

Mr. Abramoff was an early backer of the president, having been listed as a co-chairman pledged to raise $25,000 for Mr. Bush at a 1999 Washington reception. He gave money to the president's recount committee in 2000 and was in the elite tier of fund-raisers for the president's 2004 re-election committee. An Abramoff aide, Susan Ralston, later went to work as Mr. Rove's executive assistant at the White House.

Mr. Abramoff bragged of his "contact" with Mr. Rove when Tyco International Ltd. sought action on tax legislation in 2002, according to Senate testimony by Tim Flanigan, a former Tyco official. "At some point after he joined the engagement team, Mr. Abramoff told me that he intended to contact Mr. Rove directly or indirectly to communicate Tyco's position" on the tax issue, said Mr. Flanigan, who also once worked as Mr. Bush's deputy White House counsel.

A White House spokesman says Mr. Rove doesn't remember talking to Mr. Abramoff about Tyco. A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff declined to comment on whether he lobbied Mr. Rove on the issue. A Tyco spokeswoman says the company doesn't know what Mr. Abramoff did on its behalf. A tax provision Tyco opposed eventually was defeated.

Messrs. Abramoff and Rove shared a connection to Mr. Safavian. Mr. Safavian lobbied alongside Mr. Abramoff before applying for a job with the General Services Administration. On his GSA job application, Mr. Safavian listed Mr. Rove as a reference who could confirm he brought a group of Arab-Americans to a Bush 2000 outreach program in Austin, Texas.

Prosecutors have accused Mr. Safavian of giving Mr. Abramoff inside information from the GSA at a time when the lobbyist was seeking government leases for a client. They have also accused him of misleading ethics officers and investigators by saying Mr. Abramoff wasn't doing business with the GSA when the two men went to Scotland on a 2002 golfing trip.

Barbara Van Gelder, Mr. Safavian's attorney, dismisses the inside information that prosecutors have seized upon as irrelevant. And she says that Mr. Safavian's statement that Mr. Abramoff wasn't doing business with the GSA at the time of the Scotland golfing trip was accurate, because the lobbyist's clients hadn't formally applied for leases or been awarded any. "Seeking" business with government is different, she explains, from having business with government.

She says the charges against Mr. Safavian are an attempt to pressure him to testify against others. "This case is about the government squeezing David Safavian," Ms. Van Gelder says.

What information Mr. Safavian might have to implicate others isn't clear. But Mr. Abramoff has already sent tremors across Capitol Hill by agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors.

Lawmakers have scrambled to offer proposals for overhauling rules governing lawmakers' dealing with lobbyists. "I support your efforts ... to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington," Mr. Bush declared in last week's State of the Union address. The White House has tried to move beyond ethics controversies after the indictment late last year of former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby in connection with the Central Intelligence Agency leak case. Mr. Rove hasn't yet been cleared in the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Mr. Griles is waging a vigorous effort to avoid being charged in the Abramoff investigation. He has offered to meet with prosecutors, though so far they have declined. In emails that surfaced in a Senate inquiry, Mr. Abramoff referred to Mr. Griles as his "man" in the department that oversees Native American issues. Another Interior Department official last year told the Indian Affairs Committee that Mr. Griles showed unusual interest in such issues while serving as the department's chief of staff.

Barry M. Hartman, Mr. Griles's attorney, has written the Senate committee, dismissing the idea that Mr. Griles was close to Mr. Abramoff as a lobbyist's boast to his clients. Mr. Hartman said his own review had uncovered only a handful of telephone calls and email contacts between the two men -- none of which resulted in official Interior Department measures that would have benefited Mr. Abramoff's clients. Mr. Hartman also cited a 2003 email by Mr. Abramoff in which he lamented that Mr. Griles "can't (or at least won't) discuss any of my clients with me."

The Seattle Times: Local News: Abramoff's illegal acts at Preston Gates

2006-02-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty last month to four felonies involving wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud his clients, schemes to corrupt public officials, and tax evasion.

His two plea agreements detail actions that occurred while Abramoff worked at the Seattle-based law and lobbying firm Preston Gates.

Trying to corrupt a congressional aide:

Beginning in 1999, Abramoff and others enlisted a congressional aide to perform a series of official acts, including help to stop Internet gambling legislation and to oppose postal-rate increases. With the intent to influence officials' acts, Abramoff provided things of value, including a job for the aide's wife that paid $50,000 from June 2000 through February 2001.

Trying to corrupt a congressman:

Abramoff sought to influence a congressman through campaign contributions, golf, regular meals, fund-raising events and other things of value. In 1999 and 2000, Abramoff and a partner were trying to purchase a fleet of casino ships operated by SunCruz. The congressman, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, in 2000 inserted two separate statements into the congressional record at Abramoff's and his partner's request. One in March 2000 attacked the SunCruz owner as Abramoff sought to forge favorable sale terms, and another in October 2000 praised the honesty and integrity of Abramoff's partner after the sale was completed.

Trying to enlist congressional help to land a lobbying client:

In January 2000, Abramoff arranged a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands in the South Pacific for a senior staff member of Ney. The goal was to gain assistance for Abramoff, and Preston Gates, to obtain and maintain the Marianas government as a lobbying client.

Bilking lenders through wire fraud:

Abramoff helped create a bogus wire transfer for $23 million to persuade lenders to help bankroll the purchase of SunCruz casino ships for more than $140 million. The sale was finalized in September 2000.

Abramoff's grand aims came early - The Boston Globe

2006-02-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

Made powerhouse of GOP group
By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff | February 6, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In 1981, a newly elected president was about to shift the nation rightward, and a 22-year-old Brandeis graduate named Jack Abramoff -- savoring his own victory as the newly elected chairman of the College Republicans -- was hatching plans to transform the nation's young people into stalwart Reaganites.

It was the start of a career that would roil Washington 25 years later, and a phase of Abramoff's life that provided signposts toward his later demise.

''Our job," Abramoff wrote, ''is to remove liberals ''from power permanently -- [from] student newspaper and radio stations, student governments, and academia.

''We are replacing these leftists with committed conservatives."

As Abramoff saw it, the only hitch to his Napoleonic-scale ambition was the pea-sized budget that his sponsors at the Republican National Committee were willing to commit.

''With $250,000 it is impossible for us to run even a skeletal field effort," Abramoff complained in a memorandum.

The memo was sent to the committee chairman, Richard Richards, after a ride in Richards's limousine back from the White House.

His money pleas unheeded, Abramoff spent the next four years, from 1981 to 1985, bypassing the RNC chain of command -- the organization legally responsible for the College Republicans -- to build his own financial juggernaut to advance the group's hard-right agenda, according to memos from College Republican files and interviews with GOP officials involved.

Unbeknownst to the RNC, he launched an expensive direct-mail campaign that left the group in debt, and vendors complaining about unpaid bills. He set up at least two tax-exempt groups to raise money -- over the objections of an RNC lawyer who warned that such groups could not legally engage in political activities. He borrowed money for his cause, even from his father.

''Jack was a freebooting pirate as far as I was concerned," said a Washington attorney, Mark Braden, then the RNC's house counsel. ''He had a strong belief in his own correctness. It was damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."

More than two decades later, in early January, Abramoff became a symbol of Washington corruption when he pleaded guilty to a range of crimes committed as a lobbyist. The scandal, which has touched off a legislative scramble for reform, could also snare members of Congress.

Looking back, Abramoff's critics inside the Republican Party say his tenure at the College Republicans should have provided a crystal ball into the turns his life might take. ''Look how the seeds of his current destruction are so evident," said Richard Bond, who as RNC deputy chairman repeatedly confronted Abramoff over spending issues.

Ronald Kaufman, then the RNC's political director, described Abramoff's management as ''living on the edge. . . . I don't think any of us thought he was an evil person. But we were really worried about the group and the direction they were taking."

''I remember them being in debt and constantly having financial issues," said William I. Greener III, a former RNC communications director. ''You had the sense of grabbing at air to try to get specifics and details" about where the money had gone.

Yet Abramoff also transformed the once-sleepy College Republican campus clubs into a vibrant political force, enjoying access to members of Congress, especially Newt Gingrich, the little-known backbencher who would later become House speaker.

''This is really a tragedy in the literal sense," said James Higgins, who succeeded Abramoff as College Republicans chairman. ''Jack could have accomplished great things with his unusual ability to lead and inspire people."

Paul Erickson, who served as the College Republicans treasurer under Abramoff, dismissed the accusations of RNC officials as untrue and ideologically-based, saying Abramoff's critics were moderates allied with Vice President George H. W. Bush, who ''didn't want conservatism promoted in any sense."

Abramoff's top lieutenants were two figures who would achieve their own prominence: Grover Norquist, the Harvard MBA who would become Washington's leading antitax activist, and Ralph Reed, who would build the Christian Coalition into a powerful GOP player in the 1990s. Both remained close to Abramoff, and both have been linked to his work on behalf of Indian tribes.

An Abramoff spokesman, Andrew Blum, issued a ''no comment" in response to questions for this article. Norquist and Reed did not return telephone calls.

Neither Norquist nor Reed has been charged with wrongdoing. But the fallout from the Abramoff scandal has hurt their reputations, and ethical questions now cloud Reed's race for Georgia's lieutenant governor.

The Reagan pilgrimage
In the summer of 1981, Abramoff, Norquist, and Reed joined thousands of young conservatives flocking to the nation's capital, following a 70-year-old former movie actor who offered sustenance for their patriotic hunger.

Under Reagan, there would be no more talk of ''peaceful coexistence" with America's Cold War enemies. ''The time is now," Reagan proclaimed, ''to recapture our destiny."

Young conservatives were enthralled, after years of feeling alienated on liberal college campuses. In Washington, they continued to view themselves as underdogs battling the dominant liberal political and media culture. But they brought to their cause the same question-authority irreverence that had been the hallmark of leftist baby boomers.

While the College Republicans had been a one-time homeground for strategists such as Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, the organization by 1980 suffered from sagging membership and political clout.

Abramoff's election as chairman -- after a campaign that cost him $10,000 -- changed all that. He and Norquist brought to Washington the same energy they had applied to organizing Massachusetts campuses for Reagan. They could, and did, take credit for helping orchestrate Reagan's victory in Massachusetts -- a state so liberal it stood alone in George McGovern's 1972 column.

Under Abramoff, the College Republicans office quickly became a nesting ground for hard-right believers. The new team, allies recalled, berated Republican moderates as ''Bushyites" -- a reference to the vice president -- and ''squishes" who were too eager to cut deals with Democrats on Capitol Hill, or with the Russians at superpower summits.

After purging the moderates in the College Republican hierarchy, Abramoff and his team launched a series of events to build public support for Reagan's foreign policy. The first was its ''Poland Will Be Free" campaign to support the democracy movement then under siege by the Polish communist government.

But in the eyes of the College Republicans, the Polish regime wasn't the only Moscow puppet -- so, too, were liberal student groups, the American media, leftist professors, and nuclear-freeze activists. Abramoff distributed on campuses 900 copies of a book called ''Target America," which posited that the Soviets had planted 4,000 journalist-agents in the American media to pursue a ''massive secret propaganda campaign," according to memos.

A training manual from the period, which Reed helped to write, described Ralph Nader's network of Public Interest Research Groups on campus as ''tyrannical" and ''radical." Abramoff's team accused the United States Student Association -- a 350-chapter liberal campus group that in 1982 protested Reagan's student aid cuts -- of being a ''pro-Soviet, pro-terrorist, Marxist-Leninist organization." The manual advised boycotting ''Marxist" professors, and soliciting support from alumni college donors to oust them.

That kind of charged rhetoric repeatedly landed Abramoff in ''hot water" with RNC officials, as RNC communications director Greener noted in a 1983 memo. ''Bad use of words!" Greener scribbled on an Abramoff memo that described efforts to ''smash" PIRGs and United States Student Association chapters, and ''drive the final nail into their coffin sometime within the next year."

Abramoff was admonished by RNC official Bond after a letter to the Palestine Liberation Organization went out over RNC stationery, according to a memo.

''It got to the point where the CR's played it like a war and Republican leaders rolled their eyes," Kaufman said. ''You couldn't trust them not to get in trouble."

That lack of trust extended to finances. Memos from the period revealed Abramoff's intense focus on fund-raising and his readiness to use the connections of his Beverly Hills based-father, a Diners Club executive with connections to Reagan's kitchen cabinet.

''Alfred Bloomingdale, a close personal friend of my family, told me to contact you immediately," Abramoff wrote to Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy's one-time counsel, on July 8, 1981. ''Although we are an arm of the RNC, we must become financially self-sufficient."

Abramoff added that ''because of his close association with the President, Mr. Bloomingdale was able to free up the RNC contributor list for our use. Within the next couple of weeks, we must raise $50,000 in order to mail and phone bank these lists. I have no doubt that we will pyramid that $50,000, to over $1 million within the first year."

Bond, now a former RNC official, characterized Abramoff's assertion that he had gained access to the RNC contributor list as ''outside the realm of reality. That list is like the Holy Grail . . . You can see his early prevarication."

Bloomingdale died in 1982.

Champing at the RNC bit
Like other RNC affiliates -- groups that represent GOP women, African-Americans, and the like -- the College Republicans were allocated an annual budget. Abramoff's defenders say he was trying to build a far more potent political force than other affiliates, with a national program to train conservative activists.

''We fought, begged, and pleaded" for more funding, recalled Erickson. ''We were sick to death of being on the RNC leash."

In October, Abramoff sent a letter to state College Republican chairs urging them to raise money through direct mail. By the early 1980s, direct mail had become a popular fund-raising tool for political groups, particularly on the right. But it was also costly, and would lead to the demise of a number of New Right groups.

A year later, the College Republicans had accumulated ''rather large debt" as Abramoff wrote in a November 1982 memo to a second direct-mail vendor. Memos indicate that three months earlier, in the summer of 1982, bills were going unpaid. ''Dear Sirs," Abramoff wrote to a printer. ''I would just like to inform you of a thirty-day hold we are having on all of our billing due to an interruption in our steady cash flow situation."

The precise amount of the debt was unclear from memos, as well as the memories of RNC officials. But, Bond said, ''speculative direct mail" by the College Republicans was ''completely unauthorized."

So were loans to the College Republicans, but a July 1982 memo from Abramoff to his father, Frank, shows that he borrowed $5,000 for the group. ''If I had known the CRs were out getting loans from people that they potentially couldn't pay back, I would have stopped them dead in their tracks," said Bond.

Determined to find financial footing independent of the RNC, Abramoff proposed setting up a separate group, the College Republican National Fund, whose income would be tax-exempt. But in a March 1982 memo, Braden, the RNC counsel, told Abramoff such a group would skirt tax laws.

''Such organizations may not engage directly or indirectly in political activities," Braden wrote. ''I received last week a print order for stationery for the College Republican National Fund. This activity cannot be funded through College Republicans, nor will the RNC permit the use of its facilities for these purposes."

Memos show that Abramoff set up the fund anyway. As one solicitation suggests, the fund had clear political intent.

''Thank you so much for your contribution to the College Republican National Fund," Abramoff wrote to a Florida donor. ''Because of your generous donation we were able to fight Teddy Kennedy in Massachusetts. Due to our efforts and other circumstances, Kennedy will not plague us in 1984."

The College Republican tactics and unpaid bills led the RNC to demand that Abramoff leave the building and move the group elsewhere, former RNC officials said.

''Jack was a difficult person to work with from a lawyer's point of view," Braden said. Disturbed by the College Republican operation, ''we threw him out. I don't remember what precipitated it, but I remember [the incident]. It was painful. He was a very difficult personality. There were all types of management problems and a lack of trust between us and them."

Bond and Kaufman also recalled asking Abramoff to move out.

Erickson, then a student who was elected College Republican treasurer under Abramoff in 1983, disputed this version of events, saying the RNC was reclaiming prime office space from the College Republicans and other affiliates. Former RNC officials, he said, have an ax to grind.

''It was open warfare in the halls of the RNC between the Reaganites and the Bushyites," said Erickson. ''Bond and Kaufman were fiercely loyal to Bush and loathed Ronald Reagan."

''It had zero to do with ideology," Kaufman countered.

Greener, an early Reagan supporter who says he was ''not a Bushie in any way, shape or form," also recalled that the disputes centered on the College Republicans' financial troubles and unanswered questions about where the money had gone. ''You could never get a straight answer," he said.

Dissent within the ranks
Questions about Abramoff's financial management prompted rumors to circulate within the organization. One competitor in Abramoff's 1983 race for reelection accused Abramoff not only of generating a debt but of embezzling money that he had deposited into a Swiss bank account.

Nothing came of the claims, but they prompted one Abramoff supporter to issue a letter to College Republican convention delegates rebutting these ''personal attacks and character smears."

A short time after leaving the RNC building, Abramoff set up another nonprofit, the USA Foundation, soliciting money from such New Right donors as the Olin Foundation. Although he organized it as a nonpartisan, tax-exempt group, Abramoff served as chairman of both the foundation and the College Republicans.

In 1984, the foundation helped organize ''Student Liberation Day" in support of Reagan's invasion of Grenada. On College Republican stationery, Abramoff wrote: ''While the Student Liberation Day Coalition is nonpartisan and intended only for educational purposes, I don't need to tell you how important this project is to our efforts as CRs. I am confident that an impartial study of the contrasts between the Carter/Mondale failure in Iran and the Reagan victory in Grenada will be most enlightening to voters 12 days before the general election."

By then, the College Republicans had been banished not only from the RNC premises but also from the Reagan White House. At the close of the Student Liberation Day celebration, Abramoff, Erickson, and others traveled to the White House to attend a reception for the American medical students who had been rescued in the invasion. They were blocked.

''Deaver had crossed us off the list," Erickson recalled in a reference to the Reagan adviser, Michael Deaver.

A year later, Abramoff left the College Republicans to pursue other ventures. By then, his four-year tenure had made him a divisive figure.

Erickson defended Abramoff, saying he was promoting the cause of Reagan conservatism, not getting rich. ''Jack governed by sheer force of will," Erickson said. ''Things happened because Jack willed them to happen."

His detractors at the RNC took a different view. Greener said: ''I have found in life that individuals who believe what they are doing is so right and so good and so important are also the individuals that have a high-frequency level of rationalizing away unacceptable behavior."

Nina J. Easton is the author of the 2002 book ''Gang of Five." Some descriptions were drawn from the book, but all interviews took place this year.

The Daily Inter Lake - Burns fires back.

2006-02-04T12:53:00.001-05:00

By JIM MANN
The Daily Inter Lake
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., says the Abramoff attacks won’t end, but he’ll fight back to the end of his bid to be re-elected to a fourth term this year.

Ties between Burns’ office and Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to corruption and fraud, has dominated the race so far.

Burns has pledged to return nearly $150,000 that he received from Abramoff’s lobbying firm or Abramoff clients.

But Burns reportedly received more Abramoff money than any other lawmaker — and Democrats clearly believe that connection makes the 71-year-old senator vulnerable.

Burns insisted in a meeting Friday with the Inter Lake editorial board that he’s done nothing wrong.

“I wouldn’t know this Abramoff from a bale of hay,” Burns said, reiterating that he has never met the man, but conceding that some of his staffers have. Abramoff’s lobbying business, in fact, hired staff out of Burns’ office.

“This Abramoff was a predator,” Burns said, referring to Abramoff defrauding Indian tribes that were his clients. “He was a bad guy. He’s going to go to jail. The system got him.”

Burns said soon after his office was linked to Abramoff, his staff did a thorough accounting of fundraising records, appointment books and other documents to determine if there had been any impropriety.

“We really scrubbed our office and we really didn’t find anything that I, Conrad Burns, did wrong,” said Burns, who was upbeat about his prospects for re-election in a race that includes two Democrats, Montana State Auditor John Morrison and Jon Tester, president of the Montana Senate.

Burns is providing media outlets with a packet of nearly 50 pages of documents and a cover letter saying, “We believe these documents completely back up Burns’ assertions that everything was done properly, legally and fully reported.”

Even so, Burns said it’s unlikely that the Abramoff issue will go away, short of some form of exoneration from the Department of Justice, which he does not expect anytime soon.

With the arranged cooperation of Abramoff through a plea agreement, the Justice Department is expanding its investigation with speculation that public officials could be indicted.

Citing anonymous sources, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Washington Times have reported that Burns is among the lawmakers under federal investigation for their ties with Abramoff.

But Burns said the media is hardly a reliable source for predicting what the Justice Department might do. He said his office has not been contacted by the Justice Department.

“Is it unfair? Yes, it’s unfair,” Burns said. “But that’s the way it works, and you’re left out there twisting in the wind.”

Burns is not alone.

The influence-peddling scandal has been picked up by Republicans and Democrats with attacks on more than a dozen politicians seeking re-election. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has launched a campaign aimed at connecting Abramoff to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who faces re-election in Nevada.

Burns said he fully expects Democratic advertising, with funding support from the national level, to maintain the Abramoff theme. The only possibility of that dying down, he said, is if Democrats start to run out of money in that effort.

In the meantime, Burns said he will fight back. He said he has been getting “positive feedback” on his most recent television ad, in which he dismisses Democratic allegations as being unfounded partisan attacks.

On other subjects, Burns was optimistic about the potential for democracy to develop in Iraq and spoke about polarized politics in Washington, Social Security reform and his reluctance to change the congressional practice of attaching “earmark” spending to larger budget bills.

If a successful democracy develops in Iraq, Burns said, there will be tremendous opportunities for economic development in that country and neighboring countries.

He said Iraq could be transformed in a manner that would compare to the contrasting conditions between North and South Korea.

Burns said North Korea, an autocratic communist country, is plagued with such poverty that it looks “just like it was the day I left there in the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Democratic South Korea has become an economic powerhouse on the Pacific Rim. “There’s the greatest example of what can be done,” he said.

Burns described an ongoing chumminess between himself and many Senate Democrats, but it is something that happens behind the scenes, over dinners or lunch or just in an elevator. Overtly, the Senate has become increasingly polarized ever since Senate debates were first televised in the late 1980s.

“Televising floor debates has done more to polarize the Senate than anything else,” he said. “Because people make speeches and talk that doesn’t add much to the debate ... They make political speeches.”

Some lawmakers and President Bush recently have been pushing for an end to the practice of attaching “earmarked” spending projects to large omnibus budget bills.

But Burns says he does not support that idea, and he rejects the common assertion that earmarks are added in secret or “in the dark of night.”

Burns said it was telling during the president’s State of the Union Address this week when Democrats stood and loudly applauded when Bush acknowledged that Congress rejected his Social Security reform proposals.

“I don’t think I would stand up and cheer, because they haven’t offered anything” to address projected funding shortfalls in the Social Security system, he said.

Burns said he believes “there’s a chance” that some reform measures could be resurrected this year and win Congressional approval.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com

The Daily Inter Lake - Burns fires back.

2006-02-04T12:53:00.000-05:00

The Nation - Abramoff's Evangelical Soldiers

2006-02-03T10:21:00.000-05:00

by MAX BLUMENTHAL

[from the February 20, 2006 issue]

Gambling might not rank as high as homosexuality or abortion on the list of social evils monitored by Focus on the Family found er James Dobson, but its growth has provided many occasions for his jeremiads. The indictment of Indian casino lobbyist and influential GOP activist Jack Abramoff was one such occasion. In a January 6 press release issued three days after Abramoff's indictment, Dobson declared, "If the nation's politicians don't fix this national disaster, then the oceans of gambling money with which Jack Abramoff tried to buy influence on Capitol Hill will only be the beginning of the corruption we'll see." He concluded with a denunciation of vice: "Gambling--all types of gambling--is driven by greed and subsists on greed."

What Dobson neglected to mention--and has yet to discuss publicly--is his own pivotal role in one of Abramoff's schemes. In 2002 Dobson joined a coterie of Christian-right activists, including Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to spearhead Abramoff's campaigns against the establishment of several Louisiana casinos that infringed on the turf of Abramoff's tribal clients. Dobson and his allies recorded messages for phone banking, lobbied high-level Bush Administration officials and took to the airwaves. Whether they knew it or not, these Christian soldiers' crusade to protect families in the "Sportsmen's Paradise" from the side effects of chronic slot-pulling and dice-rolling was funded by the gambling industry and planned by the lobbyist known even to his friends as "Casino Jack."

The only Christian-right activist confirmed to be completely aware of Abramoff's rip-off was Ralph Reed. He and Abramoff have a long and storied history together. When Abramoff chaired the College Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, Reed served as the organization's executive director. They reunited in 1989, when Abramoff helped Reed organize the remains of Pat Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid into the Christian Coalition. In 1997, with the Christian Coalition under IRS investigation and Reed facing accusations of cronyism from the group's chief financial officer, he left to start his own consulting firm, Century Strategies. Reed contacted Abramoff right away. "I need to start humping in corporate accounts," Reed told him in 1998. "I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."

Though Abramoff apparently was not fond of Reed, he viewed him as useful. "I know you (we!) hate him [Reed], but it does give us good cover and patter to have him doing stuff," he wrote in a February 14, 2002, e-mail to his business partner, Michael Scanlon. "Let's give him a list of things we want...and give him some chump change to get it done." Reed thus became Abramoff and Scanlon's liaison to the Christian right, enlisting his evangelical allies into a web of shadowy casino hustles for "chump change."

Reed's first sleight of hand was enticing Perkins, Falwell and Robertson to try to block a 2001 bill in the Louisiana legislature loosening restrictions on riverboat casinos, which would have posed a competitive threat to Abramoff's clients, the Coushattas. At the time, Perkins was a right-wing State Representative hailed by Reed as the legislature's "anti-gambling leader."

As Perkins lobbied his colleagues against the riverboat bill, he pushed Reed to pour money into an aggressive phone-banking campaign to rally conservative Christian voters.

With a steady supply of gambling industry cash, Abramoff dumped a phone-bank budget of more than $60,000 into Reed's war chest for PR efforts against his clients' rivals, the Jena Choctaws (Reed had asked for $150,000)--supplementing the $10,000 in tribal gambling money he directed to Reed's 2001 campaign for chair of the Georgia GOP and the nearly $4 million he ultimately funneled into Reed's personal account. Reed then recruited Falwell to record a phone message against the bill. He also solicited the help of his former boss at the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, thanking him for his "leadership for our values." Like the answering of a prayer, tens of thousands of Louisiana Republicans suddenly were bombarded with the voice of God against vice, played by Robertson and Falwell.

On March 22, 2001, the bill was resoundingly defeated in the legislature. "You are the greatest!!!" an ecstatic Abramoff wrote to Reed.

Miracle accomplished, Abramoff tapped Reed's services again in January 2002, when his clients learned that then-Louisiana Governor Mike Foster had secretly approved a casino site for the Jena Choctaws. Following a battle plan devised by Scanlon (who inexplicably signed a memo outlining the plan, Mike "The Sausage King" Scanlon), Reed re-enlisted his evangelical allies to rev up grassroots pressure on Bush Interior Secretary Gail Norton, who had the final say on the Jena deal.

Reed first prompted Dobson to attack the Jenas' lobbyist, Washington super-lawyer, former RNC chair and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, during a Focus on the Family broadcast. (In his 2002 campaign for governor, Barbour described himself as "a five-point Calvinist" on American Family Radio.)

"Let me know when Dobson hits him," Abramoff wrote to Reed on February 6, 2002. "I want to savor it." That same day, he e-mailed Scanlon, "He [Dobson] is going to hit Haley by name! He is going to encourage people to call Norton and the WH [White House]. This is going to get fun."

Abramoff transferred more cash to Reed to blast Dobson's tirade against the Jena casino across Louisiana airwaves. Abramoff was confident his Bush Administration contacts would make sure all the right people heard Dobson's hit. "Dobson goes up on the radio next week!" he told Scanlon on February 20. "We'll play it in WH [the White House] and Interior." Abramoff's gamble paid off when word of the ad filtered through the tension-filled halls of the Interior Department. "[White House liaison] Doug [Domenech] came to me and said, 'Dobson's going to shut down our phone system,'" an unnamed former Interior official recounted to the Washington Post. " 'He's going to go on the air and tell everyone who listens to Focus on the Family to call Interior to oppose the Jena compact.' "

But Abramoff's fun didn't stop there. Reed urged a Who's Who of the Christian right to lobby Norton against the Jena compact with a stream of breathless letters. On February 19 Perkins warned Norton that gambling leads to "crime, divorce, child abuse." American Family Association chair Don Wildmon sent a lengthy missive to Norton filled with statistics on gambling's adverse social impact. The Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly sent another. American Values president Gary Bauer declared in a letter to Norton that the compact ran "contrary to President Bush's pro-family vision." Focus on the Family vice president Tom Minnery wrote Norton and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to demand they stop the deal. Dobson capped the mail blitz with his own missive against gambling expansion.

Despite the best efforts of Abramoff and the Christian soldiers Reed recruited, in December Norton approved the Jena compact. Soon after, Louisiana's new governor, Kathleen Blanco, reversed the deal on the basis of her opposition to casino growth. Abramoff's goal was achieved, but all his work was for naught. And his skulduggery was beginning to catch up with him. "I hate all the shit I'm into," he moaned to Scanlon in a February 2003 e-mail. "I need to be on the Caribbean with you!"

However, Abramoff's campaign against the Jena compact was a blessing for most of its Christian-right players. Perkins got to prove his mettle in a national campaign, prompting his appointment the following year by Dobson to president of the Family Research Council, the Washington-based lobbying powerhouse. Dobson, for his part, got to demonstrate his grassroots muscle to the Bush White House, raising his visibility to Karl Rove & Co. and helping him increase his influence over its social agenda as the presidential election approached.

Among Abramoff's evangelical surrogates, only Reed emerged from their relationship with visible baggage. But this was not apparent at the time. Now, as a result of extensive media coverage of his involvement with Abramoff, his campaign for lieutenant governor of Georgia, intended as a stepping stone to higher office, is lagging. He has gone from denying early in his campaign that he accepted gambling money to claiming most recently that Abramoff lied to him about the source of his fees. To generate a strong turnout for his January 21 appearance at a Georgia Christian Coalition meeting, Reed was reduced to enticing his dwindling band of "supporters" with cash and free hotel rooms.

It is still unknown whether Dobson and his allies knew that Reed was working for Abramoff during the anti-Jena campaign. Abramoff claimed in a February 2002 e-mail to his employee Todd Boulanger that he was "working FOR and WITH them [emphasis in original]," referring to Christian-right activists. Dobson, Perkins, Robertson and Falwell have remained silent. Whether or not evidence surfaces to support the claim Abramoff made in his e-mail, it is undeniable he was deeply embedded in the Christian right's infrastructure.

In July 2002, at the height of the anti-Jena campaign, Bauer and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a fixture at Christian-right events, founded the American Alliance of Christians and Jews. On the group's board were Dobson, Robertson, Falwell and one Jack Abramoff. Lapin's organization, Toward Tradition, which administered the AACJ, received $25,000 from one of Abramoff's gambling industry clients in 2000; took $75,000 from Abramoff and his clients; and then, upon Abramoff's written instructions, hired the wife of Tony Rudy to the tune of $5,000 a month. Rudy, who was Tom DeLay's deputy chief of staff at the time, later a lobbyist, has been named in Abramoff's guilty plea.

While Abramoff cooperates with federal prosecutors, his former Christian-right surrogates have abstained from coming clean about their relationship with him. Acknowledging willing collusion with a disgraced casino lobbyist would be suicidal among their followers. But there are also risks in casting themselves as useful idiots in Abramoff's game. Such a tactic would reveal the "pro-family" movement as just another gear in a sordid Republican political operation. What did Dobson know and when did he know it? As the wheels of justice grind on, those who claim to speak with the authority of Scripture may soon find themselves under oath.

Prosecutor Is Sought in Abramoff Inquiry - New York Times

2006-02-03T00:04:00.000-05:00

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
By The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Most of the Senate's Democrats called on the Justice Department on Thursday to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the department's criminal investigation centered on Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist.

Thirty-five Democrats and Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont, an independent, said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that an outside prosecutor was needed because of "Mr. Abramoff's significant ties to Republican leadership in Congress and allegations of improper activity involving administration officials."

Mr. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt members of Congress and other public officials

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he signed the letter because "we need an independent investigation, not a whitewash led by Attorney General Gonzales, President Bush's best friend."

Mr. Reid added in a statement, "President Bush has worn out his credibility with the American people yet he continues to stonewall an investigation into his involvement with Jack Abramoff, asking him to trust him without explaining why."

The senator was referring to Mr. Bush's comments last week in which he said he could not recall ever meeting Mr. Abramoff, a major fund-raiser in his campaigns.

Chicago Tribune | Abramoff case, spying loom over Gonzales

2006-02-02T14:43:00.000-05:00

Ex-colleague's links to lobbyist scrutinized

By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published February 2, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Nearing the first anniversary of his becoming attorney general, Alberto Gonzales finds himself answering questions about a former colleague and defending policies from his previous job as White House counsel.

In the latest challenge to Gonzales' White House record, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday asked Gonzales what he knows about ties between convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Timothy Flanigan, a former White House lawyer, who withdrew his nomination to be deputy attorney general last October.

Gonzales also faces scrutiny over his role in justifying a White House policy to conduct domestic surveillance without search warrants. In addition, critics say Paul McNulty, selected as the new choice to be deputy attorney general, has been slow to consider allegations of abuse of detainees held in the war on terror.

Flanigan pulled out of consideration for the Justice Department's No. 2 position after questions arose about his business relationship with Abramoff and about his role, as Gonzales' White House assistant, in crafting Bush administration policies that seemed to justify use of torture for terrorism suspects.

After leaving the White House to become a senior executive at the Tyco manufacturing conglomerate in November 2002, Flanigan allegedly used inside information from Abramoff to stave off a pending loss of federal contracts, according to court papers filed last week in a case involving Jack Safavian, a former General Services Administration official and one-time Abramoff associate.

In a letter to Gonzales, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked how much the Justice Department knew about ties between Safavian, Abramoff and Tyco at the time of Flanigan's confirmation hearings.

According to Durbin, Flanigan withdrew his nomination after Durbin declined to meet privately with him to discuss his work with Tyco.

Abramoff recently pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges and is cooperating with federal investigators. Abramoff had ties to numerous prominent lawmakers and Durbin said a request would soon be made for a special prosecutor to take over the investigation.

Meanwhile, McNulty, the nominee for deputy attorney general, faces a confirmation hearing Thursday at which he is expected to face questions about how vigorously he has pursued allegations of mistreatment of detainees by the CIA and Defense Department.

Since mid-2004, McNulty, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has overseen a team of prosecutors reviewing 19 allegations of prisoner abuse. Two have been dismissed for lack of evidence and 17 remain under investigation, according to the Justice Department.

The treatment of detainees has been a sensitive issue since the disclosure of efforts in 2002 by Gonzales, Flanigan and other administration lawyers to devise what critics say is a legal rationale to torture terrorism suspects.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said both the detainee abuse inquiries and the Abramoff investigation are insulated from politics because they are being handled by career prosecutors and not by political

Records sought on DeLay trip with Abramoff - Politics - MSNBC.com

2006-02-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

Texas prosecutor’s inquiry centers on 2000 journey to London, Scotland

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:07 p.m. ET Feb. 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - A European trip former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay took almost six years ago with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is the new focus of a money-laundering investigation in Texas, according to court documents filed Wednesday in Austin, Texas.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle wants DeLay’s wife and several associates who joined him on the trip to turn over travel itineraries, expense reimbursement requests and other documents.

Earle is seeking the records on the late May-early June 2000 trip as part of his campaign funding investigation, which has led to money-laundering charges against DeLay.

DeLay, R-Texas, is awaiting trial on those charges but denies any wrongdoing in the case. He was forced by party rules to step down from his House leadership post after he was indicted. House members were scheduled to elect a replacement Thursday.

Questions on credit card
Questions have arisen about whether DeLay’s airfare to London and Scotland was charged to an Abramoff credit card and whether other expenses on the same trip were billed to a credit card used by Ed Buckham, a former DeLay aide who had become a lobbyist by that time and was on the trip.

Abramoff pleaded guilty last month to federal charges stemming from schemes to bribe public officials and defraud Indian tribes who were his lobbying clients. He has been cooperating with investigators, who have shifted their probe to members of Congress and some of their aides.

According to newspaper reports, much of the money for the junket — which included playing golf at an exclusive Scotland course — was paid for with money from two of Abramoff’s clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and e-Lottery Inc. They sent checks to a third group, the National Center for Public Policy Research.

DeLay has said he did not know Abramoff or his clients paid for the travel and asked the House ethics committee to look into the trips, but the committee has yet to meet amid political wrangling over its organization.

The Mississippi tribe also contributed to DeLay’s Texas political committee, which is at the center of Earle’s investigation.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Raw Story | Multimillion dollar Abramoff client, who gave readily to Republicans, got meetings with Bush, DeLay, Hastert, Lott and Burns

2006-02-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

Filed by John Byrne

Eleven million dollars can buy a lot of access in Washington. Especially if your lobbyist is Jack Abramoff.

Advertisement
Take Beningo Fitial, the current governor of the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. He and his company, along with their trade lobby and funds doled out by the islands at his prodding, spent $11.5 million dollars lobbying Washington between 1995 and 2002.

Fitial—who became Speaker of the Marianas House after a coup organized by Abramoff’s associates and former aides of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay—was treated like a king.

In January 2001, Fitial enjoyed the inauguration of President George W. Bush.

Three months later, in April, Fitial met Bush a second time. He also met Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). Then he stopped in for visit with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

In other words—Abramoff seems to have arranged for a non-head of state for a tiny island in the Pacific to meet with the three most powerful men in the United States of America. But that’s not all: Fitial also met with then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Senate Interior Department Appropriations Chairman Conrad Burns (R-MT). Fitial appears in photographs with Burns and Delay -- enlarged from tiny thumbnails in his hometown paper -- at left.

That, it seems -- along with a spate of legislative victories keeping the islands from U.S. jurisdiction -- is the value of $11 million dollars. Fitial, not surprisingly, has not been terribly critical of Abramoff since he pled guilty to myriad criminal charges, including fraud, tax evasion and bribing members of Congress.

Six months after his visit to Capitol Hill, Fitial’s family’s companies donated $50,000 to the National Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The following month, Abramoff’s firm, at the direction of former press secretary to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) Michael Scanlon, doled out $50,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

Fitial was also chaired the islands campaign to raise money for President Bush’s reelection in 2004.

Asked about his meeting with Bush, Fitial told his local newspaper the Saipan Tribune, "This was a great opportunity to raise the CNMI's (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands) concerns to the president directly. Indeed, when the President discussed our military's readiness, I made it clear to him that the people of the CNMI support the military's presence and exercises in the Northern Mariana Islands."

“The president,” Fitial added, “said he was very pleased to know that the CNMI is supporting the military's presence in the islands."

Fitial also said he was pleased most by the fact that Lott recalled their meeting in a previous year. He said, "I think our efforts in Washington will continue to pay off for the CNMI people.”

And pay off they did: The Mariana’s $11.5 million, channeled through Abramoff, crushed numerous attempts to impose minimum wage and labor laws on the island territory. The tropical hotspot where Tom DeLay spent New Years in 1998 playing golf remains a haven for U.S. garment manufacturers—including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap—who enjoy the loosely enforced minimum wage of $3.05.

But you wouldn't know that from the labels: all products made in the Commonwealth can be stamped "Made in the USA," thanks to the U.S. Congress.

Witness for the Prosecution -- In These Times

2006-01-31T14:53:00.000-05:00

Abramoff's plea agreement could land him in the middle of a murder trial
By Richard L. Fricker January 30, 2006

A Florida hit man. A high-powered lobbyist. A pair of disgraced Republican congressmen. The ingredients for a potboiler novel? No--this is what passes for political news in the age of Abramoff.

In a trial scheduled to start in early February, Brian Cavanaugh, an assistant state attorney in Broward County, Fla. is prosecuting three men for the murder of former SunCruz Casino cruise ships owner Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. And he wants to talk to Abramoff and a close business associate, Adam Kidan, about what role, if any, they played in the murder.

For years, the two men were high-rolling, hobnobbing lobbyists, rubbing elbows with best of Washington Republican society. But their political connections could not save them from a slew of recent indictments handed down for crimes including fraud, conspiracy and bribery. Specifically, Abramoff and Kidan have pled guilty to a $23 million dollar wire fraud involving the purchase of SunCruz Casino. As a part of their deals, they must cooperate with "all" law enforcement agencies, including Cavanaugh's.

The man they defrauded was Boulis, who was driving his car in Ft. Lauderdale on February 6, 2001, when two cars boxed him in. A third car going in the opposite direction pulled up to his side and its driver shot Boulis three times in the chest.

Charged with the murder are Anthony Ferrari, James Fiorillo and former Gambino family bookkeeper Anthony Moscatiello. Also under investigation is Moscatiello's daughter, Jennifer, who along with her father received $145,000 from Kidan for catering and "other" services. There is no evidence that food or services were ever provided.

What does Abramoff--the dapper fixer from Capitol Hill--have to do with three mugs and a moll? He's already admitted to using his powerful lobbying firm to bribe politicians, defraud Native American tribes out of millions and help to ensure that migrantt workers in the Marianas Islands earn slave wages. Around that same time, in 2000, he was also tricking Gus Boulis out of his SunCruz Casino gambling ships.

The roots of this scam go way back: Abramoff and Kidan had known each other since the '80s as active members of the College Republicans national office. According to Kidan's deposition, he was nearly broke when Abramoff brought him into the deal to buy SunCruz. After a contentious negotiations period that drew on for months, in September 2000, the pair finally managed to persuade investors to go along with the arrangement by claiming they had put up $23 million of their own money for the deal, offering phony wire transfers as evidence.

But when it came time to pay Boulis, Abramoff and Kidan were $23 million short. When Boulis wanted to be paid, he went to Kidan for the money and a fistfight broke out between the two men. Kidan came away spreading the story that Boulis had promised to kill him.

The fracas sparked a federal investigation, and within a few months Abramoff and Kidan were charged with fraud regarding the SunCruz purchase. During a 2001 civil case, Kidan also admitted that he paid the men now charged with Boulis' murder $250,000, including the $145,000 paid to Anthony and Jennifer Moscatiello.

Because of Abramoff's connections, the SunCruz purchase had been of great interest to some members on Capitol Hill. In March 2000, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio)--at the urging of Michael Scanlon, a former spokesman for Tom DeLay, and a business partner of Abramoff--placed a scathing attack on Boulis in the Congressional Record.

"Mr. Speaker, how SunCruz Casinos and Gus Boulis conduct themselves with regard to Florida laws is very unnerving," Ney said. "I don't want to see the actions of one bad apple in Florida, or anywhere else . . . affect the business aspect of this industry or hurt any innocent casino patron in our country."

Ney has fallen far. One of those bright stars who came to Congress in 1994 with a "Contract with America," his contract expired January 14 of this year, when he was compelled to step down from his post as Chairman of the Committee on House Administration. Abramoff fingered Ney and others to get his plea agreement, and even the GOP leadership thought it a little unseemly to have the committee charged with reforming lobbying laws chaired by someone under investigation for accepting bribes.

Now, Ney is best known for joining Abramoff and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition in Scotland for an infamous round of golf. A lot of Abramoff money found its way into Reed's Christian Coalition causes and the Coalition turned out the vote for George W. Bush. It was a game of political conections and money, and no one cared how it was played as long as they got their share.

Abramoff's influence also reached more directly into the White House, where he regularly took clients. This began to emerge when David H. Safavian, the White House's chief procurement officer, resigned on September 19, 2005, only to be arrested the following day for lying to investigators and obstructing an investigation into Abramoff's activities.

However, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has refused to disclose information requested by reporters about Abramoff's White House activities. It is unclear if he will get back with answers about Abramoff before he clears up similar questions about Jeff Gannon's White House comings and goings. In either case, a vast array of characters seems to have had wide access to the White House.

Those characters may be uncovered as Cavanaugh sets his sights on interviewing the Abramoff crew during his continuing investigation into the Boulis murder. Abramoff has not directly been implicated in the murder, but Cavanaugh is keeping his options open.

As In These Times went to press, the Boulis murder trial was set to begin. Cavanaugh noted recently that under the Florida criminal code, discovery can be conducted by either side wherein a witness can be deposed before trial. Should the defense lawyers for the hit men decide to depose Abramoff, Scanlon or Kidan, they could be compelled to tell all they know as required by their plea agreements.

Cavanaugh says he will wait to see what emerges from these conversations and depositions before making any final plans about the trial or additional indictments.

Dems tie Burns to Abramoff in TV attack - billingsgazette.com

2006-01-31T12:47:00.000-05:00

By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - The Montana Democratic Party has fired back at Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns with its own TV ad and accused him of delivering the goods for lobbyist Jack Abramoff, not for Montana.

The party's 30-second spot, which went on the air over the weekend, is in response to Burns' campaign's 60-second ad that was launched last week and is still running.

In his ad, Burns tries to distance himself from Abramoff by saying the Republican former super-lobbyist never influenced him.

Burns received about $150,000 from Abramoff, his associates and his tribal clients, which was more than any other member of Congress. Abramoff earlier this month pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

Burns contended that previous Democratic Party ads against him are playing politics with his reputation. He said, "Those partisan Democratic ads are just that - politics."

The latest Democratic Party ad shows footage from the Burns ad with the senator saying, "I don't know who Abramoff influenced, but he never influenced me."

Then the Democratic announcer says, "But after receiving $5,000 from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associate, Senator Burns changed his vote, helping Abramoff."

The ad shows separate black-and-white photos of Burns and Abramoff, with a big green dollar sign emerging on the screen. It also displays a Missoulian headline that says, "Burns changed vote on bill about the Mariana islands."

The ad notes that Burns earlier supported stronger labor and immigration standards in the Mariana islands. But in 2001, a month after receiving the $5,000 donation from an Abramoff-linked Mariana businessman, Burns asked to be recorded being against increasing U.S. control of immigration and labor standards on the islands.

The Democrats' ad shows Burns saying he wanted to "set the record straight."

Then the announcer says, "Montana's newspapers do just that."

The announcer reads, one at a time, two Billings Gazette headlines that appear on the screen: "Burns changed position after donation" and "Burns helped Abramoff tribes get fed money."

The announcer concludes by saying: "Burns is delivering all right. But not for Montana."

It shows Burns in his ad, with the words "Delivering for Montana" in the background. The Democrats' ad scratches out Montana and then Abramoff's name is printed in red over Montana.

Brian Nick, communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, speaking for Burns' campaign, criticized the ad.

"In the absence of ideas or an agenda, national Democrats are again pumping money into Montana to run false and misleading attack ads against Senator Burns," Nick said. "While attack-dog national party operatives run slanderous ads, Senator Burns will continue to deliver positive results for the people of Montana."

Montana Democratic Party spokesman Matt McKenna said, "Try as he might, Senator Burns can't get the stink of Jack Abramoff out of his clothes. He's been on TV for a week telling Montanans Abramoff didn't influence him. Now it's time to set the record straight."

Lawmakers Push Bush on Abramoff Contacts - Forbes.com

2006-01-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

By NEDRA PICKLER , 01.29.2006, 10:51 AM

Republican lawmakers said Sunday that President Bush should publicly disclose White House contacts with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to felony charges in an influence-peddling case.

Releasing the records would help eliminate suspicions that Abramoff, a top fundraiser for Bush's re-election campaign, had undue influence on the White House, the Republicans said.

"I'm one who believes that more is better, in terms of disclosure and transparency," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. "And so I'd be a big advocate for making records that are out there available."

The president has refused to reveal how much access Abramoff had to the White House, but has said he does not know Abramoff personally. Bush has said federal prosecutors are welcome to see the records of Abramoff's contacts if they suspect something inappropriate, but he has not released them publicly.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who appeared with Thune on "Fox News Sunday,", said all White House correspondence, phone calls and meetings with Abramoff "absolutely" should be released.

"I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity," Pence said. "The American people have profound confidence in him. And as Abraham Lincoln said, `Give the people the facts and republican governance perhaps will be saved.'"

Bush's spokesman has said Abramoff was admitted to the White House complex for "a few staff-level meetings" and Hanukkah receptions in 2001 and 2002. The White House will not say how many times the lobbyist came in, who he met with or what business he had there.

Bush said he had his picture taken with Abramoff an unknown number of times, but he said he doesn't remember taking them and the two never sat down and had a discussion. Bush said he has had his photo taken with thousands of people, but that doesn't mean he knows them well.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., played down the notion that Bush was beholden to Abramoff because of a few donations. But Hagel said Bush should release the photos to avoid giving Democrats unnecessary political ammunition.

"Get it out. Get it out. Come on," Hagel said, adding the photos will eventually leak out anyway.

"I mean, disclosure is the real issue. Whether it's campaign finance issues, whether it's ethics issues, whether it's lobbying issues, disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Thune said pictures should not be released because it is clear that Democrats would use any pictures of Bush with Abramoff for political purposes.

"But I do think it's important that everybody understand what this guy's level of involvement was," Thune said.

Democrats have complained about Bush's refusal to disclose White House dealings with Abramoff, who represented six Indian tribes with casinos and several other clients.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, made it clear that Abramoff's relationship with Republicans will be an issue in this year's congressional campaign.

"If the American people will put us back in power in '06, we will have on the president's desk things that outlaw all those kinds of behavior," Dean said on Fox.

But the comments from the Republicans, who hold the majority in Congress, show that it's not just Democrats who would like to see Bush come clean.

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday, 76 percent of those surveyed said the Bush administration should provide a list of all meetings any White House officials have had with Abramoff. Two in three Republicans joined with eight in 10 Democrats and political independents in favoring disclosure, according to the poll.

TIME.com: Prosecutor Pulled Off Abramoff -- Feb. 06, 2006 -- Page 1

2006-01-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

Is it just a coincidence that the head of the corruption probe into the Abramoff scandal is getting a new job?
By BRIAN BENNETT
When Noel Hillman, head of the corruption probe surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff, stepped down last week after President Bush nominated him for a federal judgeship in New Jersey, some couldn't help wondering whether the appointment's timing was just coincidence or the calculated removal of an aggressive prosecutor from an explosive case. Sources at the Justice Department tell Time it's the former--the nomination had been in the works for nearly a year. Hillman, chief of the Office of Public Integrity since 2003, says he asked to be replaced once the nomination was announced. "The chief of Public Integrity," he tells Time, "should come into the office every day and say, 'How many bad guys can I put away today?' without unnecessary distractions."

But "the timing is an issue," admits a Justice official close to the case. Hillman's resignation comes as the investigation is gathering momentum and, with Abramoff's cooperation, expanding its scope. Hillman will stay on at Justice as an adviser while he awaits Senate confirmation, veteran prosecutor Andrew Lourie will temporarily take charge of the probe, and the rest of the team on the case isn't changing, says department spokesman Bryan Sierra. But the loss of the independent-minded, hands-on Hillman--he attended most of the negotiation meetings with Abramoff and co-conspirator Michael Scanlon--has renewed calls on Capitol Hill for a special prosecutor to take over. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York expressed worry last week that because the Administration "might have something to risk" in the probe, "they may choose a particular type of person," perhaps someone less aggressive, to head up the case. Hillman seems glad to leave Washington's battles behind. An avid surfer who grew up catching waves on the Jersey Shore, he recently passed up a trip with friends to the Bahamas because he had too much work. Besides, there were barracuda in the Bahamian waters, he jokes--"kinda like D.C."

U.S. Says Abramoff Tipped Tyco to GSA Move

2006-01-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 28, 2006; A04

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave his client Tyco International an early warning in 2003 that the government was about to suspend Tyco's federal contracts -- inside information he received from a General Services Administration official now under indictment, federal prosecutors alleged yesterday.

David H. Safavian, who has been charged with obstructing the Abramoff corruption investigation, alerted Abramoff in November 2003 that the GSA was about to suspend the contracts of four Tyco subsidiaries, prosecutors said in court papers. Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about internal GSA deliberations, as well as advice about how to get around the suspension, the prosecutors said.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and is cooperating with a federal investigation into political corruption. He has been accused of improperly obtaining inside information from contacts in Congress and executive branch agencies.

George Terwilliger, Tyco's attorney, said yesterday that Abramoff's tip was of substantial benefit to Tyco but was unsolicited. Tyco's senior lawyer, Timothy Flanigan, contacted the GSA and "asked for an opportunity to address the suspension issue on the merits," Tyco said in a statement yesterday.

Tyco said it turned the matter over to its law firm, McKenna, Long and Aldridge, which persuaded the agency that the suspension was unwarranted. The GSA had been concerned about the alleged criminal misconduct of former Tyco executives, but the company told the agency that it had brought in new management, Terwilliger said.

GSA spokesman Neil Franz said Tyco's Nov. 10, 2003, notice of suspension was lifted before it was enforced because Tyco "was very responsive in providing the information GSA needed."

Abramoff "was not retained or engaged on this matter" by Tyco and was not paid for it, Terwilliger said. "I have asked and been assured by line-level prosecutors that neither Tyco nor anyone at the company is being investigated or is suspected of any wrongdoing."

Flanigan, a former deputy White House counsel under now-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, withdrew his nomination to be deputy attorney general in part because Tyco had surfaced in the Abramoff investigation. Terwilliger said Flanigan was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Abramoff in May 2003 solicited Tyco as a client on a tax issue, according to documents filed with his plea agreement earlier this month. Prosecutors said Abramoff recommended that the company hire both him and a consulting firm, GrassRoots Interactive, but hid from Tyco that GrassRoots Interactive was his business. In May and June 2003, Tyco paid GrassRoots Interactive about $1.8 million, of which about $1.7 million went to Abramoff and entities he controlled, prosecutors said. Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig, has reimbursed Tyco.

Safavian, former GSA chief of staff, is to stand trial in April on charges of making false statements to investigators about a 2002 golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff.

Yesterday's filing said the government intends to use the Tyco information to show that Safavian had a motive to lie to government ethics officials about the nature of his relationship with Abramoff.

Barbara Van Gelder, Safavian's attorney, was critical of the filing. "This is really trash-talk trial tactics on the part of the government. It's designed to muddy David's reputation, to try to link him to other investigations. . . . It has no relevance at all to this case."

In the summer and fall of 2002, Safavian also guided Abramoff regarding a policy issue of interest to his tribal clients, who wanted to invest in the Old Post Office building in downtown Washington, according to charging papers filed with Safavian's indictment.

At the same time, Abramoff's associate Neil Volz approached two members of Congress -- House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) and Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio) -- and asked if they could write a letter on the policy. On Sept. 12, Young and LaTourette sent the letter to the head of the GSA. The existence of the letter was first noted in charging papers last year, but the identify of the authors was reported by the newspaper Roll Call this week.

LaTourette's spokeswoman said the letter reflected her boss's policy priorities for boosting small businesses. Young's spokesman did not answer questions.

About a month after the letter was sent, Young received $7,000 in contributions from two of Abramoff's tribal clients.

Staff writer Thomas B. Edsall contributed to this report.

Norton Posed for Photo With Abramoff

2006-01-28T01:02:00.000-05:00

By JENNIFER TALHELM
The Associated Press
Friday, January 27, 2006; 11:04 PM

WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton posed for a photograph with Jack Abramoff in her second encounter with the lobbyist, a brief face-to-face session in her office in 2002.

The photo, made public Friday evening by Interior officials in response to media requests, shows Norton, Abramoff, an unnamed man, Chief Phillip Martin of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and the tribe's outside counsel, C. Bryant Rogers.

Norton did not speak with Abramoff and the Choctaw chief when they met for the photo, Interior spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said Friday. The men waited while Norton finished a meeting, then posed with her for an official department photo in front of the large fireplace in her office and left, Kreisher said.

Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty to federal felony charges related to congressional influence peddling, counted among his clients six Indian tribes with casinos. The Interior Department oversees Indian affairs.

In e-mail exchanges that have been made public, he mentioned having an inside track in Norton's Interior Department. He sought congressional help several times to lobby Norton for tribes, and his clients donated heavily to an environmental group Norton founded.

In the wake of the Abramoff scandal, many media outlets have asked for documents relating to contacts Abramoff had with the Interior Department and other Bush administration officials.

President Bush himself appears in photos with the disgraced lobbyist, but the White House has refused to release the photos the president acknowledges were taken.

Bush has said he would cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating Abramoff. But the president has said he has taken pictures with thousands of people and said a photo with Abramoff is not evidence that they were friends.

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday, 76 percent of those surveyed said the Bush administration should provide a list of all meetings any White House officials have had with Abramoff.

Kreisher said the Interior Department posted the photo of Norton and Abramoff on its Web site at http://www.doi.gov/initiatives/foia.html because officials wanted to ensure it would be widely circulated.

The photo represents the second time Abramoff and Norton met.

The lobbyist and one of his clients, a member of the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, dined with Norton on Sept. 24, 2001, at a private fundraising dinner.

The photo had been mentioned in testimony by former deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in November. The shot was arranged by Griles, who resigned last year.

Until a request for all images of Norton and Abramoff was filed recently, no one in the department had seen the photo, Kreisher said. "It wasn't something we went looking for," she said.

She added that the photo is considered a document under the Freedom of Information Act, and that the department should have released it to media outlets when they asked for information about Norton and Abramoff. She said the request for photos was filed by The Washington Post.

Majority Believe White House Should Release Abramoff Records

2006-01-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 27, 2006; 7:03 AM

A strong bipartisan majority of the public believes President Bush should release records of meetings between disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and White House staffers despite administration claims that media requests for details about those contacts amount to a "fishing expedition," according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that three in four--76 percent--of all Americans said Bush should disclose contacts between aides and Abramoff while 18 percent disagreed. Two in three Republicans joined with eight in 10 Democrats and political independents in favoring disclosure, according to the poll.

At a Thursday press conference, the president declined to discuss those meetings but said federal investigators are "welcome" to look into them if they suspect wrongdoing. Last week Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, pressured by reporters to explain Abramoff's contacts with the Bush administration, said, "We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition."

Earlier this month Abramoff pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy and fraud charges. A plea agreement said Abramoff bribed public officials, including a member of Congress.

Questions about White House contact with Abramoff came as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald continues an unrelated investigation to determine who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative to reporters. That investigation already has produced charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby is accused of lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury.

The twin scandals have done little to help the battered public image of the Bush White House and Congress. The new poll found that 56 percent of the public disapproved of the way that Bush is handling ethics in government, up seven percentage points in the past five weeks. An equally large majority say the type of wrongdoing admitted by Abramoff is "widespread" in Washington.

Abramoff has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators whose targets reportedly include several members of Congress as well as ranking officials within the executive branch.

In Congress, both parties have scrambled to put together lobbying reform packages as the November midterm elections loom on the horizon.

But Americans are divided over whether Congress is serous about passing reform legislation. About half--51 percent--of those surveyed said they doubted Congress would pass tough new lobbying restrictions in the coming year while 46 percent said it was likely.

A total of 1,002 randomly selected adults were interviewed nationally Jan. 23-26 for this telephone survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Democrats Want Shake-Up in Abramoff Probe - Yahoo! News

2006-01-27T09:02:00.000-05:00

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

Two Senate Democrats asked the U.S. attorney general Thursday to appoint a special counsel to take over the investigation into congressional corruption involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The letter came a day after the Justice Department announced the prosecutor heading the investigation would step down from the Abramoff investigation.

Noel Hillman, chief of the department's public integrity section, was nominated by President Bush for a judgeship on the U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

Hillman will step down as chief of the public integrity unit next week, but remain in the Justice Department's criminal division until he is confirmed, a department official said.

In a letter to the attorney general, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Ken Salazar argued an independent prosecutor "would ensure that the investigation and prosecution will proceed without fear or favor and provide the public with full confidence that no one in this country is above the law."

The two Democrats said that so far, the public integrity section of the Justice Department, which is in charge of the probe, has "pursued this case appropriately."

Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. issued a statement supporting the request made by Schumer and Salazar. In addition to the points they raised, Miller noted that on Wednesday Bush nominated Hillman to a federal judgeship.

"It looks like the White House has reached in and tampered with an ongoing investigation," Miller said.

The White House was poised to nominate Hillman last summer after a deal on Bush's judicial nominations paved the way for New Jersey's Democratic senators to weigh in on Hillman. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said the president makes all his nominations in a timely manner and was ready to move forward.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said, "There is no legal or ethical reason why the attorney general would need to recuse himself from this investigation as it continues to move forward successfully with a career prosecution team."

Abramoff pleaded guilty this year to several felony charges, some involving his dealings with members of Congress and their aides. His one-time business partner, former congressional aide Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty last year in the same investigation.

Officials have said numerous former congressional aides remain under scrutiny, as does Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, who recently stepped down provisionally as a committee chairman in the House of Representatives.

Politicians of both parties moved quickly to shed campaign donations from Abramoff or his former clients in the aftermath of the lobbyists' admissions of guilt.

The scandal also has thrust congressional reform toward the top of the legislative and political agenda in the opening days of an election-year Congress. All 435 seats in the House and one-third of the 100 Senate seats are up for election in November.

Schumer and Salazar sent their letter several days after Democrats pressed the White House for information on contacts between Abramoff and President Bush or other top officials. So far, the White House has refused to release photographs of the president and the lobbyist together.

Asked about it at a news conference Thursday, Bush said, "There's thousands of people that come through and get their pictures taken.

"I'm also mindful that we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes," he said, "and they're not relevant to the investigation."

In their letter, Schumer and Salazar cited news reports that in addition to the presidential photographs, Abramoff organized at least one meeting with White House aides for his clients.

"These meetings with the president and the White House staff occurred while you were serving as White House counsel," they wrote Gonzales, who became attorney general a year ago. "Given the possible ties between Mr. Abramoff and senior government officials, we believe the appointment of a special counsel is not only justified, but necessary."

Schumer and Salazar wrote that the "highly political context" of the allegations may "lead some to surmise that political influence may compromise the investigation."

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: President tries to distance himself, staff from Abramoff

2006-01-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

By James Gerstenzang and Peter Wallsten
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Thursday refused to release photographs showing him with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and declined to disclose information about meetings between Abramoff and White House staff.

Recent news reports have described five photographs depicting the president with Abramoff, a longtime Republican fundraiser, apparently shot during White House functions.

Bush's spokesman has acknowledged "a few staff-level meetings" between Abramoff and White House aides took place but has declined to say who met with the lobbyist or what was discussed.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said Thursday, referring to Abramoff. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well.

"I've had my picture taken with you," Bush told a reporter who pursued the issue, drawing chuckles.

The president's comments, during an impromptu White House news conference, illustrated the challenges he faces heading into Tuesday's State of the Union address, a speech aides hope will lift Bush above scandals and weakened approval ratings.

He defended the White House decision to bar some top aides from testifying before congressional committees investigating the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

"If people give me advice and they're forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up, I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisers," Bush said.

He also defended his decision to authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor electronic communications, without court approval, between Americans and suspected al-Qaida members overseas, a decision critics assert was a violation of federal law.

Bush said at least 10 times that he believed he acted lawfully. He took issue with a question that suggested he had circumvented the law.

"Wait a minute," Bush said. "It's like saying, you know, you're breaking the law.

"I'm not. I am upholding my duty, and at the same time doing so under the law and with the Constitution behind me."

When told that his stand on the surveillance policy "seems to sound like something President Nixon once said, which was: 'When the president does it, then that means that it's not illegal,' in the areas involving national security," whispered "oohs" could be heard in the briefing room.

Bush responded: "Most presidents believe that during a time of war that we can use our authorities under the Constitution to make decisions necessary to protect us."

On Thursday, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., called for the appointment of a special counsel to take over investigation of Abramoff and his links to lawmakers and their staffs. Abramoff has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and has said he will cooperate with the investigation.

Time magazine said this week that its reporters had seen five Bush-Abramoff photos and a sixth showing Bush with several of Abramoff's children and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

None of the photos has been circulated publicly.

Bush said the photos were not relevant to the federal investigation that has gripped Capitol Hill since Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion. "I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," Bush said. "I don't know him."

Prosecutor Will Step Down From Lobbyist Case - New York Times

2006-01-27T08:41:00.000-05:00

By PHILIP SHENON and ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.

The prosecutor, Noel L. Hillman, is chief of the department's public integrity division, and the move ends his involvement in an inquiry that has reached into the administration as well as the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.

The administration said that the appointment was routine and that it would not affect the investigation, but Democrats swiftly questioned the timing of the move and called for a special prosecutor.

The announcement came as Mr. Bush faced a barrage of questions about why he would not make public "grip-and-grin" photographs of him with Mr. Abramoff. The photographs apparently show Mr. Bush and Mr. Abramoff smiling at White House Hanukkah parties and Republican fund-raising receptions.

Mr. Bush's position, which he offered at a news conference on Thursday morning that was peppered with questions about Mr. Abramoff, was that the photographs were so common as to be almost meaningless and that it was part of his job "to shake hands with people and smile." He said he could not remember posing for the pictures, or, for that matter, even meeting Mr. Abramoff.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Mr. Bush said. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well."

He said, "I'm also mindful that we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes, and they're not relevant to the investigation."

The White House, which announced Mr. Bush's selection of Mr. Hillman for the court in a routine e-mail message on Wednesday that included 15 other nominations to judgeships and federal jobs, dismissed the calls for a special prosecutor.

"It's nothing but pure politics," said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary. "The Justice Department is holding Mr. Abramoff to account, and the career Justice prosecutors are continuing to fully investigate the matter."

A special prosecutor would not be especially welcome at the White House. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case, is more than two years into an investigation that has resulted in the indictment of a top vice-presidential aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., and has left Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, under investigation.

Mr. Hillman's departure from the Justice Department creates a vacancy at the top of the Abramoff inquiry only three weeks after Mr. Abramoff, once one of the city's most powerful Republican lobbyists and a major fund-raiser for Mr. Bush, announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify against others, possibly including members of Congress.

A former senior White House budget official, David H. Safavian, has been indicted in the case on charges of lying about his contacts with Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner. The Justice Department's plea agreement with Mr. Abramoff makes clear that prosecutors are investigating several members of Congress and other public officials who are suspected of having accepted gifts from the lobbyist in exchange for official acts.

Colleagues at the Justice Department say Mr. Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two year ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on accusations that Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation.

Mr. Hillman's nomination for a judgeship was among the factors cited Thursday by four Democratic lawmakers, two senators and two representatives, in calling on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to name a special prosecutor to oversee the corruption investigation.

The timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination "jaundices this whole process," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in an interview. "They have to appoint a special counsel. I think there will be broad support for one."

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, called the timing "startling" and said, "You have one of the chief prosecutors removed from a case that has tentacles throughout the Republican leadership of Congress, throughout the various agencies and into the White House."

White House officials have said that Mr. Abramoff had no improper dealings with the White House. They have said he attended "staff level" meetings at the White House, but have declined to say with whom. One of his chief connections to the White House was through Susan Ralston, an assistant who worked for him before she worked for Mr. Rove. Ms. Ralston continues to work for Mr. Rove as a top aide.

A Justice Department spokesman, Bryan Sierra, said he had no comment on the Democratic request for a special prosecutor because the department had not received their letter making the request.

Mr. Sierra said in an interview that there was nothing unusual about the timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination and that it would not affect the Abramoff inquiry. "The team that Noel put together is going to remain together," he said. "The investigation should not be impacted." He said Mr. Hillman would be temporarily succeeded as head of the public integrity office by Andrew Lourie, a career prosecutor in Florida.

The White House had been poised to nominate Mr. Hillman for the bench last year. Mr. Sierra said he did not know why the nomination had been delayed until this week, but he said he believed it had nothing to do with the Abramoff investigation.

In a letter sent to the attorney general on Thursday asking for an independent counsel, Senator Schumer and Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, praised Mr. Hillman's office for the investigation that led to the guilty plea by Mr. Abramoff and his former lobbying partner, Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary to Representative Tom DeLay.

"We applaud its pursuit of Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues," they said. "We have no doubt that if the investigation is left to the career prosecutors in that section, the case would reach its appropriate conclusion. Unfortunately, the highly political context of the allegations and charges may lead some to surmise that political influence may compromise the investigation."

The Seattle Times: Politics: White House not sharing Bush-Abramoff photos

2006-01-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

By Jim VandeHei and Susan Schmidt
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Several White House officials have been briefed about pictures of President Bush and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them, on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-for-favors investigation, aides said Monday.

"Trying to say there's more to it than the president taking a picture in a photo line is just absurd," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. Bush, he said, does not recall meeting Abramoff and did not do any favors for the disgraced lobbyist.

Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty in the growing bribery and corruption scandal, was with Bush about a dozen times when pictures were taken by the official White House photographer or other participants over the past five years, according to a source familiar with Abramoff's legal situation. Abramoff, this source said, displayed at least five of them on his office desk and has told people the president talked about his children's names as well as personal details about their schooling during one encounter.

The source said Abramoff has more than half a dozen photos with Bush, including one of the two men shaking hands, but has no intention of releasing them. The existence of the Bush-Abramoff photos was first reported by Washingtonian magazine, which reviewed five photos but was not permitted to publish them.

No evidence has emerged thus far suggesting that Bush had a close relationship with Abramoff or that he or any top White House aides did anything to improperly assist his clients, according to people familiar with the investigation. Several lower-level administration officials, however, have been caught up in the scandal, including the top procurement official. The federal probe is expected to zero in on Abramoff's dealings with the Interior Department as it unfolds in coming months.

But public photographs could damage Bush's efforts to insulate himself from a scandal that has scorched numerous other Republicans. An image of Bush shaking hands and smiling with Abramoff would provide fuel for news coverage and commentary, even if such "grip-and-grin" shots are commonplace for most politicians.

Jennifer Palmieri, a former Clinton communications aide, said, "If TV is showing a picture of George Bush and Jack Abramoff, it immediately brings the poster boy for abuse into the Oval Office."

Mark Corallo, a veteran GOP communications official, said that to minimize possible damage, the White House should release all of the photos immediately and explain how the photos are part of the normal meet-and-greet with supporters.

However, one top White House aide said it would set a terrible precedent if the president were to release photos from private events.

But Democrats said that precedent is established. In 1997, congressional and public pressure forced the Clinton White House to release videotapes of President Clinton hosting meet-and-greet coffees with big contributors.

ABC 7 News - Earle Subpoenas Former DeLay Campaign Aide

2006-01-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

Washington (AP) - A former campaign manager of Rep. Tom DeLay who also ran an organization linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was subpoenaed by a Texas prosecutor Monday. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle filed documents in Austin seeking records from Robert G. Mills in connection with a probe of DeLay, who is awaiting trial in Texas on money laundering charges.

Earle wants information about a $500,000 political contribution made in 1999 by the National Republican Congressional Committee to the U.S. Family Network, a now-disbanded nonprofit advocacy group for conservative ideas. Mills, DeLay's 1996 campaign manager, was president of the U.S. Family Network.
[Blocked Ads]
The Washington Post reported that donations to U.S. Family Network came from clients of Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges in a congressional corruption investigation.

DeLay, R-Texas, has denied through a spokesman that donations to U.S. Family Network influenced his legislative agenda. DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, was not immediately available for comment Monday, but has previously questioned whether subpoenas can be enforced because the case is on appeal.

"We're giving people a chance to do the right thing," Earle's office said.

DeLay is accused of laundering campaign money used in 2002 races for the state Legislature. He stepped down as House majority leader last year when he was indicted.

He also has come under scrutiny in the Abramoff investigation but denies wrongdoing.

Chron.com | Bush, Abramoff reportedly photographed together

2006-01-23T09:47:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - Although President Bush says he doesn't recall meeting convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the two have reportedly turned up in photos together.

Washingtonian and Time magazines have reported about a half-dozen photos showing the two together.

Time reported on its Web site Sunday that its staff members have seen at least six photos featuring Bush and Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his lobbying practices and has pledged to cooperate with investigators. They appeared to have been taken at White House functions, according to the reports.

Abramoff met a few times with White House staff and attended Hanukkah receptions in 2001 and 2002, the White House has said, but officials have not disclosed how many times he's been in the complex or what business he had there.

Abramoff was declared a Bush "pioneer" for raising at least $100,000 for the Bush re-election campaign. Contributions that came directly from Abramoff, his wife and an American Indian tribe he represented were donated to the American Heart Association after Abramoff entered his pleas.

Outrage over Abramoff case belies lobbyists' place in politics

2006-01-22T09:46:00.000-05:00

Sunday, January 22, 2006
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief
Washington- No one's excusing Jack Abramoff, the influence peddler who is spilling secrets to the Justice Department about his scheme to bribe members of Congress. But those who say they're shocked, simply shocked, over the mixing of lobbying, politics and lawmaking may be just a tad disingenuous.

Consider some ordinary, perfectly legal, everyday ways in which lobbyists and members of Congress mixed recently:

Last Tuesday, Rep. Deborah Pryce, a ranking Republican from Columbus, held a fund-raising dinner at a Capitol Hill townhouse purchased by the Fluor Corp. for its lobbying offices and rented out for political functions. Receipts have not yet been reported to the Federal Election Commission, but if this was typical of Washington dinners, money from lobbyists or their clients dominated the take.

In November, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying group for the nuclear power industry, flew Reps. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Niles, and Steve LaTourette, Republican of Concord Township, to Las Vegas. It put them up at the plush Bellagio Hotel and, records show, paid for LaTourette's wife, Jennifer, a private lobbyist whose clients are unrelated to the nuclear lobby, to come along.

Then it flew the lawmakers by helicopter to tour Yucca Mountain, where the industry and federal government want to store depleted nuclear fuel. Mrs. LaTourette did not go on the tour, the trip sponsor says; she was left to do as she pleased in Vegas, as other spouses are on these trips.

This month, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay permanently stepped down from congressional leadership amid the lobbying-and-ethics scandal blanketing Capitol Hill. Yet as John Boehner, of West Chester, Ohio, and Roy Blunt, of Missouri, whose wife is a lobbyist for Altria Corp., launched campaigns to succeed DeLay, each had lobbyists quietly helping with strategy and media outreach, according to the newspaper Roll Call.

Outrageous? Outside the Beltway, it might seem so, considering that both houses of Congress claim to be eager to distance themselves from all things related to lobbying. With Abramoff's courthouse admission that he plotted to bribe members of Congress with trips, entertainment and political contributions in exchange for legislative favors, many in Congress want to be perceived as operating in a lobbying-free zone. They're considering enacting bans on activities including privately funded trips.

They're especially anxious that Rep. Bob Ney of east-central Ohio has already been identified as a Justice Department target, although he says he is innocent.

Yet several lobbyists and others involved in politics acknowledge that this sudden desire to push lobbyists toward the exits, driven largely by media attention, seems a little phony. The fact is, they say, lobbyists and politicians are inextricably linked.

"It is true that virtually all members [of Congress] raise funds for their campaigns or for leadership PACs," says Bruce Gates, a lobbyist whose firm represents Microsoft, General Electric and many other companies. "And it is true that virtually all of those funds that are raised in or around Washington, D.C., are somehow associated with individuals who are either lobbyists by profession or have an interest in government."

Gates, a congressional staffer before becoming a lobbyist, helps raise money for Boehner and Republicans, which neither violates lobbying laws nor congressional rules. He's treasurer of Boehner's political action committee, which Boehner uses to write checks to other politicians, and he sets up late-night parties for Boehner and friends at political conventions to entertain the political elite.

It's one of the ways political business is conducted - and whether the public thinks it's right or wrong, few on Capitol Hill profess genuine shock.

Lobbyists hired

as campaign treasurers

Lobbyists from American Continental Group are the forces behind the wildly successful Freshmen PAC, which raises money to re-elect Republican freshmen in Congress. The wife of a lobbyist and adviser to House Speaker Dennis Hastert is treasurer for Hastert's leadership PAC.

Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York has a leadership PAC whose treasurer, Janice Enright, has worked as a lobbyist alongside another Hillary Clinton adviser, former White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes, FEC and Senate lobbying registrations show. Al Gore's campaign treasurer in 2000 was a lobbyist, and 79 members of Congress have appointed lobbyists to be treasurers of their congressional campaigns or leadership PACs since 1998, says the Center for Public Integrity.

Lobbyists, simply put, are involved, and sometimes it's hard to keep them out.

Boehner's spokesman, Don Seymour, acknowledges that there has been "communication with lobbyists" in the congressman's campaign to become House majority leader. But Seymour adds that "even those who are personal friends with John have been told point blank that John has to win this on his own and that, quite frankly, we'd rather they were not involved."

But the fact is that they are. The expectation in Washington has almost never been otherwise.

"Where do you draw the line?" asks Sean Spicer, a Pryce spokesman who has worked on policy and politics for House Republicans. "Do you say, 'You can't stay involved in the political world if you're a lobbyist'?

"I've held fund-raisers for local candidates, I've been on the host committee of other members of Congress that I particularly find enjoyable, and I used to be on the board of this thing called the Young Elephants PAC that raised money to elect more Republicans to the House," he says. "Do we draw the line and say if you join one industry, you can't stay involved in it as well?"

The lobbying world makes clear it would never succumb to such an edict, and unless the campaign finance system were to change dramatically, politicians have good reason not to want them to. In just the last presidential election, 52 lobbyists were major Bush campaign fund-raisers, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

"That's why D.C. has very few smokestacks," says Alex Knott, the center's political editor. "The major industry is policy and the influence of that policy."

It's not just a Washington phenomenon. Two of the big names in Ohio political circles are Alex Arshinkoff, a fund-raiser for President Bush's election, chairman of the Summit County Republican Party and a lobbyist; and Paul Tipps, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman and a former lobbyist. Tipps was one of the most plugged-in Democrats in the state.

With system here to stay,

some urge strict reporting

Orientation into this universe begins soon after politicians are elected. They want to improve the world, and to do that, Tipps says, they have to stay in office, which means "that they've got to raise money."

"And anybody that steps up and says, 'Look, I care enough about your future and your family and what you can do for your district, and I want to help you raise the money,' they become awfully good friends.

"Does that mean the legislator will do something he shouldn't do for them? Overwhelmingly, no," Tipps says. "But it means that while they're sitting in the committee and their cell phone rings, and I happen to be that fund-raiser, and it's my number, it gets answered."

Several lobbyists interviewed for this story insisted that, well-known money-grubbing abuses notwithstanding, the relationships are not as mercenary as critics suggest. Nevertheless, lobbyists and lawmakers know that their relationships don't look good, and many take pains to keep them out of the public eye. It is largely through public records - trip disclosure forms filed by members of Congress, Federal Election Commission records filed by PACs, campaign records itemizing donations and disbursements - that reporters and interest groups find out.

That's why some lawmakers, including Boehner, say the key to keeping the system honest is to require strict reporting. That assumes the lobbying reports will be accurate - that no more Jack Abramoffs lurk on K Street.

Knott, of the Center for Public Integrity, is highly skeptical, considering the slipshod or incomplete way many lobbying reports are now filed.

But David Marventano, a Fluor Corp. lobbyist and former staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is one of the believers.

Observing that records on Pryce and on Fluor and its Capitol Hill townhouse are what brought him to a reporter's attention, he said, "You can find out what we're doing. All you have to do is do the work and look it up."

© 2006 The Plain Dealer

Missoulian: Burns changed vote on bill about the Marianas islands

2006-01-21T22:04:00.000-05:00

By JENNIFER McKEE Missoulian State Bureau
HELENA - U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., met with a Marianas official who had close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in the weeks before Burns received an Abramoff-related $5,000 contribution from the Marianas and reversed his earlier position on a bill about the islands.

The politician, Gov. Benigno Fitial, has said he will cooperate with the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into potential bribery of public officials involving Abramoff, a man Fitial once described as a “close friend,” according to Pacific Magazine, a Hawaii publication that covers the Pacific region.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands is a U.S. territory near Guam. Citizens there are U.S. citizens, although the island is exempt from many U.S. standards, including minimum wage.

In the late 1990s, some

58 percent of the island's population were noncitizen immigrants, drawn to the island's garment manufacturing jobs, government reports show. At the time, workers in the factories earned a minimum of $3.05 an hour, below the U.S. minimum wage of $5.15.

Burns voted against a bill in May 2001 that would have strengthened U.S. oversight over the commonwealth's labor and immigration laws. A little more than a year before Burns had not opposed an identical measure.

Burns has said the $5,000 donation from an Abramoff client had nothing to do with his 2001 change in stance on the bill. Rather, the senator told Lee Newspapers this month he was persuaded to vote against the measure after reading two government reports about the islands and meeting with Fitial, who was then speaker of the Marianas House of Representatives.

Initially, Burns said he didn't know why he changed his position on the bill.

Burns' records show the senator met with Fitial for 15 minutes on the afternoon of April 3, 2001.

Campaign finance records and reports in Pacific Magazine show Fitial is a former executive of Tan Holdings. Eloy Inos, another Tan Holdings executive, donated $5,000 to Burns' Friends of the Big Sky on April 20, 2001, a little more than two weeks after Fitial's meeting with the senator.

Inos worked on Fitial's transition team last December, shortly after Fitial won the islands' governor seat, Pacific Magazine reports.

Inos' check was among $12,000 Burns collected from Abramoff, his clients and associates in the weeks before the vote.

Tan Holdings, the largest employer on the islands, according to the company's Web site, is a member of the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association.

Records show the garment association hired Abramoff in 2001 to defeat laws that would put greater federal oversight over labor and immigration on the islands, and paid him $460,000.

The Los Angeles Times and Pacific Magazine have both reported that Fitial won his bid for speaker of the Marianas House through the actions of Abramoff's lobbying partner, Michael Scanlon.

Scanlon has since pleaded guilty to bribery and other crimes.

Records show the commonwealth government, at Fitial's urging, hired Abramoff in 2001 and paid him $1.1 million to defeat the kind of bill Burns voted against.

Burns spokesman James Pendleton said the senator couldn't know how Fitial became speaker in 2001. As far as Burns knew, Pendleton said, Fitial was a duly elected official and it made sense that he would want to talk to Burns, who served as chairman of the subcommittee that holds the purse strings to the U.S. office that oversees the islands.

Pendleton said the senator may have known Abramoff represented the island government at the time, but was unsure.

Pendleton said Fitial told him the local government was working to deal with problems of noncitizen workers and that the U.S. government should give them a chance to fix it.

Burns said Fitial's visit wasn't the only reason the senator reversed his vote on the 2001 Marianas bill. He said he read two General Accounting Office reports that came out in the spring of 2000, one looking into immigration and another on the role of the garment industry and tourism.

Those reports examined only the economics of the current situation.

Pendleton said that's what Burns was most interested in, too.

“That was point one,” he said. “The economic impact of (the defeated bill) would be negative.”

Matt McKenna, a spokesman for the Montana Democratic Party, said he didn't believe that a 15-minute meeting with Fitial was the true impetus behind the senator's vote.

“Conrad Burns' explanation of his involvement in the Marianas started out as misleading and has devolved into outright lies,” he said.

MercuryNews.com | 01/19/2006 | White House won't reveal which staffers met Abramoff

2006-01-20T16:37:00.000-05:00

By William DouglasKnight RidderWASHINGTON - For the second straight day, the White House refused Wednesday to say who among its staffers met with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff or whom the recently convicted felon was representing when he visited the executive mansion.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan, pressed to explain Abramoff's contacts with the Bush administration, said, ``We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition'' in the media.
``I know there's some that want to do that, but I don't see any reason to do so,'' McClellan said. ``Well, I think that some people [are] insinuating things based on no evidence whatsoever.''
Several government ethics groups found the White House stance perplexing, saying nothing prevents the administration from disclosing the identities of meeting participants.
``There's a feeding frenzy for transparency and disclosure on Capitol Hill, and that's not a good way to start,'' said Roberta Baskin, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan, non-profit watchdog group. ``You can't plead national security. The public has a right to know.''
Abramoff was a high-flying Washington lobbyist and a huge contributor to Republican political campaigns until he pleaded guilty before a federal judge Jan. 3 to one charge each of conspiracy to corrupt public officials, mail fraud and tax evasion. He gave only to fellow Republicans, but his clients contributed large donations to Republicans and Democrats.
He's now cooperating with prosecutors investigating corruption on Capitol Hill and in the Bush administration, and Republicans worry that public outrage over the spreading scandal could cost them control of Congress in November's elections.
After Abramoff's guilty plea, lawmakers from both parties rushed to distance themselves from him and unload contributions from him. The Bush-Cheney campaign donated $6,000 that it had received from Abramoff to the American Heart Association, though it's keeping more than $100,000 that he raised for the campaign from other donors.
The White House went public about returning the $6,000, but has said little else about contacts between Abramoff and its staffers. McClellan acknowledged Tuesday that Abramoff and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove are casual friends largely because they both once headed the College Republicans.
Other than acknowledging that Abramoff attended Hanukkah receptions at the White House in 2001 and 2002, McClellan has refused to say how many other times the lobbyist has visited. While photos of guests shaking hands with the president at such events are routine, McClellan has ducked whether there are any pictures of Bush with Abramoff, saying only that he would look into the question.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Abramoff and his associates had nearly 200 contacts with the White House during Bush's first 10 months in office.

Sen. Burns Can't Escape Abramoff's Shadow - Yahoo! News

2006-01-20T16:36:00.000-05:00

By MATT GOURAS, Associated Press Writer

Some 2,200 miles outside the Washington Beltway, back home in his rosy red state, and Sen. Conrad Burns (news, bio, voting record) still can't get away from Jack Abramoff.

During an appearance at a Rotary Club gathering at a Billings hotel last week, the Montana Republican was met by a half-dozen protesters holding signs such as "Sold to the highest bid" and "Burns, your lie is open." In fact, wherever Burns went on his statewide tour, people wanted to talk about the Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Burns was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the money Abramoff lavished on Capitol Hill — a connection some say could make the third-term lawmaker one of the Senate's most vulnerable incumbents come Election Day.

Every chance they get, the Democrats accuse Burns of being at the epicenter of a GOP "culture of corruption." Recent polls show that his two leading Democratic challengers may be gaining on him. Newspaper editorials have been critical, with the Missoulian calling Burns the "perfect candidate" to help the Democrats win his seat. And Burns finds himself dismissing speculation he will step aside in favor of a more popular Republican.

"It is absolutely going to be a race," said Craig Wilson, a Montana State University-Billings political scientist who has observed Montana politics for 40 years. "I think it's going to be interesting."

The Democrats already hold the governorship in this historically Republican-leaning state and are salivating over the chance to pick up a Senate seat and help break the GOP's 55-45 control of the chamber. Among Senate Republicans, only Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum is more vulnerable than Burns, some observers say.

"Burns is front and center in the Abramoff scandal, and I don't think you are going to see this race drop off anyone's radar screen until he is out," said state Democratic Party spokesman Matt McKenna.

Still, Burns has been marked as vulnerable before, only to win re-election. He also has the considerable advantages of incumbency, the election is a long 9 1/2 months away, and a lot could depend on how the Abramoff scandal unfolds.

Earlier this month, Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating influence-peddling on Capitol Hill.

An Associated Press review found that in 2001, Burns and his staff met Abramoff's lobbying team and collected thousands of dollars in donations around the time that Burns took legislative action favorable to Abramoff's clients in the Northern Mariana Islands. Burns also helped arrange congressional funding for an Indian school building program sought by Abramoff's tribal clients.

He has announced plans to return or donate $146,700 that he received from Abramoff or Abramoff clients. (In an embarrassing turn this week, an American Indian council refused to accept $110,000 from Burns, saying the money was tainted.)

Burns is telling constituents that he has done nothing wrong, that he has a "clear conscience" and that he is being tied unfairly to someone he barely knows.

Still, "it doesn't look good, and it's hard to see it getting better," said Helena retiree Dal Phillips, an undecided voter.

As for the reception Burns has received during his home-state tour, "I think a lot of folks have withheld judgment because they recognize the source of these attacks, that is the state Democratic Party," said Mark Baker, Burns' campaign chairman.

The leading Democratic contenders for the Senate seat are state Auditor John Morrison and state Senate President Jon Tester. The primary is June 6.

Burns, who turns 71 next week and has token primary opposition, has positioned himself closely to the president and sits on the influential Senate Appropriations Committee. Over the years, he has pushed for airline pilots to carry guns, supported more oil drilling and held sway over Western land issues and the National Park Service.

He has also ridden out criticism for such gaffes as referring to Arabs as "ragheads" in 1999 and asking a woman with a nose ring what tribe she belonged to.

MSNBC - Abramoff's presence at meetings confirmed

2006-01-20T13:25:00.000-05:00

White House admits to the convicted GOP lobbyist's access

MSNBC
Updated: 9:59 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2006

Until recently, members of Congress couldn't resist accepting money and gifts from super lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now that Abramoff has pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy, lawmakers are trying to pass lobbying reform as quickly as possible. But as they scramble to convince voters they care about the smell coming from Abramoff and his associates, the scandal continues. HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster reported about the recent events leading up to the White House's admission about Abramoff's access to staff meetings.

To read an excerpt from their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the "Launch" button to the right.

DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT: Two weeks ago, the White House acknowledged that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff may have met President Bush a few years ago during holiday parties. Today the president's press secretary added that Abramoff also attended White House staff meetings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With regard to Abramoff, can you give any more specificity on those meetings, when they were, years, time?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No, this is sticking with our past policy. We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition.

SHUSTER: This was the second straight day McClellan refused to provide details about Abramoff. On Tuesday...

DAVID GREGORY, NBC NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Was it senior staff he met with? Would you qualify it as senior staff that he met with here?

MCCLELLAN: Staff level meetings is a way I would describe it. I mean, if you have anything specific, I'll be glad to take a look into it. Well, if there's any reason for me to check into it, please bring it to my attention.

GREGORY: He pled guilty to some serious charges.

MCCLELLAN: And so are you insinuating something?

GREGORY: I'm just trying out the facts.

MCCLELLAN: Well if you've got something to bring to my attention, do so and I'll be glad to look into it.

GREGORY: That's not a fair burden to place on us. I mean, this guy is radioactive in Washington and he knows guys like Karl Rove. So did he meet with him or not? Don't put it on us to bring something specific.

SHUSTER: One adviser outside the White House to President Bush and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Norquist and Jack Abramoff are friends from their days as college Republicans.

MSNBC has confirmed that Norquist helped Abramoff bring at least two tribal chief clients into the White House to meet President Bush four years ago. On April 19, 2001, an e-mail from Grover Norquist to Jack Abramoff was forwarded to the Coushatta's Indian tribe.

The e-mail invited the tribe to attend a luncheon dinner at the White House and described the May 9, 2001 get-together as a meeting with, quote, “the president and congressional leadership.” Norquist has denied this $25,000 check the tribes gave him was his fee for the White House visit.

Still, the connections between the White House, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, and Washington influence-peddlers have been issues the Democratic group moveon.org has been trying to draw attention to for months. And today, group protesters took to the sidewalk outside where Norquist's lobbyists and part of the Republican Party's brain trust conduct a regular weekly meeting.

One senator who often attends the meetings is Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum. Last month when “The Washington Post” reported that Santorum met with the lobbying firms and associations “to discuss Republican candidates for job openings,” Santorum told the “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette” it was part of his leadership role as the Senate's third-ranking Republican.

“The K Street project is purely to make sure we have qualified applications for positions that are in town. From my perspective, it's a good government thing.”

Yesterday Santorum joined John McCain in introducing lobbying reform and spun hard.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM ®, PENNSYLVANIA: I'm not aware of any Senate liaison job that I do for the K Street project. What I have done is, I do host meetings once or twice a month with members who represent a variety of different groups in Washington D.C.

SHUSTER: And so today they rolled out a lobbying reform plan named after Republicans, including Norquist and Abramoff.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: These people with the bad ideas, the K Street project and others, have infiltrated our government.

SHUSTER: And the White House is now the latest part of the government to get snared by this story. With Bush administration officials refusing to provide any details about Jack Abramoff's access to White House staff meetings, the stench, critics argue, is getting worse.

Cincinnati Enquirer - Abramoff's dad furious at Clooney jab

2006-01-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

By Erica Solvig
The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - The father of controversial Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is responding to actor George Clooney for what he's describing as a "glib and ridiculous attack" on his son.

Frank Abramoff of Rancho Mirage, Calif., in a letter addressed to Clooney and sent Thursday to the Desert Sun newspaper of Palm Springs, said he was watching the Golden Globes on Monday night when Clooney, during his acceptance speech for best supporting actor, thanked Jack Abramoff "just because" and made a comment about the lobbyist's name.

"Who would name their kid Jack with the last words 'off' at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up," said Clooney, a Kentucky native, during the internationally televised awards show.

In the letter, Frank Abramoff furiously defends the name, saying his son is named after Frank's father. In the two-page letter, he calls Clooney's act a "lapse in lucidity" and an "obscene query."

He also wrote: "One wonders how your father would respond, were the roles reversed." Clooney's father, Nick, is a veteran Cincinnati journalist.

Former GOP lobbyist Abramoff admitted bribing public officials and defrauding his American Indian clients of millions of dollars.

In a telephone interview with the Desert Sun on Thursday, Frank Abramoff said Clooney was "an idiot" and described the actions as "pure, unadulterated stupidity."

"You want to make fun. You can do that, but you don't make fun of someone else's hardships and misery," the 78-year-old Abramoff said. "We've gone through quite a bit, our family. But the political end of it and the media end of it and all the other areas are one thing. When you see something like that on a show for 500 million people, it was not only a slap in my son's face but in my father's."