Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi pens an informative and hilarious portrait of superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's career:
Continue readingHe was an amazingly ubiquitous figure, a sort of Zelig of the political right -- you could find him somewhere, in the foreground or the background, in almost every Republican political scandal of the past twenty-five years. He carried water for the racist government of Pretoria during the apartheid days and whispered in the ear of those Republican congressmen who infamously voted against anti-apartheid resolutions. He organized rallies in support of the Grenada invasion, showed up in Ollie North's offices during Iran-Contra, palled around with Mobutu Sese Seko, Jonas Savimbi and the Afghan mujahedin.
All along, Abramoff was buying journalists, creating tax-exempt organizations to fund campaign activities and using charities to fund foreign conflicts. He spent the past twenty years doing business with everyone from James Dobson to the Gambino family, from Ralph Reed to Grover Norquist to Karl Rove to White House procurements chief David Safavian. He is even lurking in the background of the 2004 Ohio voting-irregularities scandal, having worked with the Diebold voting-machine company to defeat requirements for a paper trail in elections.
He is a living museum of corruption, and in a way it is altogether too bad that he is about to disappear from public scrutiny. In a hilariously tardy attempt to attend to his moral self-image, lately he has been repackaging himself as a fallen prophet, a humbled super-Jew who was guilty only of going too far to serve God. He was the "softest touch in town," he has said, a sucker for causes who "incorrectly didn't follow the mitzvah of giving away at most twenty percent."
How Tony Rudy Bought a Think Tank:
According to Raw Story, former DeLay aide and official member of the "pled guilty" caucus Tony Rudy directed his client Stoli Vodka to donate $20,000 to the Abramoff controlled National Center for Public Policy Research. Rudy took an $8,000 cut while the head of NCPPR Amy Ridenour wrote a favorable op-ed for Stoli that is still displayed on their website. Ridenour and the NCPPR have become notorious for writing favorable pieces about Abramoff clients after those clients gave the nonprofit hefty contributions.
Continue readingAbramoff E-mails Show Use of Campaign Contributions; GOP, Burns, Taylor In Spotlight
E-mails obtained by the Associated Press indicate how Abramoff’s team used the lure of campaign contributions to obtain an earmark for a school construction project desired by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan
Abramoff’s team worked with Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow to get the Senate Democrats, then in control of the Senate, to request the money. Abramoff also turned to Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) to write the earmarked provision for the money. The plan hit a snag when a lone GOP House staffer, Joel Kaplan, objected to the money. That is when the e-mails become of interest:
Aside from the Republican Party getting involved in Abramoff's contribution-for-action scheme two specific lawmakers come up for scrutiny in the e-mails: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 overrrule 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.
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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.
Nothing is coming up Burns these days. Continue readingIn 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 subcomittees 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.
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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.
The Wives Club:
Yesterday the New York Times reported on the involvement of spouses and family members in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Julie Doolittle, the wife of Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), “has been subpoenaed … and questioned by the F.B.I.” about her “marketing and events-planning work for Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying firm and for his Washington restaurant, Signatures”. Rep. Tom DeLay’s wife Christine “received $115,000 in consulting fees from 1998 to 2002” from the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit run by former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham who is currently “under scrutiny by the Justice Department because of his lobbying contacts with Mr. DeLay’s House office.” Lisa Rudy, the wife of Tony Rudy, the ex-deputy chief of staff to DeLay who pled guilty last week, “received $50,000 in consulting fees as a result of what her husband has acknowledged was a corrupt scheme with Mr. Abramoff to influence the workings of Mr. DeLay’s office and promote the concerns of Mr. Abramoff’s clients on Capitol Hill.” Wendy Buckham, the wife of Ed Buckham, “shared more than $1 million in consulting fees with her husband from the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit group tied to Mr. DeLay. The group has drawn the scrutiny of law enforcement officials because so much of its income was directed to the Buckham family and appears to have come from Russian businessmen eager to court favor from Mr. DeLay.” The Times also provides a graphic illustrating the connections to family members in this bribery scheme.
Continue readingTribe Returns Burns Earmark:
The Saginaw Chippewa tribe that benefited from a $3 million earmark written by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) will return the money to the government and ask that it be distributed to other tribes in the wake of revelations that the earmark may have been generated through a corrupt process involving Jack Abramoff. The Washington Post reports,
Continue reading"After careful consideration, our tribal council has decided not to move forward with the construction of the school, because it is not financially prudent to pursue this project at this time," tribal officials wrote in a letter yesterday to Burns and other lawmakers. They asked that Congress use the money to offset some of the cuts in the BIA's budget.
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Burns has said he sought the grant because he is interested in improving conditions on Indian reservations. A spokesman for his office had no immediate comment on the tribe's decision.
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Abramoff's lobbying team had strong ties to Burns's staff. One appropriations aide went back and forth between jobs on Burns's staff and Abramoff's team. Another Burns appropriations staffer and Burns's chief of staff were treated to a trip to the 2001 Super Bowl in Florida on a corporate jet leased by SunCruz, a Florida casino cruise line then owned by Abramoff and several partners.
Abramoff Sought to Aid Sudan:
We know that Jack Abramoff worked with (for) the South African apartheid government; took the corrupt kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko as a client; helped the anti-Semitic Prime Minister of Malaysia gain access to President Bush; and lobbied on behalf of the autocratic dictator of Gabon. I guess it makes sense that he would go all the way and attempt to lobby for a government actively committing genocide. The Los Angeles Times reports:
Two eyewitnesses say that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff proposed to sell his services to the much-criticized government of Sudan to help improve its abysmal reputation in the United States, especially among Christian evangelicals who were campaigning against human rights violations in the troubled African nation.
Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that Abramoff proposed a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract in late 2001 but that the proposal was "never seriously considered" by the Sudanese. He declined to elaborate.
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Two eyewitnesses say that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff proposed to sell his services to the much-criticized government of Sudan to help improve its abysmal reputation in the United States, especially among Christian evangelicals who were campaigning against human rights violations in the troubled African nation.
Khidir Haroun Ahmed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that Abramoff proposed a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract in late 2001 but that the proposal was "never seriously considered" by the Sudanese. He declined to elaborate.
Abramoff and his spokesman both deny that the meeting, which took place in Abramoff’s skybox at FedEx Field, occurred as Khidir claims. However, a former associate of Abramoff’s has backed up the Sudanese ambassador’s claims:
Continue readingAccording to the lobbyist's former associate, Abramoff sat with the ambassador in the skybox and described an elaborate and costly plan to blunt the effect of pressure from Christian groups with money and travel, two of the methods Abramoff frequently deployed in his Washington lobbying campaigns.
He said some of the money would be sent to the Christian Coalition and some would be spent encouraging Christian leaders to visit Sudan and talk with the government. Other money would be spent on a grass-roots campaign to promote a better image of the country in the United States.
The former associate said Abramoff repeatedly told the ambassador that he would arrange for his friend [Ralph] Reed to push the idea with Christian groups.
Abramoff Sought DeLay’s Help in Guam Elections:
According to the Guam Pacific Daily News:
Former Sen. Mark Charfauros, D-Agat, said he got lobbyist and friend Jack Abramoff involved in his battle with former Gov. Carl Gutierrez in 1998 because he wanted more federal attention brought to his concerns about the Gutierrez administration.
Charfauros yesterday told the Pacific Daily News that complaints by him and others to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Gutierrez weren't getting anywhere at the time, so he asked Abramoff for help. Abramoff is a friend, he said, and stayed at Charfauros' home when he visited Guam.
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Charfauros sent a letter to DeLay on Oct. 28, 1998, according to Pacific Daily News files, and DeLay the same day sent the letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Interior, calling for a formal investigation into alleged mismanagement of federal money under the Gutierrez administration.
A few days prior to the election Charfauros bought a one-page advertisement in the PDN to publish the letter from DeLay sent to the Department of Interior. Abramoff also may have attempted to affect the 2002 gubernatorial race according to allegations made by then-gubernatorial candidate Robert Underwood:
Underwood has said direct mailers printed out of a stateside business owned by a lobbying client of Abramoff undermined his first run for governor. The direct mailers, sent to about 25,000 members of Guam's Filipino community, had painted Underwood as being allegedly biased against Filipinos, a charge Underwood has said is untrue.
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One clue to the possible Abramoff connection, Underwood explained, was a fax cover letter from Preston Gates, the lobby shop where Abramoff had worked for during the Guam gubernatorial campaign season in 2002.
Underwood claimed that Abramoff stuck his neck out in this election because he did not want to lose a lobbying client in Underwood’s opponent, current Gov. Felix Camacho.
Continue readingDeLay Won’t Seek Reelection, Will Resign from Congress:
Embattled former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced that he would resign from Congress later this spring rather than seek a tough reelection battle, according to the Washington Post. DeLay told Time Magazine that he decided not to seek reelection after much deliberation because, “It was obvious to me that this election had become a referendum on me … It's obvious to me that anybody but me running here will overwhelmingly win the seat.” While DeLay insists that he is not under investigation and that he has done nothing wrong it is clear that prosecutors continue to work their way closer to him. The Post writes, “some of DeLay's official actions in Congress clearly fall within the scope of the continuing investigation: Last week's guilty plea by Rudy cites as part of the evidence of conspiracy a letter that DeLay wrote on behalf of an Abramoff client and legislation that DeLay supported on behalf of a client of Abramoff's firm.” Also noted in the Post is DeLay’s ability to “convert any or all of the remaining funds from his reelection campaign to his legal expenses … Election lawyers say one advantage of bowing out of the election now is that the campaign cash can be converted to pay legal bills immediately, instead of being drained in the course of a bid to stay in office.”
Continue readingDeLay Aide Rudy Pleads Guilty to Fraud:
Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) ex-deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from “a bribery scheme that began in 1997 and ran through 2004,” according to Roll Call. The bribery scheme is the same one that brought Jack Abramoff and former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon to justice and has ensnared numerous members of Congress, most notably Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who is mentioned in the plea deals of Abramoff, Scanlon, and now Rudy. While DeLay was not singled out in the Rudy plea his “single closest adviser” and former chief of staff Ed Buckham was implicated in the scheme. The majority of the actions noted in the Rudy plea occur from 2000-2002. Rudy’s actions from 1997 to 1999 are not detailed in the plea deal. The New York Daily News notes that the corruption probe is encircling DeLay. A “knowledgeable source” notes that Rudy and Buckham, “were Batman and Robin. Tony didn't do anything without Buckham's say-so. ... Buckham was Batman.”
Continue readingMore News:
- Jack Abramoff and Tony Rudy were involved in the 1998 gubernatorial election in Guam, according to the Guam Pacific Daily News:
In e-mails reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Abramoff had asked Tony Rudy, Rep. Tom DeLay's deputy chief of staff, to see if he could garner any assistance in helping the 1998 gubernatorial candidacy of former Gov. Joseph Ada and then Sen. Felix Camacho, now the governor of Guam, who ran against incumbent Gov. Carl Gutierrez at the time.
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The e-mail from Abramoff, sent Oct. 26, 1998, stated, “We want to know if there is any way to get Tom to call for an investigation of the misuse of federal funds on Guam by this governor,” referring to Gutierrez.
Abramoff then said he would draft a statement for DeLay and suggested that if Rudy could "issue a press release and letter requesting an Inspector General to investigate these matters, it should have a major impact on the election next week."
Within a few hours, the report states, Rudy and DeLay aide Tom Scanlon released a statement from DeLay and a letter to the Department of the Interior's inspector general, calling for a federal investigation of Gutierrez.
- Former Pennsylvania congressman and current lobbyist Robert Walker “dismissed lobbying reforms approved by the Senate as minimal and said they would ‘have little or no impact on the way Washington actually operates,’” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Walker states that three steps need to be taken to crack down on lobbying abuses, “Credentialing lobbyists, abolishing so-called leadership political-action committees, and barring contributions by lobbyists to individual campaigns.”
- The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio Senate candidate Rep. Sherrod Brown (D), “his family, and his staff accepted 57 privately funded trips, valued at nearly $180,000, in more than a decade in the House - including flights to Finland, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Israel, Moscow, and Taiwan.” Brown opposes a proposed travel ban pending as a part of lobbying and ethics reform.
- The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s fundraising: “If money is power in politics, then Nancy Pelosi wields a lot of it.” Pelosi’s ability to raise money has also brought investigations, predominantly by a conservative named Ken Boehm. Although he tried, Boehm “failed to uncover anything that looked like a legal violation or a bona fide scandal, and he eventually got distracted and moved on to researching somebody else.”
- It seems to me that we get one of these “ethics committee sidelined” stories per week. This time it’s from Roll Call, “The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct met for several hours on Thursday but in the end only reached one public decision — to continue an investigation of a leftover complaint from the 108th Congress against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) for his leaking of an illegally intercepted phone call between Republican leaders in 1996.”
- The Washington Post reports that Maryland is having just as hard a time as Congress in regulating lobbying.
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