RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Abramoff sings the GOP blues

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In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"

Silence enveloped the 60 or so Republicans in the auditorium, and Reed's cheerful manner turned tense. "No," he replied. "No to all these."

As everyone knew, Pichon was referring to Jack Abramoff, whose outsize Washington lobbying scandal has reached down to Georgia. Abramoff and Reed -- the former executive director of the Christian Coalition -- have been friends for 25 years, and until recently it had been a mutually profitable association. Now it is proving highly inconvenient for Reed, and threatens to stall a career that has been emblematic of the modern GOP.

Reed served as executive director of the College Republicans from 1983 to 1985 and led a revival of the Christian right in the 1990s. He founded a grass-roots lobbying firm in 1997, bringing in millions of dollars in fees, chaired the Georgia Republican Party in 2002 when the GOP took over the state, and served as Southeast director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

At age 44, he still has the choirboy looks that have been noted in dozens of profiles over the past 20 years. But the first major dent in Reed's carefully cultivated image came with the disclosure in the summer of 2004 that his public relations and lobbying companies had received at least $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters to fight Indian casinos competing with Abramoff's casino clients.

Similarly damaging has been a torrent of e-mails revealed during the investigation that shows a side of Reed that some former supporters say cannot be reconciled with his professed Christian values.

"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God," said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. "We are righteously casting him out."

Among those e-mails was one from Reed to Abramoff in late 1998: "I need to start humping in corporate accounts! . . . I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts." Within months, Abramoff hired him to lobby on behalf of the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, who were seeking to prevent competitors from setting up facilities in nearby Alabama.

In 1999, Reed e-mailed Abramoff after submitting a bill for $120,000 and warning that he would need as much as $300,000 more: "We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back."

In 2004, when the casino payments to Reed were disclosed, Reed issued a statement declaring "no direct knowledge of their [Abramoff's law firm's] clients or interests." In 2005, however, Senate investigators released a 1999 e-mail from Abramoff to Reed explicitly citing the client: "It would be really helpful if you could get me invoices [for services performed] as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP."

One of the most damaging e-mails was sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon, complaining about Reed's billing practices and expenditure claims: "He is a bad version of us! No more money for him." Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to defrauding clients.
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Analysis
Loophole in Lobbying Bill Leaves Wiggle Room

Lawmakers are about to bombard the American public with proposals that would crack down on lobbyists. Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban meals and privately paid travel for lawmakers.

Or would they?

According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.

The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill, he or she must also hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution. Then the transaction would be perfectly okay.
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So it would be OK to still bribe your congressman but there would be an additional charge!

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White House press secretary Scott McClellan admits that the White House has been on a search mission for any photos showing President Bush with toxic lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with the Justice Department on its investigation of a wide-ranging lobbying scandal.

At a press conference, McClellan said if there were pictures, which officials hadn’t found, they might have been taken at a Christmas-party line, where the President poses with hundreds of people. “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him,” McClellan said.

The comment about searching raised images in the press room of a “White House plumbers” operation looking for incriminating photos.

If the White House can’t find the photos, prosecutors already know where to look. The Washingtonian has seen five photos of the President with Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist’s native-American clients.

Abramoff was named a “pioneer” in the Bush presidential campaign, collecting more than $100,000, in $2,000 maximum increments, for his campaign in 2004. Bush has returned $6,000 of Abramoff’s contributions, the part that would represent the legal limit for Abramoff; his wife, Pam; and a client.

Sources say the photographs are being kept safe. Abramoff would tell prosecutors, if asked, that not only did he know the President, but the President knew the names of Abramoff’s children and asked about them during their meetings. At one such photo session, Bush discussed the fact that both he and Abramoff were fathers of twins.

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Matter-eater Man said:

When it comes to Bush I threw 'innocent until proven guilty' out the window and practice 'guilt by association.'

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the G-man said on this very thread Jan 05 2006 at 04:52 PM:
... it should be noted, and this applies to members of both parties, that the fact that someone took money from Abramoff and his clients does not mean a crime was committed....Based on that, I'm willing to give most members of congress, democrat and republican, the benefit of a doubt, regardless of whether they took the lobbying money.

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Matter-eater Man said:
You only said that because it was mostly Republicans that took the money & so far only Republicans that look like they might get indicted.

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Matter-eater Man said about two weeks on this very thread:
I've acknowledged that some Dems might be implicated too. I'm not ignoring that.

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the G-man said:

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Matter-eater Man said:
You only said that because it was mostly Republicans that took the money & so far only Republicans that look like they might get indicted.

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Matter-eater Man said about two weeks on this very thread:
I've acknowledged that some Dems might be implicated too. I'm not ignoring that.

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So which is it? A republican scandal or a potentially bipartisan scandal.

I find it very ironic that you're accusing ME of being the partisan for cutting the democrats some slack...while you continue to beat the drum against republicans and back away from your own earlier comments about the democrats.

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You are a partisan. I'll post the Republican/Abromaff related stuff & you can post the Dem related stuff. (if & when there is something to post) And what was your standard for partisan/bipartisan issues? You used one on one thread & then twist mine for this one. It appears that yours shift if it's inconveniant to your party.

I did get a chuckle at this though..."I find it very ironic that you're accusing ME of being the partisan for cutting the democrats some slack" Your just a regular Mother Theresa!

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r3x29yz4a said:
All the lobbyists in Washington undermine the entire purpose of the political system.
The only people elected officials should be beholden to are their voters.

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Word on the Hill is that Sen. Harry Reid very much wants this ethics brouhaha to go away. Like yesterday.

While some in his caucus intend to play the Jack Abramoff scandal for it's worth, Reid feels extremely exposed due to his own political background (he is an elected official from Nevada, after all), and privately has expressed to colleagues concerns that the Democrat Party's sometimes too-close-to-be-legal financial ties to organized labor (they are big in Nevada too, don't forget), might gain greater attention.

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GOP Freezes Jobs List, a Vestige of the K Street Project

Republican lawmakers yesterday ended their long practice of routinely summoning lobbyists to the Capitol to try to persuade them to hire their aides and colleagues, in the wake of the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal.

GOP lawmakers for years have regularly presented lists of job openings on K Street to lobbyists to encourage them to hire Republicans over Democrats. The program is a remnant of the K Street Project once championed by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) as a way to coerce trade associations and companies to hire Republicans as their top lobbyists and to warn firms that hired Democrats that they would not be welcome.
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Most Want Bush to Disclose Abramoff Links

A strong bipartisan majority of the public believes President Bush should disclose contacts between disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and White House staff members despite administration assertions 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 Americans said Bush should release lists of all meetings between aides and Abramoff; 18 percent disagreed. Two in three Republicans joined with eight in 10 Democrats and political independents in favoring disclosure, according to the poll.
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Matter-eater Man said:
Would the conservative end of the political spectrum have responded differently if this story was about Democrats?

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Steve T said:
No. No they wouldn't.

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the G-man said:
There are plenty of articles and editorials appearing in places like "National Review" and the "Wall St. Journal", two places that are generally considered "conservative" news organizations, saying that the Republicans need to clean house over this scandal.

I don't recall, for example, similar calls to clean house from the Nation and the New York Times (two liberal news organizations) during various democratic scandals. I do recall, however, a fair number of editorials about "vast right wing conspiracies" out to "get" Clinton (for example).

But I could be wrong. That's just my recollection.

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Matter-eater Man said:If we had a special prosecutor investigating everything Bush did you would have a valid point concerning Clinton.

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What I've seen of those types of articles from conservative publications amount to damage control. It's just a recognition that spinning it as a bipartisan scandal isn't going to help the GOP keep control of the government.

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Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday that Democrats who took money from Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff and who did something on behalf of those tribes have "a big problem."

Dean made the statement apparently unaware that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has reportedly done exactly that.

Under questioning by "Fox News Sunday's" Chris Wallace, Dean claimed that Democrats did no favors for Abramoff's Indian tribe clients:

"Nobody got anything out of the Democrats from Jack Abramoff," the top Democrat insisted. "No Democrat delivered anything and there's no accusation and no investigation that any Democrat ever delivered anything to Jack Abramoff. And that's not true of the Republicans."

But Wallace countered: "So if we find that there were some Democrats who wrote letters on behalf of some of the Indian tribes that Abramoff represented, then what do you say, sir?"

Dean's response: "That's a big problem. And those Democrats are in trouble. And they should be in trouble."

In November 2005 the Associated Press reported that Senate Minority Leader Reid had accepted tens of thousands of dollars from an Abramoff client, the Coushatta Indian tribe, after interceding with Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton over a casino dispute with a rival tribe.

Reid "sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002," the AP said. "The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second tribe represented by Abramoff sent an additional $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004."

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Matter-eater Man said:
Actually Dean had also said earlier that no Dems that he knew of had taken money directly from Abramoff. As far as I know that is still the case. We already knew that Reid had taken money from a tribe that also did business with Abramoff.

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GOP lawmakers: Bush should disclose Abramoff contacts

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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-South Dakota. "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-Indiana, who appeared with Thune on "Fox News Sunday,", said all White House correspondence, phone calls and meetings with Abramoff "absolutely" should be released.
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CNN I guess the GOP has smelled the political wind on this one. Hope Bush sticks to his guns & holds on to all his Jack Abramoff memorabilia

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the G-man said:
I tend to agree that Bush would be better off releasing the photographs and an explanation and being done with it.

The photos are likely to surface eventually. All this does is make them "hot."

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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.

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the G-man said:
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So keep pushing that "spin," MEM. It looks like it just may spin right back at your own party.

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The whole story is a bunch of mean spirited allegations supported by anonymous sources & spread by a partisan site. I guess I'm not to worried.

BTW, I think I've kept the speculation about the relationship between Bush & Abramoff to a minimum. Posting an article about there being pictures of Bush & Abramoff together (some with Abramoff's family) isn't spin.

I've also acknowledged that corruption doesn't occur in just one party or that there will never be a Dem connected directly to Abramoff. I think the later is unlikely though because I can only imagine hordes of GOPers scouring the ends of the Earth to make that link. It could happen but I doubt there are to many stones left unturned. Maybe you'll find some arrow heads

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Abramoff firm gave $50,000 more to GOP congressional campaigns seven months after visits

Eleven million dollars can buy a lot of access in Washington. Especially if your lobbyist is Jack Abramoff.

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. Now he says he wants his money back -- but he continues to maintain that Abramoff protected his island's interests.

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 then-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. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Scanlon secured Fitial's election by promising U.S. tax dollars as "bartering chips."
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the G-man said:
And you're saying that, after or during the time period in question, he didnt also donate to democrats?

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