The Case Study “Lobbyist A”

Second Annual Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Institute
April 6-7, 2006
The Case Study
“Lobbyist A”
Otto Hetzel and David Schnare
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INTRODUCTION
The Case Study, which consists of essentially a chronology of newspaper articles that
follow, provides the basis for the break-out Small Group Discussions that will take place
during the afternoon session on April 6, 2006. Participants can review the Case Study
materials and think about the questions presented below and issues raised regarding
Practical and Ethical Considerations in the Lobbying Process.
These questions are by no means comprehensive. They are just to provide some initial
starting points regarding various potential issues that are raised by the Case Study
materials. Please be prepared to discuss the questions and delve into the issues in the
Small Group Discussion sessions. There will be facilitators to help initiate the
discussions, but the primary purpose is to have participants engage in discussions
concerning the practical and ethical issues raised from the articles and appendix materials
in the Case Study.
For lobbyists, the Case Study materials provide extensive lessons on what has been
criticized as what not to do and how a variety of sanctions, both legal and practical can
impact efforts to represent one’s clients. The materials also show how legislative and
executive branch officials have been involved and affected.
For government attorneys and executives (in both executive and legislative branches),
there are extremely important issues raised by articles discussing revolving door, conflict
of interest issues, and handling offers of employment while still in federal positions. In
addition, career staff needs to consider how to handle contacts with lobbyists and, where
applicable, be aware of the considerations involved in recording contacts from lobbyists
and their clients, as well as in responding to those involved in petitioning their
government regarding specific matters.
These materials are intended to have use beyond the Institute discussion sessions and to
generate for participants a more thorough examination of practical and ethical issues that
lobbying activities are likely to raise for them, sooner or later. The 2005 ABA
publication, The Lobbying Manual that is given to participants at the program provides an
extensive discussion of many of these issues. Hopefully, the Case Study will encourage
further consideration of these issues utilizing that source.
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CASE STUDY “LOBBYIST A”
In 1994, the Republicans took control of Congress and Republican activists instituted “The K
Street Project,” intended to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans, especially
former Congressional aides, for top positions. It promised to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with
access to influential officials. One person who benefited from the increased opportunities was
Lobbyist A. He was cited in a 2004 report issued by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee
criticizing his lobbying activities on behalf of Indian Tribes and was referred to as Lobbyist A
when an indictment was issued against one of his associates.
The following documents, primarily newsclips, provide a description of events and reference a
number of participants while identifying a myriad of criminal, civil, and ethical issues related to
the work of lobbyists, legislators and their staffs, and executive branch officials.
The Senate Committee reported that Lobbyist A and his associate received some $82 million in
payments from Indian Tribes for whom they were acting as lobbyists. Ultimately, both were
indicted for fraud and conspiracy to bribe a Congressman and have plead guilty to those charges.
The scope of the activities involved is complex and reached deep into the legislative and
executive branches.
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QUESTIONS AND ISSUES FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS
1. What violations--criminal, civil, ethical, or potential public relations missteps--are
involved in:
a. Representing one party in a dispute by manufacturing a threat to an adverse
party and then later going to the adverse party and soliciting to represent them
to “protect them” from the threat that had been created?.
b. Providing a portion of a client’s fee, in an amount unrelated to the work
performed, to a person who has referred the representation? Is it sufficient if
one discloses such payments to the client?
c. Failing to provide “honest services” to a client with respect to lobbying
representation? How is that term to be defined? Does deliberate overcharging
come within that term?
d. Making “false and misleading representations” with regard to offering
lobbying services? How are such representations to be shown? Does this term
apply as well to statements made to the officials being lobbied on behalf of a
client? How does thi relate to the requirement to properly identifying on
whose behalf one is lobbying?
e. Giving, offering, or promising “things of value” to public officials or their
immediate families, with the intent to influence official actions? Is it necessary
to show the agreement of the official to perform such acts? What acts by a
public official come within the definition of “official acts”?
2. How do the protections for legislators under the Speech and Debate Clause, Art. 1,
Section 6, Clause 1 impact on what evidence may be used to show legislative acts
or the motivation of Members of Congress for performing them?
a. What acts come within the scope of protected “legitimate legislative activities”
under that Clause? See, United States v. Brewster, 408 U.S. 501 (1972).
b. To the extent that such a restriction may apply to past acts, but not necessarily
promises of future action, is that difference meaningful? See, United States v.
Helstoski, 442 U.S 477 (1979)
c. Does this protection extend to Congressional aides? To what extent does it
depend upon the specific activities undertaken? See, Gravel v. United States,
408 U.S. 606 (1972)
d. Is it necessary that the acts actually take place, or is testimony regarding a
promise to do so sufficient? Is there a meaningful distinction between
legislative and political activities undertaken to obtain reelection?
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3. In what way or circumstances can simply allegations of impropriety regarding
lobbying activities create a deterrence?
a. What differences can be observed with respect to legislative and executive
branch officials in this regard?
b. What boundaries do career staff in executive or legislative branches need to
observe to avoid allegations of lobbying improprieties given the potential
severe repercussions to reputations, if not exposure to criminal sanctions, that
such allegations may generate?
c. Are allegations of ethics violations an effective deterrent for legislators?.
d. What is the role of the Ethics Committee of each House in effectively deterring
ethics violations?
e. Are the effects greater on executive branch officials from allegations of this
nature?
4. Other than criminal sanctions, what pressures are applicable to deter lobbyists
from misbehavior in their activities?
a. Are civil actions by clients to force return of fees effective and feasible?
b. What effects do press coverage of lobbyist activities have in this regard?
5. Are there additional significant potential sanctions particularly applicable to
lawyer lobbyists in the Professional Rules of Conduct? What are they? How are
they enforced?
6. To what extent do client privileges, such as attorney-client or attorney work
product, restrict disclosure of client documents by lawyer-lobbyists, such as emails
that might be requested by government investigators from a lobbying or law firm?
a. To what extent does it matter that government funds are relevant to and the
subject of the lobbying effort?
b. Do these privileges apply as well to lobbyists who are not lawyers?
c. On what basis can a firm refuse to turn over such documents to a
Congressional investigating committee? To what extent is a firm authorized to
waive privileged documents of their partners or employees?
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d. If to a prosecutor or federal agency Office of Inspector General are the
considerations similar?
7. Given the importance of “reciprocity” to personal relationships generally, and
especially in Washington, D.C., between lobbyists and persons in executive or
legislative branches, what boundaries should be set and how does one distinguish
between ”bribes” and “gifts,” “campaign contributions,” referrals for
employment, employment of immediate family members, facilitating prestigious
club memberships, providing free travel options, and the like?
8. To what extent are there potential legal or ethical problems where lobbyists hold
fund-raisers for elected officials?
9. Currently, non-profit corporations have some leeway in providing support for
Congressional and executive branch travel costs that are not available to lobbying
firms or their for-profit clients. Are such distinctions justified, perhaps on the
basis of educational purposes?
10. Are there adequate controls or restrictions preventing use of non-profit or
charitable corporations from acting as a channel or “washing” funds from other
entities that are restricted in using funds for such purposes?
11. In regards to compensation for lobbying services, what types of obligations of fair
dealing or truth in invoicing for such services apply? Are there billing practices
that are inappropriate or impractical for lobbying activities?
12. What civil liability provisions are applicable under the Byrd Amendment, 13
U.S.C. §1352, with regard to compensation for lobbying activities and what
practices are restricted as a result? See, Lobbying Manual, pp. 265-278. To what
extent are contingent fees agreements with respect to lobbying legally prohibited
or ethically suspect? See, Lobbying Manual, pp 341-359
13. Are there special responsibilities for managing or supervising partners (or
shareholders) in law firms with respect to actions undertaken by colleagues that
might create potential exposure for criminal, civil, ethical or public relations
sanctions related to lobbying actions? Is there possible exposure for the entity
(law or lobbying firm, itself) and to others within it that were not directly involved
in possible lobbying improprieties?
14. What involvement by former federal officials, either generally in the areas of
former responsibility or in a particular matter, could pose problems with respect to
restrictions on lobbying one’s former colleagues from such prior employment?
a. What exceptions may apply to restrictions in contacting former colleagues?
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b. Is providing advice and direction to others to carry out the same acts a
sufficient and effective alternative to work around restrictions during periods
when such restrictions apply?
c.. What constitutes “direct involvement” by a public official in a matter that
might create a permanent restriction on any communications with former
colleagues regarding such a matter?
d. In what circumstances is recusal from further involvement in a matter
sufficient? Are more rigorous restrictions required in some circumstances?
How are such restrictions involving a specific matter to be implemented where
one is in a firm?
15. Are restrictions that apply to decision-makers in circumstances where they have
been offered employment with an entity that is lobbying them for some decision or
action sufficient?
a. Is it relevant whether the offer is immediately turned down or is under
consideration?
b. What restrictions should apply to an entity making such an offer?
16. Are restrictions, both practical or legal, that may apply to a lobbyist , who is a
spouse or other family member of a Member of Congress, who represents clients
before that official or colleagues of that official sufficient? What restrictions
should apply to the Member in such circumstances?
17. To what extent should government lawyer lobbyists be subject to the same
restrictions applicable to private sector lobbyists?
18. To what extent are lobbyists covered under the First Amendment protections
provided to petition government?
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'Corruption Scheme'
Monday, November 28, 2005; A20
"Scanlon and Lobbyist A would offer and provide things of value to federal public officials,
including trips, campaign contributions, meals and entertainment in exchange for agreements
that the public officials would use their official positions and influence to benefit Scanlon's and
Lobbyist A's clients and Lobbyist A's businesses."
-- Criminal information, filed Nov. 18,
against public relations executive
Michael Scanlon .
IN THE dispassionate language of criminal law, the scandal of the rapacious duo of Jack
Abramoff (Lobbyist A) and Michael Scanlon reached a new -- and for at least one member of
Congress -- ominous level last week. Mr. Scanlon pleaded guilty on Monday to a conspiracy to
bribe public officials and defraud his Indian tribal clients; he agreed to pay $19 million in
restitution to the tribes -- the size of the kickbacks he gave to Mr. Abramoff -- and he faces up to
five years in prison.
With his promise to cooperate with prosecutors, Mr. Scanlon may also be the most dangerous
man in Washington right now -- certainly to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), identified in the
information as Representative #1, and possibly to others as well.
In September, in the first criminal charges arising from the federal investigation into Mr.
Abramoff's lobbying activities, the administration's former chief procurement officer, David H.
Safavian, was accused of lying about his dealings with the lobbyist. Now, with the Scanlon
guilty plea, the attention has shifted back to Congress, where Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, a
former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), did most of their business.
As the information describes their activities, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon "provided a stream
of things of value to Representative #1 and members of his staff, including but not limited to a
lavish trip to Scotland to play golf on world famous courses, tickets to sporting events and other
entertainment, regular meals at Lobbyist A's upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions for
Representative #1, his political action committee, and other political committees on behalf of
Representative #1."
At the same time, it continues, they "sought and received Representative #1's agreement to
perform a series of official acts, including but not limited to, agreements to support and pass
legislation, agreements to place statements into the Congressional Record, meetings with
Lobbyist A and Scanlon's clients, and advancing the application of a client of Lobbyist A for a
license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives."
Washington players walk a blurry line between bribery and business as usual. If lobbyists lavish
perks on, and write campaign checks for, powerful members of Congress, and those members
then take actions that benefit the lobbyists' clients, that may be the ordinary, if distasteful, way
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Washington operates. But if the lobbyists' favors are conditioned on an understanding that
legislative favors have been or will be performed, that would transform the transaction from
quotidian to criminal.
Mr. Ney's lawyer, Mark H. Tuohey, says it's the former that happened in the congressman's case.
"He was wined and dined the way lots of political people are, and he did some official acts, but
there's no connection between the two," Mr. Tuohey told The Post.
The Justice Department sees the situation in a more sinister light: "Corruption Scheme" is the
heading given to the section of the charges involving Mr. Ney.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Abramoff's Career
1958 Jack Abramoff is born in Atlantic City. Family moves to California and he grows up in Beverly Hills.
1981 Abramoff graduates from Brandeis University, comes to Washington and runs for national chairman of the
College Republicans, where he forges lifelong bonds with Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and Adam Kidan.
1985 Abramoff and Norquist take charge of Citizens for America, conservative advocacy group created by
drugstore magnate Lewis E. Lehrman. They are asked to leave after a dispute about finances.
1986 Abramoff graduates from Georgetown law school, joins brother in film company and goes to Africa to work on
"Red Scorpion," a Cold War thriller released in 1989.
1994 GOP wins control of House for the first time in 40 years. Abramoff joins lobbying firm of Preston Gates &
Ellis. He begins lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and quickly strikes up a
political relationship with Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
1995 Abramoff signs up the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians as a client, the first casino-rich tribe he solicits.
1997 Abramoff arranges for lawmakers and aides to take trips to the Marianas. On one such trip, DeLay calls the
lobbyist "one of my closest and dearest friends."
1999 Abramoff uses tribal money to hire Ralph Reed to run anti-gambling campaigns in the South to discourage
competition for the tribes' casinos.
2000 Abramoff arranges more lawmaker trips. They include week-long visit to England and Scotland in May with
DeLay, his wife and two aides, and a June trip for DeLay aides to golf's U.S. Open aboard corporate jet
belonging to SunCruz Casinos. Abramoff and partners buy SunCruz in the fall.
2001 Abramoff switches lobbying firms to Greenberg Traurig in January. He leases corporate jet to ferry
congressional staffers to the Super Bowl in Tampa. He and Michael Scanlon form partnership they call
"Gimme Five" to share extraordinary fees charged to tribal clients. In February, the seller of SunCruz,
Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, is shot to death gangland style in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
2002 Abramoff and Scanlon are collecting tens of millions of dollars in fees from Indian tribes. In one case, they
quietly work with Ralph Reed to help Texas shut down a tribe's casino, then persuade the tribe to pay $4.2
million to try to get Congress to reopen it.
2003 Internal audit by the Louisiana Coushatta tribe finds that tribe spent $18 million in one year on lobbyists and
lawyers, mostly to Abramoff and Scanlon.
2004 The Washington Post reports in February that Abramoff and Scanlon have received at least $45 million from
tribes with casinos. Abramoff quits Greenberg a week later. Shortly thereafter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
begins investigating Abramoff's Indian activities.
2005 August: Abramoff and Kidan are indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in Florida in connection with their
purchase of SunCruz.
September: Three men, including two associates of Kidan's, are indicted on murder and conspiracy charges
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in the killing of former SunCruz owner Boulis.
October: Former Abramoff associate David H. Safavian, head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy
and the White House Office of Management and Budget, is indicted on charges of lying to federal investigators
in the corruption investigation.
November: Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe a congressman and other public officials and agrees
to pay back more than $19 million he fraudulently charged Indian tribal clients.
December: Kidan pleads guilty in the SunCruz case. Both Scanlon and Kidan are expected to testify against
Abramoff and will cooperate in the investigation of at least half a dozen lawmakers including Rep. Robert W.
Ney (R-Ohio).
Washington Post, SOURCE: Staff reports
Ex-Lobbyist Is Assailed at Hearing
Senators Say Pair Influenced Indian Tribes to Bilk Them
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 30, 2004; A04
Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations executive Michael Scanlon formed a secret
partnership that corruptly influenced Indian tribal elections in order to bilk tribes that operate
gambling casinos out of more than $66 million in fees, lawmakers charged yesterday during an
unusual Senate committee hearing.
Abramoff, appearing under subpoena before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, endured
blistering attacks from senator after senator, turning aside all questions by invoking his Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination. Scanlon dodged U.S. marshals who attempted to
serve him with a subpoena compelling him to appear, according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.),
who with the panel's chairman, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), has been leading the
seven-month investigation into Abramoff's and Scanlon's activities.
Nighthorse Campbell said the documentary trail developed by the committee, including the emails released yesterday, tell a story of unbounded greed. He said he believes Abramoff privately
showed bigotry and contempt for tribal officials who were awarding him and Scanlon
multimillion-dollar contracts, referring to them as "idiots" and "troglodytes."
"Do you refer to all your clients as 'morons'?" he demanded of Abramoff. The witness, flanked
by lawyer Abbe D. Lowell, looked abashed but did not answer, citing his right against selfincrimination.
Two tribal leaders, one from the Agua Caliente tribe in Palm Springs, Calif., the other from the
Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan, testified about their futile efforts to block their tribes from
spending millions of dollars to hire Abramoff and Scanlon. Agua Caliente Chairman Richard
Milanovich said he has since learned that Abramoff and Scanlon entered into "a secret cabal with
certain tribal members" to whom they provided "assistance" that is still being investigated.
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Bernie Sprague, sub-chief of the Saginaw Chippewas, said that, in the fall of 2001, Abramoff
and Scanlon "smeared the reputations of other candidates running for Tribal Council" and got
their hand-picked slate elected.
The Senate committee has assembled hundreds of thousands of pages of documents about
Abramoff and Scanlon's work with six tribes in various parts of the country. Records show that
Scanlon and Abramoff each collected $21 million of the $66 million in fees paid to Scanlon's
companies. On top of that, the tribes paid $16 million in lobbying fees to Greenberg Traurig,
Abramoff's former lobbying firm, which typically charged them $150,000 to $175,000 a month.
"The documents show that Jack Abramoff systematically sought out impressionable tribal
leaders and representatives, seduced them with promises of power and prestige, and helped them
attain positions of power within their tribes," McCain said. "Once in power, their allies on the
tribal council steered multimillion-dollar contracts to Mr. Abramoff's lobbying firm and Mr.
Scanlon's PR company."
While "every kind of charlatan and every type of crook" has exploited American Indians since
the sale of Manhattan island, McCain said, "what sets this tale apart, what makes it truly
extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit."
The activities of Abramoff, once a powerful lobbyist with extensive ties to Republican leaders,
and Scanlon, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), are also
being investigated by a federal grand jury in Washington.
In a telephone interview last night, Scanlon said he did not appear before the committee because
his attorneys and committee lawyers had not worked out the terms of the subpoena for his
testimony. He said the claims about his manipulation of tribal elections were overblown. "What
was alleged is that tribal elections were rigged. What the committee produced were talking
points [for tribal candidates]," he said.
Lawmakers yesterday cited the pair's e-mail traffic, which the panel subpoenaed from Greenberg
Traurig, where Abramoff was head of government relations until March, when he quit under
pressure.
When Scanlon complained on March 5, 2003, about an Agua Caliente tribal member, Abramoff
counseled: "I think the key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but
that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so
quickly."
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) strained to find words to describe the e-mails and other
evidence, calling the two men's activities "a cesspool of greed, a disgusting pattern, certainly, of
moral corruption, possibly of criminal corruption. . . . a pathetic, disgusting example of greed run
amok."
"I think all of us know this is the most extraordinary pattern of abuse to come before this
committee in the 18 years I've served here," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who described the
pair's conduct as "scuzzy" and "outrageous."
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Lawmakers said the e-mails and other documents show that the two men spent tens of thousands
of dollars on mailings and other materials for candidates in tribal elections. Individual tribes
make their own rules governing outside influence on tribal elections. The National Indian
Gaming Act bars the use of tribal funds to benefit individual candidates.
The e-mails show that just before the 2002 Agua Caliente tribal elections, Scanlon asked
Abramoff: "How much do you want me to spend on the AC race -- I gotta get a team out there
ASAP -- Then rotate a new team in after that -- So travel is gonna run about 20K and materials
like 5-10K. Should we go for it?"
Abramoff replied: "Yes, go for it big time."
The panel subpoenaed Chris Petras, former legislative director of the Saginaw Chippewas, who
was a liaison to Abramoff and Scanlon. Petras said that he could not recall any discussions about
the pair becoming involved in tribal elections and that he was not convinced they had done
anything wrong.
An e-mail from Abramoff to Scanlon in the fall of 2001 suggested otherwise. "I had dinner
tonight with Chris Petras of Sag Chip. He was salivating at the $4-5 million program I described
to him . . . He is going to come in after the primary with the guy who will be chief if they win (a
big fan of ours already) and we are going to help him win. If he wins, they take over in January,
and we have millions."
After the Saginaw Chippewa election, Scanlon congratulated his staff and Abramoff for the
victory of seven of eight candidates running as "The Slate of Eight." "We had less than three
weeks to take 8 guys who never met before and get them elected. It was a great plan, and great
execution by a great team. . . . We now control 9 out of the 12 seats on the council . . . hopefully
we will be doing some more work for the tribe in the near future."
E-mails in the winter of 2002 appear to show Abramoff attempting to drum up more business for
Scanlon by stoking unwarranted fears about "racinos" legislation that could revive competition
from the horse racing industry.
On Oct. 10, 2002, Scanlon sent Abramoff a news clipping about horse racing bills in the
Michigan legislature, with the message: "Here we go! This could kill Saginaw!"
Abramoff responded: "Chris thinks this is not going anywhere. Can you call him and scare him?"
On Dec. 10, 2002, Abramoff appeared to do just that in an e-mail to Petras. "Chris, I am getting
worried about this. Last night we opened Stacks [a Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant owned by
Abramoff] and there were some WH guys there. . . . They told me that there is a hearing coming
up on this immediately, and they have heard that this is going to happen!!! . . . where is Scanlon
on this? . . . We need to get him firing missiles. How do we move it faster? Please get the council
focused on this as soon as you can."
Abramoff sent a copy to Scanlon, who messaged back: "I love you."
Lobbyist, Firm Sued By Indians Over Fees
La. Tribe Alleges Negligence, Fraud
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By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2004; A04
A Louisiana Indian tribe that paid lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant
Michael Scanlon $32 million sued the two men and Abramoff's former law firm yesterday,
alleging fraud and negligence.
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Louisiana by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, alleges that
between 2001 and 2004 the tribe was overcharged and billed for work that was never performed,
and that Abramoff and Scanlon converted tribal funds to personal use. The tribe said it is seeking
to recover the $32 million it paid the pair and plans to seek punitive damages.
The Coushattas were one of six newly wealthy gambling tribes that paid the two men $82 million
in public relations and lobbying fees for work that some tribe members contend was worth a
small fraction of that sum. Abramoff also directed the tribes to give millions of dollars in
campaign contributions to members of Congress.
The fees are the subject of a grand jury investigation in Washington. The FBI and a task force of
five federal agencies are investigating the campaign contributions and whether tribal funds were
misused, among other issues, according to government sources.
In also naming Abramoff's former law firm, Greenberg Traurig, which is headquartered in
Florida, the Coushatta tribe alleged that it failed "to adequately supervise, control and monitor"
Abramoff.
The tribe said the firm "was unjustly enriched by the fraudulent overbilling and overcharging
practices."
"It's one thing to pay a premium for people who can make your case in Washington," said Joe
Kendall, an attorney for the tribe. "It's something quite different to play on the fears of a group of
people who may not know the system all that well and bilk them out of millions."
Greenberg Traurig ousted Abramoff when questions were raised in the spring about the lobbying
and public relations fees he and Scanlon obtained from the tribes. The firm has said it is
cooperating with the criminal investigations and a separate one by Congress, but Coushatta
attorney Joe Kendall said yesterday the firm has not made any effort to reimburse the tribe for
the more than $5 million Greenberg Traurig was paid.
Greenberg Traurig spokeswoman Jill Perry said the firm had not received the lawsuit and could
not comment. Lawyers for Abramoff and Scanlon did not return calls seeking comment.
Abramoff Breaks Silence About Investigations
By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 1, 2005; A07
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Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who is under federal investigation for his lobbying
activities on behalf of Indian tribes and is a central figure in separate probes into alleged ethical
improprieties by his close friend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), has begun
publicly defending himself after months of silence.
In an interview with Time magazine, portions of which have been posted on the magazine's Web
site in advance of tomorrow's publication date, Abramoff said the tribes that hired him for help
with casino licensing applications and paid him tens of millions of dollars got their money's
worth.
"The return on investment for these tribes, and all my clients, is far better than anything they or
we could have imagined," Abramoff said. ". . . They realize that spending millions to save
billions is just good business."
Abramoff called his Indian clients "sophisticated business people" in the interview, which is in
stark contrast to terms he used in private e-mails, first disclosed in The Washington Post in its
ongoing examination of Abramoff, in which he called them "stupid" and "moronic." In other emails, released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, he referred to them as "idiots,"
"troglodytes" and "monkeys."
"I regret that in the heat of the locker room atmosphere of the lobbying world, I sometimes,
rarely -- but sometimes -- I resorted to language more common to a drill sergeant or a football
coach," Abramoff told Time. "Many of my e-mails have been maliciously taken out of context,
another effort by those assaulting my career. As a result, I've been portrayed as a cynical
barbarian preying on the very clients I was charged to defend."
Abramoff is being investigated in connection with allegations of kickbacks and influence
peddling by the Interior and Justice departments and by two Senate committees.
In another article, published in today's New York Times Magazine, Abramoff called himself "an
aggressive advocate for people who engaged me," and said, "I did this within a philosophical
framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the
greatest villain in the history of lobbying."
The Times article goes on to characterize Abramoff's life as "in shambles." A Washington
delicatessen he opened in 2002 has closed. A private religious school he founded in 2001 in
Columbia also has closed, and some of its teachers are suing him for unpaid wages. He also is
being sued by a Louisiana tribe he represented, which seeks the return of $32 million it paid
Abramoff and a business partner, public relations consultant Michael Scanlon.
DeLay was the one topic Abramoff would not talk about in any detail. Asked by the Times about
his relationship with the man who once referred to Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest
friends," Abramoff answered by talking in general terms about the life of a Washington lobbyist.
"There are probably two dozen events and fund-raisers every night," he said. "Lobbyists go on
trips with members of Congress, socialize with members of Congress -- all with the purpose of
increasing one's access to the decision makers.
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"That is not unusual," he continued. "They've been made to seem unusual with me. Perhaps
because they haven't pulled e-mails to see the various fund-raisers and golfing outings that [other
lobbyists] have been engaged in."
Panel Says Abramoff Laundered Tribal Funds
McCain Cites Possible Fraud by Lobbyist
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A01
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff used money from a Mississippi tribal client to set up bogus Christian
anti-gambling groups and to fund pet projects including gear for a "sniper school" in the Israelioccupied West Bank, according to documents released yesterday by Senate investigators.
The revelations came in e-mails and testimony made public yesterday by the Senate Indian
Affairs Committee at its third hearing on the activities of Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, a
public relations executive and former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (RTex.).
Abramoff, who is also at the center of a corruption investigation by the Justice Department,
laundered tribal money by directing the Indians to donate to tax-exempt groups that the lobbyist
later used for his own purposes, the Senate committee said. One project involved Abramoff's
effort to arrange for military equipment, including night-vision goggles and a "jeep," for the
sniper training conducted by a high school friend.
Aaron Stetter, a former Scanlon employee, testified that Scanlon and Abramoff sought to whip
up opposition to casinos proposed by rival tribes by setting up bogus Christian phone banks. He
said callers would identify themselves as members of groups such as the Christian Research
Network or Global Christian Outreach Network and urge voters to contact their representatives.
Material released yesterday also appeared to undermine assertions by former Christian Coalition
executive director Ralph Reed, now a candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor.
Reed has acknowledged receiving $4 million from Abramoff and Scanlon to run anti-gambling
campaigns in the South. Reed has said he did not know where the funds were coming from, but
e-mails suggest that he was aware that some of the money he was getting came from the casinorich Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
Other e-mails presented at the hearing -- obtained from Abramoff's former law firm, Greenberg
Traurig LLP -- showed that Abramoff and his lobbying team discussed how they would "pump
up" their bills and expense accounts to the Choctaws by tens of thousands of dollars a month,
raising new questions about the law firm's failure to rein in the lobbyists.
The committee chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said investigators had uncovered possible
mail and wire fraud that should be pursued by the Justice Department, as well as tax issues that
would be of concern to the Internal Revenue Service. The Justice Department already is looking
into more than $82 million in lobbying and public relations fees Abramoff and Scanlon received
from tribes around the country.
15
Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin did not testify, but he said in a statement that "we were astounded
that a senior director at a major law firm would or could engage in misconduct of this sort . . .
and that he was able to get away with it for so long."
Donald Kilgore, attorney general of the Choctaw tribe, said the firm's lobbyists engaged in "a
blatant, calculated scheme to defraud a client." He said records and e-mails the tribe has
reviewed show a series of kickbacks, misappropriated funds and unauthorized charges. "Mr.
Abramoff consistently directed that the bills be padded and pumped up," Kilgore said.
Greenberg spokeswoman Jill Perry said that when the firm learned of Abramoff's activities more
than a year ago, it demanded his resignation. "We share others' outrage at this misconduct, which
is antithetical to our firm's culture and values," Perry said.
A spokesman for Abramoff said that "any fair reading of Mr. Abramoff's career" would show
that he was an effective lobbyist for his clients.
"Mr. Abramoff is put into the impossible position of not being able to defend himself in the
public arena until the proper authorities have had a chance to review all accusations," said the
spokesman, Andrew Blum.
Three former associates of Abramoff and Scanlon who were summoned to testify declined to do
so, citing their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. They included former
Greenberg lobbyist Kevin Ring, who continues to represent the Choctaw tribe as a lobbyist, and
Shawn Vasell, who like Ring was a congressional aide before joining Abramoff's lobbying team.
A third former associate, Brian Mann, was a director of the American International Center, a
foundation set up by Scanlon in Rehoboth Beach, Del. Money from tribes and other clients
passed through the AIC and was paid to Reed as well as to Abramoff and Greenberg Traurig.
Mann, a yoga instructor, was a director of the AIC, along with former lifeguard Brian Grosh, a
longtime beach buddy of Scanlon's. The AIC described itself on its Web site as "a premiere
international think tank," that was "determined to influence global paradigms in an increasingly
complex world."
Grosh told the panel that Scanlon asked him to serve as a director of the AIC and paid him
$2,500. "I'm embarrassed and disgusted to be part of this whole thing," he testified, saying he did
not know much about the AIC's financial activities.
Asked about the e-mails released yesterday, Reed reiterated in an interview that the money he
received for his anti-gambling activities did not come from gambling proceeds. He said that he
has always acknowledged receiving money from the Choctaws but asked the tribe to assure him
that the funds sent to him would not come from the casino.
"The assurance I sought was that the money did not come from gambling activity," Reed said.
"And that assurance was honored."
In September, however, Reed's office provided a different explanation. "We knew that
Greenberg Traurig was recruiting coalition members [for the anti-gambling effort] and raising
16
funds as well, but we had no direct knowledge of their clients or interests," the office said in a
statement. "At no time were we retained by nor did we represent any casino or casino company."
E-mails released yesterday indicated that Reed did know the name of the client. OnApril 4, 1999,
Abramoff told Reed to put together a cost plan for the campaign, "including a total budget figure
with category breakdowns." He added: "Once I get this I will call Nell at Choctaw and get it
approved."
In subsequent e-mails, Abramoff and Reed discuss how Reed would be reimbursed by the
Choctaws through Abramoff's firm, and Americans for Tax Reform, a group founded by
conservative activist Grover Norquist.
Yesterday, Reed's office said his comments yesterday and the September statement were not
inconsistent.
The "Nell" referred to in the April 4 e-mail is Nell Rogers, who had been the Choctaws' main
contact with Abramoff. Called to testify yesterday, she told the committee the tribe knew that
Abramoff and Scanlon were using "intermediaries" such as the American International Center to
pay for the anti-gambling campaigns.
"I am sure there probably were concerns -- or public perception concerns -- about some of the
recipients, about not being associated with a tribe or with a gaming tribe," she said.
Abramoff, Norquist and Reed have been political allies since their days as leaders of the College
Republicans. Reed and Abramoff appear to have set up a business arrangement as Reed wound
down from the 1998 election cycle. Responding to a query from Abramoff about how candidates
he supported had done, Reed wrote: "Hey, now that I'm done with the electoral politics, I need to
start humping in corporate accounts! I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."
The Choctaws, the richest and most successful gambling tribe in the country, initially defended
Abramoff when his activities first drew scrutiny over a year ago. But they began cooperating
with government investigators last summer after being told by Greenberg Traurig that its internal
investigation had found fraud in the lobbyist's work for the tribe.
Yesterday, McCain said the committee had found that Abramoff and Scanlon had pocketed $6.5
million of the $7.7 million in consulting fees they received from the Choctaws. McCain said that
Abramoff had directed the Choctaws to hire Scanlon for consulting work, but never revealed to
the tribe that they had a secret partnership, which they called "gimme five," according to the emails.
Whenever Scanlon pitched his services to a client, Abramoff would remind him of their extra
profits. On Aug. 16, 2001, Abramoff wrote to Scanlon, "Don't forget the gimme five aspects."
On Oct. 17, 2001, Abramoff wrote, "So there is more gimme five coming on all these as well,
right?"
Said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.): " 'Gimme five' means 'I'll take a cut of this.' " "I'm past
anger and bitterness," Rogers, the Choctaw official who had worked most closely with
Abramoff, told the committee. "It is an extraordinary story of betrayal."
17
Abramoff E-mails
Excerpts from Jack Abramoff's e-mails to Rabbi Daniel
Lapin.
How Abramoff Spread the Wealth
SOURCE: Federal Election Commission records, the Center for Public Integrity, 1999-2004 | GRAPHIC: Derek Willis And
Laura Stanton, The Washington Post - Dec. 12, 2005
18
19
Lobbyists, Clients Undeterred by Scandal
Alumni of Abramoff's 'Team' Still Collecting Fees, Trying to Influence Government
By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 26, 2005; A05
Lobbyist Kevin A. Ring sat silently as Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain
(R-Ariz.) displayed e-mails and canceled checks to support allegations that Ring and lobbyist
Jack Abramoff inflated fees and concocted invoices to defraud their client, the Mississippi Band
of Choctaw Indians.
Testifying before the committee Wednesday morning, Ring asserted his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination, but he also offered an apology. "I'm sorry the clients for whom I
worked have had to endure the enormous emotional and financial burden," he said.
The terse statement omitted an intriguing fact: Ring is still working for the Choctaws as their
paid Washington lobbyist. Indeed, he was actively lobbying members of Congress to pass a
Choctaw-backed amendment that came up for a vote in the House on Friday afternoon.
Ring is one of more than a dozen lobbyists who were members of "Team Abramoff," the tightknit group who worked under Abramoff when he was at the lobbying helm of the Washington
office of Greenberg Traurig LLP and, before that, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP.
Members of that influence dream-team continue to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars as
registered lobbyists, often lobbying for former Abramoff clients -- unimpeded by the taint of
scandal and revelations of suspicious deal-making in the brash and sometimes salty e-mails
exchanged with Abramoff.
Along with Neil G. Volz and Edward P. Ayoob, Ring left Greenberg Traurig and went to work
for Barnes & Thornburg LLP. Shawn Vasell, who like Ring asserted Fifth Amendment rights
Wednesday, now works in the Washington office of Hewlett-Packard. Other former Team
Abramoff members include Todd A. Boulanger, who handles as many as eight client accounts at
Cassidy & Associates Inc., including Abramoff's former client, the Chitimacha Tribe of
Louisiana; and Tony C. Rudy, who represents as many as a dozen clients at the Alexander
Strategy Group.
Ring is one of the few Abramoff alumni who have been able to hold onto the same tribal clients
who now say they were victimized by Abramoff's fraudulent billing practices. A federal task
force is investigating those practices. Abramoff's spokesman, Andrew Blum, said his client could
not comment while under investigation.
"It is a story of betrayal," testified Choctaw executive Nell Rogers, who sat at the same witness
table as Ring.
Choctaw officials and their lawyer did not return several phone calls Thursday and Friday
seeking comment for this article.
20
Deemed too radioactive to represent clients without causing embarrassment, Abramoff, along
with his onetime business partner, Michael Scanlon, have largely been forced to give up their
lobbying and public affairs practices. But most of their former associates still pound the halls of
Congress for well-heeled clients.
The Indian affairs committee, during the third hearing into lobbying practices, released a fresh
batch of e-mail among Abramoff and his team members. Documents show the laundering of
money through nonprofit groups, a phony Christian grass-roots effort and attempts to pump up
and doctor invoices sent to tribes.
Rudy, a former top aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), wrote Abramoff in
2001 that Senate staffers wanted $10,000 to pay for a trip to "reward" them for getting a specific
appropriation for the Choctaws.
"There is a hunting and fishing resort 3 hours south of texas that smith's people expressed an
interest in," Rudy wrote on Sept. 21, 2001. It is unclear who "smith's people" are. Abramoff said
he did not think he could justify the trip, and Rudy said it would be a "thank you trip for the
approps we got." Said Abramoff, "Smith's people didn't get us the approps for Choctaw, but
good try! :)"
The issue was not resolved in the e-mail chain because Abramoff said they would "discuss next
week."
Rudy could not be reached, but in the past has declined to comment while the matter is under
investigation.
E-mail shows some Team Abramoff members were alarmed at some of the practices. In an email to Rudy, Boulanger raised suspicions about a request to clients to contribute $25,000 to the
Capital Athletic Foundation, a charity created by Abramoff and used to pay for a trip of a
member of Congress and for a sniper school in the Israeli-controlled West Bank.
"What is it? I've never heard of it," Boulanger wrote June 20, 2002.
"It is something our friends are raising money for," Rudy replied.
"I'm sensing shadiness," Boulanger said. "I'll stop asking."
When Rudy forwarded Boulanger's suspicions, Abramoff responded with an expletive. "I did not
want you to bring Todd into this!!!"
Boulanger declined to comment Friday.
Vasell also expressed dismay. In June 2001, he e-mailed Abramoff about preparing a bill for the
Choctaws. "The bill is a disaster (again)," Vasell wrote, ". . . people's entries compared to time
inputted and work performed is a joke."
Abramoff asked about the bill's total, and Vasell replied $120,000. Abramoff asked Vasell to
"tell me how much you need me to cover to get the bill up to around $150k."
21
Vasell replied, "This is a very bad system that I am very uncomfortable with."
On another occasion, an Abramoff aide, whose name was redacted in the released e-mail, wrote
to Abramoff about making up justifications for time billed to Choctaws. "I'm creatively entering
your July and August time in now (with the help of some great language that Shawn [Vasell] and
Kevin [Ring] have provided)."
The committee also released documents showing cash flowing in and out of a limited liability
corporation called KAR LLC that was based at Ring's Maryland home. The corporation received
a check for $25,000 on Dec. 15, 2003, from Grassroots Interactive LLC, a company apparently
controlled by Abramoff.
In mid-February 2004, a few weeks before the Abramoff-tribal money scandal broke, Abramoff
and Ring agreed to a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post. Shortly afterward, Ring
returned the $25,000 to Grassroots Interactive.
Ring's corporation also received $125,000 in the spring of 2002 from Scanlon's public affairs
firm, Capital Campaign Strategies. The notation on one check cited a "referral expense." McCain
said Wednesday the money appeared to have come from the Pueblo of Sandia Tribe of New
Mexico.
"What services benefiting the Pueblo Sandia did you provide for that $125,000?" McCain asked
Ring, before answering his own question. "In fact, you didn't provide any services, according to
the information that we have."
McCain also questioned Ring about an e-mail he sent Abramoff asking for "some help from a
client to subsidize me joining a club." Ring said he needed $800 for the initiation fee at the
exclusive University Club in Northwest Washington.
After Abramoff offered to pay the tab, Ring said, "Really? There is no way to bury this in
Choctaw or SGMA [another client] bill?"
McCain asked Ring for an explanation. "I respectfully invoke my constitutional right under the
Fifth Amendment," Ring said.
Another intriguing, but cryptic, e-mail exchange between Abramoff and Ring seems to be about
billing. The subject line reads "Choctaw" and the e-mail refers to GT, or Greenberg Traurig.
Ring: "How much does GT bread cost Choctaw? $1.50 per loaf plus or minus a few cents. this
loaf cost $1.19 and I was wondering if I should increase price or leave as is. Know what I
mean?"
Abramoff: "The loaf should cost no less than $1.50."
When Ring left Greenberg Traurig for Barnes & Thornburg a few months ago, he brought many
former Abramoff clients, including the International Interactive Alliance, the Gibraltar-based
group that advocates for gambling on the Internet.
22
Money from the International Interactive Alliance was the subject of another unusual flow of
cash. In 2003, the alliance gave $1.5 million to Greenberg Traurig, which then gave it to a
nonprofit group, which then gave it to Kaygold LLC, a company controlled by Abramoff,
congressional records and testimony show.
For the Choctaws, Ring has tried to win support for an amendment by Rep. J.D. Hayworth (RAriz.) that would exempt tribal casinos from labor laws on the grounds that the tribes are
sovereign governments.
Hayworth has a long relationship with Team Abramoff. He used sports skyboxes that Abramoff
charged to clients from 1999 to 2001 but failed to report the use to the Federal Election
Commission until late last year, after publicity about the federal investigation of Abramoff.
Hayworth's amended reports show his campaign fund reimbursed two Abramoff clients -- the
Choctaw and Chitimacha -- $12,880 for using the sports suites five times.
According to records obtained by The Post, Ring last month coordinated with Hayworth's office
on a letter to members of Congress from Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin seeking support for the
tribal labor amendment.
The amendment to the Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services appropriations bill was
defeated Friday, 256 to 146.
Research editor Lucy Shackelford, researcher Alice Crites and database editor Derek Willis
contributed to this report.
8/29/05 U.S. News & World Report
Snake Eyes for 'Casino Jack'
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was the toast of the town. Now he's persona non grata.
It's a Washington story
By Terence Samuel
I
n the winter of 2002, the Tiguas of West Texas, a small tribe of American Indians whose origins go
back some 10,000 years, had come to a very modern understanding of money. After a history of
grinding poverty, they suddenly found themselves rich. The money, nearly half a billion dollars of it,
was generated by their 1,500-slot-machine, adobe-style Speaking Rock Casino on the outskirts of El
Paso. But trouble was brewing. Texas-size trouble.
After a long court fight, Texas had won the right to shut down Speaking Rock, arguing that casino
gambling was illegal in the state, even on nominally sovereign soil like that of an Indian reservation.
The Tiguas needed help--fast.
Enter Jack Abramoff. A onetime producer of B movies, Abramoff was a superstar Washington lobbyist
with lots of well-placed friends, Republican lawmakers who wielded the levers of power on Capitol Hill.
His deep involvement in conservative-movement politics dating back to the Reagan years and his
longstanding associations with many of the icons of the Republican revolution of the mid-1990s made
Abramoff an unusually hot commodity in the nation's capital. "He had unbelievable access," says one
Democratic lobbyist, bestowing the ultimate compliment among the city's well-heeled influence
peddlers. "He got results."
Needed a meeting with a committee chairman? Some special language in a pending bill? Abramoff was
your man. Which is precisely why the Tiguas reached out to him back in 2002, after Texas authorities
shut the doors on Speaking Rock. As it happened, Abramoff had quite a stable of Indian gaming
23
clients already, and as a result, "Casino Jack," as he was known to some around the Capitol, knew a
thing or two about how the arcane world of Indian gambling worked. In the case of the Tiguas, the
solution was relatively straightforward. The fix would be in the form of language inserted in a bill by a
friendly congressman--language that would override the court decision that allowed the state of Texas
to close the casino. Presto!--the Tiguas and Speaking Rock would be back in business. Better still,
Abramoff promised, he would take on the Tiguas as a client initially at no charge. There was, of
course, a catch. What the Tiguas didn't know at the time, investigators say, is that the man offering to
help them reopen their casino had actually been an integral part of an earlier effort by Texas Attorney
General John Cornyn to shut it down.
Specifically, Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, had sent $4 million to Abramoff's old friend
Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, to run a grass-roots operation to generate support
for Cornyn's effort to shut Speaking Rock. But never mind that; Abramoff and Scanlon were still able
to get $4.2 million out of the Tiguas for an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to reopen Speaking
Rock. In fact, the Tigua tribal council voted on the deal the very same day a local newspaper ran a
story about 450 casino employees being laid off--an irony that wasn't lost on Abramoff. "Is life great
or what!!!" he wrote Scanlon in an E-mail.
Some had a different view. Marc Schwartz, a Texas consultant who served as the Tiguas' point man on
the deal with Abramoff, told a congressional panel it was one of "the most despicable acts of greed
and fraud that I hope to never, ever see again." Today, the Tigua affair is at the heart of a complex
series of deals and machinations that may, in sum, represent the biggest political lobbying scandal to
hit Washington in a generation. A federal grand jury is looking into Abramoff's lucrative lobbying on
behalf of several Indian tribes and examining his relationships with influential members of Congress.
Along with Scanlon, Abramoff collected a staggering $87 million over five years from tribes in
Louisiana, Michigan, California, Mississippi, and Alabama, congressional investigators say.
What the feds want to know now is how all that money was spent and just what, if anything, it
bought. Among the allegations under investigation: that Abramoff, 46, overcharged and defrauded his
Indian clients; that he used a series of nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations run by his friends to
surreptitiously deliver favors to lawmakers and their staffs; and that he took unfair advantage of his
relationships with tribal clients by persuading them to deliver huge campaign contributions to his
political allies and make charitable donations to his pet causes. Investigators are also curious about
whether Abramoff improperly steered business to Scanlon by suggesting to his tribal clients that they
augment his lobbying efforts by hiring a grass-roots field organizer to build political support. The
grass-roots outfit Abramoff recommended, investigators say, was none other than Scanlon's Capital
Campaign Strategies, and what the tribes didn't know was that the two men were allegedly splitting
the fees paid to the firm. Congressional records show that over a five-year period, Scanlon billed six
Indian tribes for more than $66.3 million and Abramoff pocketed $21 million of it. That's over and
above what Abramoff billed the tribes on behalf of the firms he worked for, to whom they paid
monthly retainers of between $125,000 and $150,000.
Southern discomfort. That's only part of the story, however. Earlier this month, Abramoff and a
former business partner were indicted on federal fraud charges related to the failed purchase of a
Florida casino-boat company. The six-count indictment alleges that Abramoff and Adam Kidan falsified
a wire transfer of $23 million in order to persuade two lenders to produce $60 million to finance the
purchase of the firm, SunCruz Casinos, from Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, in 2000. Boulis was killed by
three gunshots to the chest in early 2001 as he drove home from a business meeting, and the crime
remains unsolved. The indictment makes no mention of the killing. Through his attorney, Abramoff
has denied the fraud charges.
Prosecutors often like to use criminal charges from one inquiry as leverage in another, and that may
well happen with the investigation underway in Washington. But people familiar with the investigations
say prosecutors aren't in a big hurry. "There is no need to rush into this thing," says a person familiar
with the Washington inquiry. "It is almost a foregone conclusion that [the grand jury] could indict him
anytime [it] wanted to. For now, he spent a night in jail [in relation to the Florida charges]. Let's see
what his mind-set is." Prosecutors would ultimately like to secure Abramoff's cooperation, the source
added. With more than 40 FBI agents assigned to the case, there is every indication that prosecutors
are interested in more than just a couple of lobbyists. The source also confirmed a recent Washington
24
Post report that Scanlon, a former press aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has been in
discussions with Justice Department lawyers. Stephen Braga, a Washington lawyer representing
Scanlon, did not respond to E-mail or phone messages. Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, says
his client "has been singled out and vilified with exaggerated and false allegations. The truth is that
Mr. Abramoff's actual conduct was proper and constituted lobbying techniques used by almost every
lobbyist in Washington, D.C., on a daily basis." As for the Tigua affair, Blum says Abramoff was
initially fighting not against the tribe but against another casino just outside Houston that Abramoff
felt was in direct competition with a Louisiana casino run by one of his other American Indian clients,
the Louisiana Coushattas. "When work under state law to stop the Houston casino spilled over to also
affect the Tiguas, which was not the goal of Mr. Abramoff or his clients," says Blum, "Mr. Abramoff
then sought to help the Tiguas obtain relief under federal law."
Once the toast of Washington's K Street lobbying corridor, Abramoff, who charged
clients up to $750 an hour, is keeping a low profile. Greenberg Traurig LLP, the law firm
and lobbying outfit where he was once a major rainmaker, has given Abramoff the bum's
rush. Old friends have stopped hanging out at the restaurant he owned, Signatures. It was
sold earlier this summer. The meter for his own legal bills is now spinning dizzily.
Tee times. It is difficult to chart the scope of political scandals with any exactitude, but every few
years a real doozy blows through the concrete canyons of the nation's capital, trailing a long, comet's
tail of dirty money, backroom deals, and expensive tee times. The Abramoff saga seems to touch all
the bases. "What sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary is the extent and degree of
the apparent exploitation," said Arizona Sen. John McCain, who now chairs the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, which is also investigating Abramoff's lobbying efforts.
The jury is still out on that. But some Democrats are elated by the fact that DeLay has been drawn
into the Abramoff inquiry. "One of my closest and dearest friends," DeLay once said of Abramoff. The
two men enjoyed lavish overseas trips together and played some memorable golf at historic links like
Scotland's St. Andrews. The trips, too, are being examined by federal and congressional investigators.
Abramoff's difficulties represent a radical departure from what had been a charmed life. Born in
Atlantic City, to Democratic parents (they would be persuaded later in life to switch to the GOP by
golfing great Arnold Palmer, who employed Abramoff's father), young Jack moved with his family to
Beverly Hills, Calif., when he was 10. At 12, Abramoff decided to embrace the strictures of Orthodox
Jewish tradition. He was mostly a jock at Beverly Hills High, lifting weights, running track, and playing
varsity football, but he was hardly a big man on campus. He moved back east to attend college at
Brandeis University, where he became a campus conservative. After graduation, he moved to
Washington and later studied law at Georgetown University, but he also continued his political
education, winning election as chair of the College Republican National Committee with the help and
advice of some future Republican stars. Grover Norquist, the influential antitax crusader, was
Abramoff's campaign manager and first executive director of the CRNC. Reed, who was later founding
executive director of the Christian Coalition, was a CRNC intern and was later hired by Abramoff to be
the group's executive director. Reed even slept on Abramoff's couch. One of Abramoff's predecessors
as chairman of the organization was Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist. A woman
named Susan Ralston, who once worked for Abramoff, spent time at the White House as Rove's
executive assistant.
In the Reagan years, Abramoff worked with a variety of conservative organizations, including taking a
turn as executive director of Citizens for America, a lobbying outfit. He stayed in Washington but took
a brief break from politics in the late 1980s to write and produce movies, most notably Red Scorpion,
a forgettable $17 million thriller starring Dolph Lundgren.
Relationships. In 1994, the historic Republican takeover of Congress refired Abramoff's passion for
politics and, perhaps as important, created some significant new business opportunities. Many
Washington lobbying firms were suddenly confronted with a troubling realization: They didn't know the
new GOP players who had suddenly taken control, and they needed to find people who did. Abramoff
not only knew most of the key Republicans in town, but he had worked with them in the trenches for
25
It was time to cash in. At Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, and later at Greenberg Traurig,
Abramoff was one of the key players in a plan devised by DeLay and Norquist and called the K Street
Project. For the GOP, it was payback time. Lobbying firms, long filled with Democrats who had cozy
relationships with long-serving committee chairmen, were pressed to hire more Republicans. So hire
they did. And Abramoff was the king of the hill. Among his blue-chip clients were Unisys, Tyco, and
the government of the Northern Marianas Islands. A friend referred Abramoff to his first Indian client.
The Mississippi Band of the Choctaw wanted a potentially onerous tax provision killed. Abramoff began
working for them in 1995 and quickly derailed the offending legislation. Not long after, the Indian
gaming business began to roll in. By 2002, the future seemed limitless. "We are missing the boat,"
Abramoff said in an E-mail to Scanlon. "There are a ton of potential opportunities out there. There are
27 tribes which make more than $100 [million] a year . . . . We need to get moving on them."
Before long, Abramoff was hauling in millions a year. Signatures, a high-end watering hole serving
contemporary American cuisine on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House,
became the place to be for the GOP elite. With an elaborate plate of exotic seaweed salads and his
specially mixed iced tea sweetened with Splenda, Abramoff held forth from a corner table. The barrestaurant sometimes hosted dozens of fundraisers a week, and some lawmakers and staff felt free to
run up enormous tabs without settling the bill. The New York Times reported that tribes were also
billed for meetings Abramoff held at Signatures; the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, for instance,
was billed more than $5,600 for Abramoff's meals with public officials and lobbyists in 2002, the paper
said. Abramoff, through all the glitter and hurly-burly, cut a peculiar figure. Night after night,
Signatures was jammed with the beautiful, the powerful, the backslappers, the cronies. From his
corner table, Abramoff, deeply religious, strict observer of the Sabbath, father of five, drank it all in
quietly. "I never once saw Jack check out a woman in that restaurant," recalls an employee, "and the
place was packed with pretty women."
Much of Abramoff's good fortune, at least at the beginning, had to do with his perceived access to
DeLay. Abramoff has long rejected any notion that he took advantage of the relationship, and his
spokesman, Blum, says "numerous clients . . . have agreed that Mr. Abramoff did not trade on his
relationship with Representative Delay." Abramoff acknowledged to intimates, however, that he
admired DeLay and continues to do so to this day. People close to Abramoff say the friendship was
based on a shared conservatism, a deep interest in the security of Israel, and a determination to
promote conservative causes. The two men were fond of discussing the Bible. Both love golf and share
a soft spot for Verdi opera. As DeLay rose in stature, from GOP conference secretary to majority whip
to majority leader, so did those who were close to him, and Abramoff was regarded as the cream of
that crop.
Today, Abramoff and DeLay are both waiting to see what the future holds for them. The Justice
Department has confiscated more than 500,000 of Abramoff's E-mails. The House ethics committee,
which has admonished DeLay three times already, is set to begin yet another investigation into his
relationship with Abramoff. Around town, the $64 million question is whether a sinking Abramoff could
take DeLay and others down with him. "If Abramoff flips in the criminal investigation," says a senior
federal investigator, "that will be bad for a lot of people." Abramoff, who calls himself a sinner, has
told associates that he will not bear false witness against DeLay or anyone else. DeLay, for his part,
blames partisan politics for all the questions surrounding his relationship with Abramoff.
But questions remain--and lots of them. Some involve trips taken by DeLay and paid for by Abramoff
or groups connected to Abramoff. They have become the basis of accusations that DeLay violated
House rules, which require that such trips be paid for by interest groups but not lobbyists. The golf
outing to St. Andrews was supposedly paid for by a conservative think tank, the National Center for
Public Policy Research, on whose board Abramoff sits. But records reportedly show that some of the
expenses were, at least initially, paid for with Abramoff's credit card. Since the accusations came to
light, more than 200 lawmakers have filed reports providing new details on who paid for their travel.
There are questions, too, about the use of Signatures for political fundraisers. In the wake of news
stories about the many fundraisers hosted by the restaurant, a handful of lawmakers, including House
Speaker Dennis Hastert, have paid long-overdue tabs for events that were held there.
The most pointed questions by far, however, are about the lobbying that Abramoff and Scanlon did for
those Indian tribes. Blum, Abramoff's spokesman, says that "any fair reading of Mr. Abramoff's career
26
would show that his [Indian] clients benefited immensely from the hard work he and his team did on
their behalf." Others, unsurprisingly, see it differently. "It is a story of greed run amok," says former
Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, an American Indian who preceded McCain as chairman of the
Indian Affairs Committee. "It is a story of two already powerful, wealthy men lining their own pockets
with the hard-earned money of people whom they held in contempt."
With Edward T. Pound and Betsy Streisand
Democrats Also Got Tribal Donations
Abramoff Issue's Fallout May Extend Beyond the GOP
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Derek Willis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 3, 2005; A01
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an associate famously collected $82 million in lobbying and public
relations fees from six Indian tribes and devoted a lot of their time to trying to persuade
Republican lawmakers to act on their clients' behalf.
But Abramoff didn't work just with Republicans. He oversaw a team of two dozen lobbyists at
the law firm Greenberg Traurig that included many Democrats. Moreover, the campaign
contributions that Abramoff directed from the tribes went to Democratic as well as Republican
legislators.
Among the biggest beneficiaries were Capitol Hill's most powerful Democrats, including
Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the top two Senate Democrats at the time,
Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), then-leader of the House Democrats, and the two lawmakers in
charge of raising funds for their Democratic colleagues in both chambers, according to a
Washington Post study. Reid succeeded Daschle as Democratic leader after Daschle lost his
Senate seat last November.
Democrats are hoping to gain political advantage from federal and Senate investigations of
Abramoff's activities and from the embattled lobbyist's former ties to House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Yet, many Democratic lawmakers also benefited from Abramoff's
political operation, a fact that could hinder the Democrats' efforts to turn the lobbyist's troubles
into a winning partisan issue.
"It wouldn't surprise me to see the Abramoff controversy impact both parties," said Tony
Raymond, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine.com, which gathers lobbying and campaign finance
information.
Democratic lawmakers who responded to inquiries for this article said that any money they
received from the tribes had nothing to do with Abramoff. They were quick to say they did not
know the man.
Federal investigators are examining the millions of dollars in lobbying and public relations fees
that Abramoff received from the tribes. They are also looking into his dealings with members of
Congress and their staffs, lawyers involved in the inquiry said.
27
Most lobbying firms here are bipartisan, to give their clients access to key lawmakers of both
major parties. Abramoff's group was no exception. Although he was recognized as a Republican
lobbyist who was close to DeLay and other party leaders, Abramoff was careful to add at least
two Democratic lobbyists to his group during his five years at Greenberg Traurig. By the end,
seven of his lobbyists were Democrats.
"Lobbying shops typically direct contributions to both parties because they want contacts on both
sides of the aisle," said David M. Hart, a professor of public policy at George Mason University.
"Lawmakers in the minority can also have a lot of clout."
According to documents and tribal officials familiar with the Abramoff team's methods, the
lobbyists devised lengthy lists of lawmakers to whom the tribes should donate and then delivered
the lists to the tribes. The tribes, in turn, wrote checks to the recommended campaign committees
and in the amounts the lobbyists prescribed. The money went to incumbents or selected
candidates in open seats.
Because of the makeup of his team and the composition of Congress, the Abramoff lobbyists
channeled most of their clients' giving to GOP legislators, according to a review of public
records. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of an Appropriations subcommittee that
frequently deals with Indian matters, received the largest amount from the tribes as well as from
the Greenberg Traurig lobbyists who helped direct those donations: $141,590 from 1999 to 2004,
the study showed.
But Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) ran second, with $128,000 in the same period. From 1999
to 2001, Kennedy chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which solicited
campaign donations for House candidates.
The Indians' largess flowed to higher-ranking Democrats as well. Senate Democratic leaders
Reid and Daschle each received more than $40,000 from the tribes and from lobbyists on
Abramoff's team during the period. Gephardt got $32,500.
Of the 18 largest recipients of tribe contributions directed by Abramoff's group, six, or one-third,
were Democrats. These included Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), who chaired the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2001 to 2002, and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), a leader
in Indian affairs legislation.
Over that period, while Abramoff and his lobbyists directed nearly $4 million in funds from the
tribes to lawmakers, they also gave from their own pockets. Two-thirds of the total went to
Republicans and one-third was handed out to Democrats, according to The Post's calculations.
The six wealthiest tribes that had hired Abramoff's group were the Mississippi Band of Choctaw
Indians, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the
Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana and the Tigua Indian
Reservation.
Greenberg Traurig declined to comment. An Abramoff spokesman said: "Each tribe has its own
protocol for approving political contributions made by the tribe. Mr. Abramoff and his team
provided recommendations on where a tribe should spend its political dollars, but ultimately the
tribal council made the final decision on what political contributions to make."
28
Democratic lawmakers sought to distance themselves from Abramoff.
A spokesman for Kennedy said the congressman's donations from the tribes "have nothing to do
with Abramoff." Kennedy traces the money's genesis to his family's long-standing commitment
to Indian causes, to the fact that he co-founded the Congressional Native American Caucus in
1997, and to his personal relationship with Mississippi Choctaw Chief Philip Martin, whom
Kennedy met in 1999 on a fundraising trip for the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee. "They just became close friends," said Kennedy spokesman Sean Richardson.
James Patrick Manley, Reid's spokesman, also asserted that Reid's connection to tribes was
remote from Abramoff. He said that Reid does not know Abramoff. But Abramoff did hire as
one of his lobbyists Edward P. Ayoob, a veteran Reid legislative aide. Manley acknowledged
that Ayoob helped raise campaign money for his former boss. Lawyers close to the Abramoff
operation said that Ayoob held a fundraising reception for Reid at Greenberg Traurig's offices
here.
"There's nothing sinister here," Manley said. Reid is a member of the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee with strong relations with Indian tribes, he explained.
Daschle was familiar with another of Abramoff's Democratic lobbyists, Michael Smith.
According to Steve Hildebrand, who was Daschle's campaign manager last year, Smith "helped
with a lot of Democratic campaigns." In addition, Daschle was a favorite of Indian tribes and
received donations from 64, including five Abramoff clients. "We took about $150,000 in this
last election cycle from Indian tribes around the country," Hildebrand said. "Tom is viewed as a
champion of Indian issues. We have nine tribes in South Dakota, and they worked hard for him."
Murray also was said to have never laid eyes on Abramoff. "Our office has not had any contact
with Jack Abramoff," said the senator's spokeswoman, Alex Glass. "She's been active in Indian
health care and in supporting their sovereign governments; that is why they decided to contribute
to her. They see her as an advocate."
During the time Murray chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Abramoff's
major tribes were significant contributors. Election reports show that the grand total from the
tribes to that committee in 2001-2002 reached $175,500.
In March 2001, Dorgan held a fundraising event during a hockey game in a skybox leased by an
Abramoff company at MCI Center. But the senator said he believed that the box was controlled
by Greenberg Traurig. The event was organized by Smith, the Democratic fundraiser, he added.
"I was unaware that Abramoff was involved," Dorgan said.
Staff writer Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.
A High-Powered Lobbyist's Swift Fall From Grace
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; A06
29
What a difference the passage of a few years has made for high-powered Republican lobbyist
Jack Abramoff.
In the first nine months of 2002, Abramoff collected $12.2 million in fees from Indian tribes and
additional sums from the General Council for Islamic Banks and other clients. He spent
$232,000 on his personal travel, mostly by chartered jets, and $69,000 for a Passover family
vacation.
As a Bush "Pioneer," Abramoff also raised more than $100,000 for the president's reelection in
2004. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was "a very close friend," according to
Abramoff's description, as well as a participant in costly trips to Moscow and Scotland arranged
and partly subsidized by Abramoff or his clients.
Abramoff played host to other lawmakers and congressional staff members at four luxury sportsstadium skyboxes he leased for $1 million a year, and he provided free fundraisers for lawmakers
at Signatures, a Washington restaurant in which he had a financial stake.
Now the restaurant is sold, the clients are gone, the lawmakers are working to distance
themselves, and Abramoff's wealth is being diverted to pay his legal tab. His indictment
yesterday by a Florida grand jury, which covers only a sliver of the activities targeted in a
continuing federal tax and corruption investigation, officially caps his remarkably swift fall from
grace but is probably not the end of his travails. He was to spend last night in jail.
The saga of Abramoff's career is the tale of an ideologically committed lawyer whose financial
ambitions repeatedly pushed him toward the boundaries of legal and ethical propriety. A short
man with a strong chin who wore dark suits and flaunted his religious faith, Abramoff has
repeatedly said that what he did was no different from what other lobbyists did for their
Washington clients. He said they all got good value for their money, and also that he broke no
laws.
He was not bashful about seeking personal enrichment. "Can you smell money?" Abramoff
wrote his partner in 2001, referring to a Michigan Indian tribe flush with profits from casino
gambling.
Abramoff got his start in politics as an organizer for Ronald Reagan while attending Brandeis
University in 1980. Shortly afterward, he made his first connections to others who would
command influence in Washington when he became the head of the College Republican National
Committee in 1981. One of his predecessors was Karl Rove, and three of his colleagues in the
group at the time -- Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed and Amy Ridenour -- would later play helpful
roles in Abramoff's Washington work.
He signed on as a lobbyist in Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP, the Washington office
of a Seattle-based firm. One of his first tasks was to help textile manufacturers in the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands -- a U.S. protectorate -- preserve the islands'
exemption from minimum-wage laws.
Abramoff sold the exemption to DeLay and many other lawmakers, whom he took on junkets to
the islands, as the key to preserving a model of conservative, regulation-free capitalism. Critics,
30
including international human rights groups and Democrats, said his lobbying helped insulate
and preserve the abusive workplace and labor conditions there.
Abramoff later signed on as a lobbyist to Indian tribes, flush with millions of dollars from
gambling operations, that wanted to preserve their exemption from taxation. With partner
Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary of DeLay, Abramoff collected at least $66 million
from six tribes between 2001 and 2003, according to a year-long and continuing investigation by
the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. He also steered Indian riches into the coffers of numerous
politicians, including a few Democrats, as well as influential Republicans.
Abramoff's personal lifestyle matched his lavish fees. A detailed tally by his accountant, released
in June by the committee, included expenditures in the first nine months of 1992 of $134,000 for
a new BMW, $69,000 for his driver's salary, $103,000 in credit card charges, and $36,000 in fees
to accountants and other personal advisers. He also wrote checks to lawmakers' campaigns
totaling $28,000 in that period.
But as Abramoff strategized and moved his clients' funds around -- in what his former colleagues
and associates have described as a lengthy effort to obscure who was paying for what and where
the money wound up -- he also left a trail of thousands of e-mails and other documents
recounting the maneuvers in exceptionally brash terms.
Those documents, in the hands of federal and congressional investigators since early last year,
are providing the grist for the legal challenges Abramoff and his former associates still face.
Researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Abramoff Cited Aid Of Interior Official
Conflict-of-Interest Probe Is Underway
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 28, 2005; A01
Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff claimed in e-mails sent in 2002 that the deputy secretary of the
interior had pledged to block an Indian casino that would compete with one of the lobbyist's
tribal clients. Abramoff later told two associates that he was trying to hire the official.
A federal task force investigating Abramoff's activities has conducted interviews and obtained
documents from Interior Department officials and Abramoff associates to determine whether
conflict-of-interest laws were violated, according to people with knowledge of the probe. It can
be a federal crime for government officials to negotiate for a job while being involved in
decisions affecting the potential employer.
The two former Abramoff associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are
under scrutiny in the investigation, said Abramoff told them in late 2003 that he was trying to
arrange for his firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP, to hire J. Steven Griles, then deputy interior
31
secretary. Federal investigators are interested in those discussions and in job negotiations
Abramoff may have had with a second department official, according to sources.
Abramoff told associates that he believed Griles was "committed" to blocking an effort by the
Gun Lake Indian tribe to build a casino near Grand Rapids, Mich., according to the content of email messages reviewed by The Washington Post. Abramoff said the blocking would involve an
environmental challenge to the project, a tactic also proposed by Michigan business leaders
opposed to the casino. Abramoff fought the project because it would draw business from a casino
operated by his clients, the Saginaw Chippewas.
Environmental concerns ended up delaying action on the Gun Lake casino. The project was
cleared last May by the Interior Department.
Gun Lake was not the only casino that Abramoff tried to derail through his departmental
contacts. The Post has reported on e-mails indicating the lobbyist enlisted Griles to stop a
Louisiana tribe's proposed casino, which threatened another Abramoff client.
Griles, who left the Interior Department earlier this year to form a consulting firm, "said he never
had anything to do with the Gun Lake casino issues," a spokeswoman at his company said. He
did not comment on any job discussions with Abramoff. A spokesman for Abramoff also
declined to comment. Greenberg Traurig, citing the ongoing investigation, had no comment on
possible job talks with department officials.
In a separate case, Abramoff and a business partner were indicted this month on federal wire
fraud and conspiracy charges in Florida. They are accused of providing lenders with a counterfeit
financial document to consummate their purchase of a casino cruise line in 2000. Allegations of
fraud emerged after the seller was later killed in a gangland-style hit.
The Washington probe, being conducted by the Justice Department's fraud and public corruption
unit, focuses on Abramoff's lobbying work on Capitol Hill for Indian tribes for which he and
public relations executive Michael Scanlon were paid $82 million. Scanlon, one of about a dozen
congressional staffers who went to work with Abramoff, had served as press spokesman for
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).
The Justice Department task force, which includes the FBI and the IRS, is looking into
Abramoff's dealings with lawmakers and their staffs. Investigators from the Interior
Department's inspector general's office, part of the task force, have been asking witnesses about
the Gun Lake casino project, according to people who have had contact with the investigators.
The task force also is examining Abramoff's relationships and influence with officials of the
Bush administration, as highlighted by the previously undisclosed Gun Lake e-mails. The emails show how Abramoff relied on the president of a conservative group, Italia Federici, to
intercede with Griles, who was her friend.
Copies of Abramoff's e-mails referencing Griles and Federici were obtained from a variety of
sources, including the Interior Department. Some e-mails involving Gun Lake were read to The
Post by a person who declined to release them because of the federal probe.
32
Department officials said the Gun Lake process was proper, adding that they could not comment
further because of the ongoing investigation into Abramoff's contacts with Interior.
'The Way to Stop It'
The Gun Lake tribe, formally known as the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi
Indians, in 2001 began seeking approval for a casino on 147 acres near Grand Rapids.
As part of its application, the tribe prepared an environmental assessment and was close to
approval by the end of 2002. The tribe was not asked to produce an environmental impact
statement, or EIS, a much more detailed study.
On Dec. 4, 2002, Abramoff received an e-mail from Saginaw Chippewas tribal representative
Chris Petras, who said that Gun Lake's proposal was moving forward rapidly. A public comment
period on the tribe's environmental assessment was expected to be the last step before the Bureau
of Indian Affairs -- a part of the Interior Department -- cleared the way.
That same day, Abramoff sent an urgent e-mail to Federici, president of the Council of
Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.
"This is a disaster in the making," Abramoff wrote. "This is the casino we discussed with Steve
and he said that it would not happen. It seems to be happening! The way to stop it is for Interior
to say they are not satisfied with the environmental impact report. Can you get him to stop this
one asap? They are moving fast. Thanks Italia. This is a direct assault on our guys, Saginaw
Chippewa."
Federici posted a quick reply: "I will call him asap." She met with Griles in his office two days
later, according to a copy of Griles's schedule released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Federici did not respond to interview requests for this article.
Federici's group, CREA, was founded in the 1990s by conservative anti-tax activist Grover
Norquist and Gale Norton, now secretary of the interior. It has received financial backing from
chemical and mining interests, leading some environmentalists to brand it a front for industrial
polluters. Abramoff directed tribes he represented to donate $225,000 to CREA from 2001 to
2003.
Days after he appealed to Federici for help with Griles, Abramoff reassured the Saginaw
Chippewas tribal representative. "The meeting with Griles went well. We have a lot to do but
we'll get there," he told Petras in a Dec. 12, 2002, e-mail.
Scanlon weighed in the following week, suggesting technical roadblocks to stop the casino.
"Hey, I think a real quick way to blow this Gun Lake thing out of the water is to have BIA reject
the land into trust, or lay some stipulation on their application that would buy us some time,"
Scanlon wrote Abramoff on Dec. 16. "Any word from Griles on this?"
Abramoff wrote back: "I thought the way to do this is to have them reject the EIS, which I
believe Griles has committed to do."
33
In the first half of 2003, the Gun Lake tribe remained under the impression that its application
was about to be approved. But in July of that year, the Department of Justice's Indian law section
raised concerns about the project and sought to have the tribe prepare an environment impact
statement.
Federal investigators are examining the circumstances that led the section to raise its objections,
according to people who have been interviewed in the probe.
Thomas L. Sansonetti, then the associate attorney general overseeing the Indian law section, told
Interior Department officials that his office did not want to take on the burden of defending the
department if it was sued by Michigan opponents of Gun Lake on environmental grounds.
In an interview this month, Sansonetti said that he wanted to have a strong defense in the event
of a lawsuit. He said he was not moved by the Gun Lake tribe's offer to provide legal assistance
for any court case.
Sansonetti said he first heard about Gun Lake from the Interior Department's solicitor's office. "I
think there was a concern with the [environmental assessment] being sufficient all along," he
said.
Sansonetti said he has attended events sponsored by Federici's group. He said he had no
communication with Griles or Abramoff about Gun Lake and said he is unaware of any
investigation of the matter. He left the Justice Department this year to join a Wyoming law firm.
Asked to comment on how his tribe's application was handled, Gun Lake leader D.K. Sprague
issued a statement complaining of the cost of the delay in the casino application and urging "a
thorough investigation" by the Justice Department task force. "We have been denied our federal
rights, economic self-sufficiency, and jobs that will benefit our community," he said.
Opponents Sue Interior
In addition to Gun Lake, in 2003 Abramoff and Griles were active in an effort to stop a casino
proposed by the Jena Band of Choctaws in Louisiana, rivals of another Abramoff client.
Late in that year, Griles, who was generally not involved in Indian issues, presented Interior
officials with a binder containing legal arguments and congressional letters opposing the Jena
plan. Griles acknowledged to colleagues that the binder had probably been put together by
Abramoff, according to one former senior department official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
In March, The Post reported that Griles's involvement in the Jena case led to a clash with other
Interior Department officials, including former legal counsel Michael G. Rossetti. A
spokeswoman for Griles commented for that article, saying that he "didn't participate in any
decision-making process regarding the Jena Band and gaming."
In April, the Interior Department solicitor's office dropped opposition to the Gun Lake tribe's
casino application. The tribe subsequently received approval for its casino.
34
A group of Grand Rapids business leaders, who had long argued that the casino would harm the
city's renewal plans and should undergo a more extensive environmental review, immediately
sued the Interior Department.
One of those involved in the legal action was Peter F. Secchia, a major GOP fundraiser who
served as an ambassador for President George H.W. Bush. In December 2002, he told the
Kalamazoo Gazette that he was going all-out to block the casino, so much so that he spoke to
presidential political adviser Karl Rove about it at a White House Christmas party for donors.
"I talked to Rove, and he put me in touch with his guy in charge of this kind of operation. I'm
going to do my damnedest on this one. This is really important to us," Secchia told the Gazette
that December.
In a recent interview, Secchia said he has spoken not only to Rove but also to President George
W. Bush and Vice President Cheney about what he sees as the negative impact of the
proliferation of tribal casinos. Both men, he said, told him it was a legislative issue. "Karl told
me to talk to [congressional] committee people," he said, and put him in touch with the White
House office of intergovernmental relations.
Secchia said he has not talked to officials at Interior or Justice about Gun Lake. He said he has
never had contact with Abramoff, who is out on $2.25 million bond and is to be arraigned next
week in Miami in the casino fleet case.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Aide Was Reticent on Lobbying for Foreign Clients
By Susan Schmidt and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 21, 2005; A02
David H. Safavian, the Bush administration official arrested Monday, initially failed to disclose
lobbying work he had done for several controversial foreign clients when he went before a
Senate panel last year to be confirmed as chief of the White House's federal procurement office.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held up Safavian's nomination for more than a
year, in part because of lawmakers' concerns about lobbying work for two men later accused of
links to suspected terrorist organizations, according to committee documents. Safavian did not
disclose his firm's representation of the men until questioned in writing by the committee's staff,
and initially failed to tell the panel he had registered as a foreign agent for two controversial
African regimes.
The Senate panel nevertheless approved him unanimously and the Senate followed suit on Nov.
21, 2004.
Safavian was arrested Monday on charges of lying and obstructing an investigation into former
powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. Safavian resigned
his government post Friday. Yesterday, his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, did not return
telephone calls seeking comment.
35
Senate approval of Safavian occurred two months after The Washington Post disclosed
Safavian's participation in an August 2002 Scotland golf trip with Abramoff. That trip was
central to the criminal complaint against Safavian unsealed on Monday.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for committee chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the review
of Safavian's background had been thorough.
"Based on our extensive review of his qualifications and background, we had no reason to
believe that Mr. Safavian had engaged in any wrongdoing," said a spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph
I. Lieberman (Conn.), the committee's senior Democrat at the time of the vote.
The record of Safavian's confirmation shows extensive questioning by the committee staff about
his alleged lobbying for local Muslim leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in October 2000 made
widely publicized comments supporting Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or
Hamas, at a rally in Lafayette Park.
Lobby disclosure forms originally filed by Safavian's firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, show that it
represented Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, until 2001. Alamoudi has since been
convicted and imprisoned for accepting money from the Libyan government as part of an alleged
plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Janus-Merritt Strategies changed its lobby disclosure forms in 2001 to indicate that its client was
not Alamoudi but Jamal Barzinji. In March 2002, Barzinji was named in a search warrant
affidavit filed by a Customs Service official as "the officer or director" of a group of entities in
Northern Virginia "controlled by individuals who have shown support for terrorists or terrorist
fronts." No charges have been filed against Barzinji, and he has denied any wrongdoing.
Safavian told the committee in an April 16, 2004, letter that he and his firm never did any work
for Alamoudi. He said the firm lobbied at Barzinji's request to gain U.S. support to free the
former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned for six years.
Safavian also told the committee that he had "overlooked" two other clients while preparing his
initial submissions for the OMB position. He did not initially mention work as a registered
foreign agent for Gabon, a country persistently rated by the United States as having a "poor"
human rights record, or his work as a registered foreign agent for Pascal Lissouba, the former
president of the Republic of Congo who has been tried in absentia for treason and embezzlement.
Safavian, former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, is charged with three
counts of making false statements and obstructing a GSA investigation into his ties with
Abramoff. Before joining the government, Safavian worked as a lobbyist with Abramoff, then
founded Janus-Merritt Strategies with conservative antitax crusader Grover Norquist.
As a lobbyist, he represented the government of Pakistan on military sales matters and the
Islamic Institute in an effort to promote a U.S. postage stamp commemorating Ramadan. With
Abramoff, he also represented the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S.
protectorate, to try to block the imposition of minimum wage rules.
36
In its probe, the Senate committee also raised questions about a potential conflict of interest
between Safavian and his wife, Jennifer, the chief counsel for oversight and investigations at the
House Committee of Government Reform, which oversees federal procurement policy matters.
Safavian said his wife had pledged to recuse herself from "any matters where the conduct of
officials and employees" at the Office of Management and Budget the principal issue, "as well as
matters relating specifically to procurement policy, competitive sourcing, or information
technology."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
October 6, 2005
First Charges Filed in Case on Lobbyist
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The former head of procurement policy for the White House budget
office was indicted Wednesday on charges of obstructing investigators and lying about his ties to
Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who is at the center of a federal investigation that has
brought Representative Tom DeLay under scrutiny.
The indictment of the former official, David H. Safavian, was the first to result from the Justice
Department's larger investigation of Mr. Abramoff, a major Republican fund-raiser who was
once among the most powerful lobbyists in Washington.
Administration officials acknowledged this week that the Justice Department had asked the
British police to interview former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about a meeting with Mr.
DeLay during a 2000 trip to Britain arranged by Mr. Abramoff. It was the first public
acknowledgment that Mr. DeLay's actions were also under investigation.
Mr. DeLay stepped down as majority leader after he was indicted last week on conspiracy
charges as a result of a separate, unrelated investigation in Texas.
Mr. Safavian was accused in the indictment of lying about his contacts with Mr. Abramoff when
Mr. Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration, which is the
government's property-management agency. He held that post from 2002 until 2004.
Mr. Safavian's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said that he would plead not guilty and suggested
that the indictment's real target was Mr. Abramoff. "This is not a case of guilty as charged," Ms.
Van Gelder said. "Rather, it is an attempt to prove guilt by association."
Prosecutors said Mr. Safavian insisted to investigators that Mr. Abramoff had no business at the
General Services Administration in 2002. E-mail messages traded between the two men at the
time showed that Mr. Safavian was trying to help the lobbyists acquire two government-owned
properties.
37
Mr. DeLay has not been linked to the investigation of Mr. Safavian. Mr. DeLay is facing two
indictments in his home state - he is accused of conspiracy and money laundering.
Mr. DeLay's lawyers in Texas stepped up their attacks on the Democratic prosecutor in the case,
Ronnie Earle, the district attorney of Travis County, which includes most of Austin, after Mr.
Earle's disclosure this week that a third grand jury refused to indict Mr. DeLay on similar
charges Friday.
Mr. Earle has been unwilling to say why that grand jury refused to act.
One of Mr. DeLay's lawyers, Dick DeGuerin, said the moves reflected a desperate effort by Mr.
Earle to rescue his case against Mr. DeLay in light of defense arguments that the original
conspiracy charges were fundamentally flawed.
Documents unearthed this week and reported by The Associated Press and PoliticalMoneyLine,
a research group, revealed fund-raising tactics used by Mr. DeLay in 2000 that could draw
additional scrutiny.
The documents showed that a committee operated by Mr. DeLay for the Republicans' 2000
convention in Philadelphia diverted tens of thousands of dollars to other organizations run by the
former majority leader and his allies, including Representative Roy Blunt, the Missouri
Republican who assumed Mr. DeLay's duties after his indictment.
Mr. DeLay's committee gave at least $150,000 to Mr. Blunt's Rely on Your Beliefs Non-Federal
Committee in 2000, which in turn wrote checks to several other DeLay organizations, the
documents showed.
They showed that Mr. Blunt's group gave $100,000 to the Missouri Republican Party, which
later spent tens of thousands of dollars supporting Mr. Blunt's son, Matt, in his campaign for
secretary of state. Matt Blunt is now the state's governor.
An aide to Mr. Delay declined to comment, and a spokeswoman for Mr. Blunt said there was
nothing improper in the transfer of the money between the groups.
Glen Justice contributed reporting for this article.
November 3, 2005
Ex-Interior Deputy Testifies Lobbyist Offered Him
Job
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - The former No. 2 official at the Interior Department acknowledged to
Congressional investigators on Wednesday that he had received a job offer while at the
38
department from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and that he had other contacts with Mr. Abramoff,
the focus of a corruption inquiry.
The official, former Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, insisted in testimony to a hearing of the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee that there was nothing improper in his ties to Mr. Abramoff and
that he had immediately reported the job offer, in 2003, to ethics officials in the department. It
can be a crime for federal officials to open job negotiations while working for the government.
Mr. Griles, who left the department to set up his lobbying firm, acknowledged the offer after
being confronted by the committee chairman, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona,
with an e-mail message from Sept. 9, 2003, by Mr. Abramoff. In it, Mr. Abramoff told his
lobbying colleagues that he had met with Mr. Griles that evening, that Mr. Griles was "ready to
leave Interior and will most likely be coming to join us" and that "I expect he will be with us in
90-120 days."
Despite the job offer and other e-mail messages that showed contacts between the lobbyist and
Mr. Griles, the former official insisted he did not have a special relationship with Mr. Abramoff.
"I don't recall intervening on behalf of Mr. Abramoff's clients ever," he said.
The claim was met with skepticism from the senators, who released more than 300 pages of email communications and other documents from the files of Mr. Abramoff and his clients that
documented his aggressive efforts to lobby Mr. Griles and other Interior Department officials on
behalf of Indian casinos. The department, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is
responsible for federal oversight of Indian gambling.
The hearing, the latest in a year-old inquiry by the panel into accusations that Mr. Abramoff had
defrauded tribes out of tens of millions of dollars, also brought new attention to Ralph Reed, the
influential Republican political consultant who once led the Christian Coalition and is now a
candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia.
Mr. Abramoff's previously released internal records show that Mr. Reed's lobbying company was
paid millions of dollars to help block gambling that might compete against casinos owned by Mr.
Abramoff's tribal clients. Mr. Reed, among Mr. Abramoff's closest friends, has insisted that he
had no knowledge that the anti-gambling effort might have been underwritten by the proceeds of
Indian casinos.
Another witness , a former lawyer for the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana and its gambling
operations, said Mr. Abramoff had asked her to try to find a way to hide the source of more than
$150,000 that the tribe was offering to support Mr. Reed's effort. The tribe was among Mr.
Abramoff's most lucrative clients, paying him and his partners more than $32 million.
"Mr. Abramoff asked if the tribe had another entity through which the payment could be made,"
said the lawyer, Kathryn van Hoof, adding that the money was eventually funneled through a
businessman with a long association with the tribe.
Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said the evidence
showed that Mr. Reed had asked to be paid by the tribe through "a variety of entities" because of
"his concern about being publicly associated with gambling money," an issue that has emerged
in Mr. Reed's campaign in Georgia.
39
An e-mail message released on Wednesday shows that on Feb. 11, 2002, Mr. Abramoff
contacted Mr. Reed to provide him with a newspaper article about the Coushatta, adding, "That's
our client."
A spokeswoman for Mr. Reed had no comment, saying he had not seen the latest documents.
The papers included e-mail exchanges between Mr. Reed and Mr. Abramoff, as well as checks
for hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Mr. Reed's consulting firm, Century Strategies of
Duluth, Ga., by the American International Center, a group controlled by Mr. Abramoff's former
business partner, Michael Scanlon. Mr. Scanlon, the former House press secretary to
Representative Tom DeLay, has refused to testify before the Indian Affairs Committee.
A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff's law firm said he was in the "impossible position of not being
able to defend himself in the public arena until the proper authorities have had a chance to
review all accusations."
The statement lacked comment on the contacts between Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Griles and others
at the Interior Department. Mr. Griles said he was startled by the job offer in 2003. It was made
in a meeting with Mr. Abramoff and another partner at his lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.
"It raised alarms with me, because what was that about?" Mr. Griles said. "I went and talked to
the ethics office and told them the conversation had occurred." He added that the ethics officers
assured him that he had done nothing wrong. "My relationship with Mr. Abramoff was, as with
other lobbyists, nothing more, nothing less," he testified.
Mr. Abramoff's e-mail messages show that he used a conservative lobbying group, the Council
of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, and its president, Italian Federici, as a go-between
with Mr. Griles.
The council was established in the 1990's by Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, whom Ms.
Federici has called her mentor. The council received hundreds of thousands of dollars in
donations from Mr. Abramoff's tribal clients. Ms. Federici, scheduled to testify, did not appear.
Norton Ex-Aides Clash on Lobbyist's Influence
Lawyer Says He Accused Griles of Aiding Abramoff
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 3, 2005; A19
Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton's former legal counselor yesterday accused J. Steven Griles,
the department's recently departed second in command, of improperly trying to meddle in
decisions affecting tribal clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Former legal counselor Michael G. Rossetti, seated beside Griles before the Senate Indian
Affairs Committee, said he repeatedly rebuffed Griles's efforts and, at one point, confronted him
in front of other officials. He accused Griles of attempting to do Abramoff's bidding on an issue
affecting the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana, an Abramoff gambling client.
40
"I wanted Mr. Griles to know I had my eye on him because I was worried about it -- whether
founded or not, I was worried about it," Rossetti said. He said he demanded to know from Griles
"whose water was he carrying," Rossetti testified.
Griles, flushed and agitated, denied aiding Abramoff. "I don't recall intervening on behalf of Mr.
Abramoff, ever," he said. "There was no special relationship with Abramoff in my office."
The face-off between two former senior Bush administration officials was the latest twist in the
unfolding story of Abramoff's efforts to influence Congress and executive branch agencies. A
Justice Department public corruption task force is investigating the former GOP lobbying
powerhouse; yesterday's hearing was the fourth the committee has held to look into the $82
million Abramoff and associates received from tribal clients over three years.
The panel's chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), called the saga "a complex and tangled web .
. . a story alarming in its depth and breadth of potential wrongdoing. It is breathtaking in its
reach."
One witness -- Italia Federici, depicted in e-mails as a go-between from Abramoff to Griles -refused to appear, citing prior family considerations. U.S. marshals have been looking for her
since last week to serve her a subpoena, and McCain said he would require her to come before
the committee on her own.
McCain questioned Griles about a discussion he had with Abramoff about joining his lobbying
firm in September 2003, two months before Griles's confrontation with Rossetti. McCain cited
an e-mail obtained by the committee in which Abramoff told his lobbying colleagues that he had
met with Griles and expected him to join their team.
"This cannot be shared with anyone not on this distribution list," Abramoff wrote. "I met with
him tonight. He is ready to leave Interior and will most likely be coming to join us. He had a nice
sized practice before he joined Interior, and expects to get that and more rather soon. I expect he
will be with us in 90-120 days. This will restrict what he can do for us in the meantime," wrote
Abramoff, but said Griles "gave me some suggestions" on several tribal related issues.
Griles told the panel he had been offered a job but immediately declined it and told Interior
Department ethics officials about the overture.
Interior Department spokesman Daniel J. DuBray said that Griles did confer with an ethics
officer over the job offer. He said he could not comment further on yesterday's hearing, citing the
investigations into "all aspects of Mr. Abramoff's contacts with the department -- both direct
contacts and those which may have been conducted by surrogates."
Much of yesterday's hearing centered on Griles's dealings with Federici, who introduced Griles
and Abramoff to each other around the time of President Bush's election. Federici, a former
Norton campaign aide in the secretary's native Colorado, is president of a conservative
environmental group Norton founded with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.
Abramoff had his tribal clients send at least $250,000 to the group -- Council of Republicans for
Environmental Advocacy -- between 2001 and 2003.
41
"The question is why," McCain said. He said e-mails show that Abramoff and his team "believed
that Ms. Federici had 'juice' at the Department of Interior and deemed her 'critical' to his tribal
lobbying practice." In numerous e-mails, Federici told Abramoff she had or would raise the
lobbyists' concerns with Griles.
The Washington Post reported earlier this year that Federici and Griles had a personal
relationship that is an element in the investigation into Abramoff's influence at the department.
"I recall a few conversations where she asked me to call Abramoff," said Griles yesterday,
adding that he remembered calling Abramoff on one occasion.
Griles said the only time he remembered Abramoff being in his office was for a "photo op" with
the former chief of the Coushatta tribe on Feb. 5, 2002. That meeting occurred as Abramoff and
the Coushattas were in the midst of a furious effort to prevent another Louisiana tribe, the Jena
Band of Choctaw Indians, from winning concessions at the Interior Department that would pave
the way for them to open a casino.
Rossetti said Griles repeatedly sought to intervene in the department's two-year consideration of
the Jena matter. "He had a very keen interest," Rossetti testified, and made "constant requests to
be involved in meetings." Rossetti said he tried to block the efforts because he did not want
Norton to be vulnerable to criticism that the normal decision-making process had not been
followed.
Griles denied he had ever sought to weigh in on tribal issues during his tenure at the department,
which lasted from 2001 until last year.
But Rossetti said that in late 2003, with Norton about to make a decision on the Jena, Griles
presented him with a binder full of legal arguments and congressional letters arguing against the
Jena bid. Rossetti demanded to know where it had come from, and after much discussion, he
testified, Griles acknowledged it had come to him "by way of Mr. Abramoff."
"Mr. Rossetti has a different memory than I have on that issue," Griles said. He said he showed
the binder to Rossetti and asked him to share it with Norton, recalling that he asked, "Please
make sure she knows all sides of this issue."
"I do not know and did not know where it came from," Griles said. He said his secretary was
called down to pick it up at the department's front desk, and once it was placed in his office, he
thought he should give it to Rossetti because it was now an official Interior Department
document.
In a statement yesterday, Andrew Blum, spokesman for Abramoff, said the lobbyist was in the
"impossible position" of not being able to give his side of the story because of the ongoing
investigations.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
42
A Detour in The Corridor Of Power
Indictment Snaps Rapid Rise of Republican Star
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; A17
Before he was indicted on five felony counts of lying to investigators, David H. Safavian was
positioned to break out of the pack of Republican operatives working in Washington.
Just 38, he was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the president's
Office of Management and Budget, with the authority to make the rules governing $300 billion
in annual expenditures, including those in response to Hurricane Katrina.
But that was before federal agents appeared at his home on Sept. 19 and arrested Safavian in
connection with the investigation of Jack Abramoff, charging that Safavian lied about his
dealings with the onetime powerhouse lobbyist and misled investigators from the General
Services Administration and the Senate.
Knowing the indictment was imminent, Safavian had resigned his post three days earlier,
derailing a government career he had carefully planned and skillfully executed.
Safavian's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said the indictment is mainly a tactic by prosecutors to
force Safavian to testify against Abramoff. At a hearing Monday, she demanded documents from
the Abramoff criminal investigation that refer to Safavian.
Abramoff is under investigation by the Senate and several government agencies in connection
with $82 million he and a partner charged Native American groups for lobbying and public
relations services and other matters dealing with elected and appointed officials. He also has
been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy in connection with the purchase of a casino cruise
company in Florida.
Those close to Safavian say that whatever the outcome of the charges against him, he faces
serious, if not insurmountable, obstacles to getting his career in Washington back on track.
Safavian set out a decade ago to win the backing of influential conservative Republicans such as
Abramoff and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. In the intense competition for power in
Washington, Safavian climbed the political ladder in the relatively short span of 10 years.
With a degree from the Detroit College of Law and a master's in tax law from Georgetown
University, the Pontiac, Mich., native began as an associate lobbyist in 1995 at Preston, Gates
and Ellis, where Abramoff was a lobbyist. Later he worked as a principal at Janus-Merritt
Strategies, where Norquist was a consultant.
Safavian represented controversial but often lucrative clients, including the Mississippi Band of
Choctaw Indians, the Distilled Spirits Council, the Interactive Gaming Council and the National
Indian Gaming Association.
43
An Iranian American, Safavian was a founding member of the board of Norquist's Islamic Free
Market Institute, when the Bush campaign was targeting Arab American voters in key states
such as Florida and Michigan.
Norquist, who welcomed Safavian to the board of the institute in 1999, declined to answer
questions about Safavian.
In 2001, Safavian began a remarkable, four-year ascent in government. He first served in 200102 as chief of staff to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah). Then, in June 2002, Safavian moved to the
executive branch with a plum assignment: chief of staff at the General Services Administration.
GSA is the government's bread and butter agency, letting contracts for construction as well as
buying goods and services.
Safavian's big break came on Nov. 4, 2003, when President Bush nominated him to become the
powerful administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. The post is crucial to the
information technology, contracting and services industries, whose contractors can have millions
of dollars riding on every OFPP decision.
The Safavian appointment brought immediate plaudits from the government contracting
community. Larry Allen, executive vice president of the Coalition for Government Procurement,
described Safavian as "a good man, and he's aware of the policies in play."
Safavian, however, needed Senate confirmation and ran into problems. One involved
representation of a client at Janus-Merritt. The firm listed Abdurahman Alamoudi as a client
starting on Sept. 18, 2000. Safavian was one of five lobbyists listed as working on the Alamoudi
account.
Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, was sentenced last year to 23 years in prison for
conspiring to assassinate then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In July, the Treasury
Department charged that Alamoudi "raised money for al Qaeda in the United States."
Before those troubles, Alamoudi spoke at an October 2000 rally in front of the White House,
where he declared his support for the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has been
designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Janus-Merritt Strategies continued to identify Alamoudi as a client in its next two reports to the
Senate, listing receipt of two $20,0000 payments. But in December 2001, it declared that "an
error" had been made and that Alamoudi was not a client. Instead, another man, Jamal Barzinji
of Herndon, should have been listed as the firm's contact.
Safavian confirmed the change in written answers to the staff of the Senate Government Affairs
Committee in April 2004.
On March 20, 2002, FBI, IRS and Custom Services agents raided the Herndon office building
listed by Janus-Merritt as Barzinji's address, as well as Barzinji's nearby home. In an affidavit,
the government said three agencies had been investigating whether groups at that address were
providing material support to terrorists, laundering money and evading taxes. No charges have
been filed against Barzinji, and he has denied wrongdoing.
44
White House spokeswoman Erin Healy would not say whether the administration had looked
into Safavian's relationship with Alamoudi and Barzinji before nominating him. "We are
cooperating fully with the Department of Justice investigation," she said.
On June 2, 2004, the Government Affairs Committee unanimously approved Safavian's
nomination. The Senate confirmed him Nov. 21, 2004, but not before he ran into more trouble.
On Sept 28, 2004, The Washington Post disclosed that in August 2002, Safavian, who was then
at the GSA, had gone on a golfing trip to Scotland arranged by Abramoff. House Administration
Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and lobbyist and former Christian Coalition
leader Ralph Reed were also on the trip.
Safavian told GSA officials when he took the trip that he had no business dealings with
Abramoff. The federal affidavit filed when Safavian was arrested says Abramoff had asked
Safavian about acquiring property controlled by the GSA, butSafavian's lawyer contends the
inquiries did not constitute "doing business," and said Safavian paid his share of the $120,000plus trip by giving Abramoff a check for $3,100.
Safavian and Abramoff's spokesman, Andrew Blum, declined to comment. OMB spokesman
Alex Conant said, "We don't comment on personnel and security issues. . . . Mr. Safavian
resigned and is no longer an OMB employee. OMB is cooperating fully with the Department of
Justice's investigation."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Lawmakers Under Scrutiny in Probe of Lobbyist
Ney and DeLay Among the Members of Congress Said to Be a Focus of Abramoff
Investigation
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 26, 2005; A01
The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has
entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to
possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case
said.
Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief
of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources
knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a
dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are
looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and
at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the
law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.
45
Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in
his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad
Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved
with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff's key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.
Prosecutions and plea deals have become more likely, the lawyers said, now that Abramoff's
former partner -- public relations executive Michael Scanlon -- has agreed to plead guilty to
conspiracy and to testify about gifts that he and his K Street colleagues showered on lawmakers,
allegedly in exchange for official favors.
An attorney for DeLay, whose wife worked for a lobbying firm that received client referrals from
Abramoff, said there was no connection between her work and congressional business. A
spokesman for Doolittle, whose wife received payments from Abramoff's lobbying firm, also
said there was no connection with her husband's position. Burns's office has said his actions were
consistent with his support for improving conditions for Indian tribes.
Ney is the congressman whose name has surfaced most prominently in the Abramoff
investigation. His spokesman and attorney have said for weeks that Ney has not been told he is a
target of the inquiry, even while acknowledging that his office has received a grand jury
subpoena and that his activities were mentioned in Scanlon's plea agreement.
But the sources said that during the third week of October prosecutors told Ney and his former
chief of staff, Neil Volz, that they were preparing a bribery case based in part on activities that
occurred in October 2000. Abramoff and another business partner, Adam Kidan, were also told
that they are targets in that case, the sources said.
The five-year statute of limitations for filing charges based on those events expired last month;
the prosecutors sought and received a waiver of the deadline from all four men while they
continue their investigation, the sources said. Prosecutors are often able to obtain such waivers
by giving the targets a choice of being indicted right away or granting more time to see if
information might surface that exonerates them.
Ney's attorney, Mark H. Tuohey, did not return calls seeking comment on the waiver. Ney
spokesman Brian Walsh said the office had no comment, as did a lawyer for Volz.
The attorneys of Abramoff and Kidan did not return calls seeking comment.
The events in 2000 that interest investigators are connected to the purchase by Abramoff and
Kidan of SunCruz Casinos, owner of a fleet of Florida gambling boats. Ney twice placed
comments in the Congressional Record about SunCruz, first criticizing its former owner when
Abramoff and Kidan were in difficult purchase negotiations and then, in October, praising
Kidan's new management. Abramoff and Kidan are facing trial in January on charges of
defrauding lenders in their purchase of the casino boats.
The statute of limitations may also soon run out on a 2001 Super Bowl trip sponsored by
SunCruz that sources said investigators have reviewed. The Washington Post reported earlier this
year that aides to Burns and DeLay were ferried to Tampa on a SunCruz corporate jet arranged
by Abramoff. Ney and his sons were invited to the 2001 Super Bowl outing, former Abramoff
associates said, but did not go.
46
The Hill aides were treated to the game and a night of gambling on a Sun Cruz ship. They were
offered $500 in gambling chips, sources knowledgeable about the trip said.
The Post has reported that Burns, who received $137,000 in contributions from Abramoff
lobbyists and their tribal clients, obtained a controversial $3 million school construction grant for
one of Abramoff's wealthy tribal clients after pressuring the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Investigators are also gathering information about Abramoff's hiring of several congressional
wives, sources said, as well as his referral of clients to Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying and
consulting firm run by former senior aides to DeLay. Financial disclosure forms show that the
firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, from 1998 to 2002.
Former Abramoff lobbying associates have said that Abramoff shared some of his high-paying
clients with the group, including Malaysian interests, the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe and
online gambling firms. Federal investigators have questioned some former Abramoff associates
about whether those referrals were related to Christine DeLay's employment there, sources said.
Alexander Strategy Group is run by former DeLay senior staffers Edwin A. Buckham and Tony
C. Rudy. Rudy served as DeLay's deputy chief of staff until 2001, when he took a job with
Abramoff, and later moved on to join Buckham.
Investigators are looking into whether Rudy aided Abramoff's lobbying clients while he was
working on the Hill, the sources said, and are reviewing payments from Abramoff clients and
associates to Liberty Consulting, a political firm founded by Rudy's wife, Lisa. The Washington
Post reported last month that Rudy, while on DeLay's staff, helped scuttle a bill opposed by
eLottery Inc., an Abramoff client, and that Abramoff had eLottery pay a foundation to hire
Liberty Consulting.
Richard Cullen, an attorney for the DeLays, said Christine DeLay was hired by Buckham, an old
family friend, to determine the favorite charity of every member of Congress. She was paid
$3,200 to $3,400 a month for three years, or about $115,000 total, he said.
"It wasn't like she did this 9 to 5, but it was an ongoing project," Cullen said. He said Christine
DeLay's work was commensurate with the project and had nothing to do with her husband or any
official congressional business. "This was something that she found to be very interesting, very
challenging and very worthwhile," Cullen said.
Rudy and Buckham and their attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
Abramoff's connections to Doolittle are also of interest to investigators, sources said. Doolittle's
former chief of staff, Kevin A. Ring, went to work with Abramoff. Doolittle's wife, Julie, owned
a consulting firm that was hired by Abramoff and his firm, Greenberg Traurig, to do fundraising
for a charity he founded. Two sources close to the investigation said that Ring, while working for
Abramoff, was an intermediary in the hiring of Julie Doolittle's firm, Sierra Dominion Financial
Solutions Inc., which last year received a subpoena from the grand jury investigating Abramoff.
Julie Doolittle's attorney, William L. Stauffer Jr., said Sierra Dominion Financial was hired by
Greenberg Traurig to provide "event planning, marketing and related services, as requested by
Mr. Abramoff" for Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation and his Signatures restaurant. Sierra
47
Dominion received a monthly retainer from Greenberg Traurig from January 2003 until February
2004, at a rate similar to that paid by other Sierra Dominion clients, Stauffer said.
Abramoff frequently used the athletic foundation as a pass-through organization to run lobbying
efforts and to pay for expenses, records show. Julie Doolittle was hired to put on a fundraiser for
the foundation at the International Spy Museum, but the event was canceled because it had been
scheduled to take place just at the Iraq war was commencing, Stauffer said.
"Sierra Dominion primarily performed public relations and other event planning services for the
Spy Museum event," Stauffer said in an e-mail reply to questions. "This included responding to
all individuals calling the Capital Athletic Foundation concerning the Spy Museum event,
identifying (and contacting) possible attendees for the event, and assisting in fund raising
strategy and letters."
Doolittle's office denied any connection between the firm's work and official acts.
"In no way did Sierra Dominion's business services work for Greenberg Traurig have any
relationship to Congressman Doolittle's official duties as a member of the House of
Representatives," said Doolittle spokeswoman Laura Blackmann.
"Congressman Doolittle has never received a subpoena regarding this matter, nor has he ever
been contacted by the Justice Department to provide information or be questioned," she said.
The Justice Department investigation is also looking into Abramoff's influence among executive
branch officials. Sources said prosecutors are continuing to seek information about Abramoff's
dealings with then-Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, including a job offer from the
lobbyist at a time when he was seeking department actions on behalf of his tribal clients.
The former top procurement official in the Bush administration, David H. Safavian, has already
been charged with lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff
investigation. Safavian, who traveled to Scotland with Ney on a golf outing arranged by
Abramoff, is accused of concealing from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do
business with the General Services Administration at the time of the golf trip. Safavian was then
GSA chief of staff.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Abramoff Pleads Guilty to 3 Counts
Lobbyist to Testify About Lawmakers In Corruption Probe
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; A01
Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist at the center of a wide-ranging public
corruption investigation, pleaded guilty yesterday to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to
bribe public officials in a deal that requires him to provide evidence about members of
Congress.
48
The plea deal could have enormous legal and political consequences for the lawmakers
on whom Abramoff lavished luxury trips, skybox fundraisers, campaign contributions,
jobs for their spouses, and meals at Signatures, the lobbyist's upscale restaurant.
In court papers, prosecutors refer to only one congressman: Rep. Robert W. Ney (ROhio). But Abramoff, who built a political alliance with House Republicans, including
former majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, has agreed to provide information and
testimony about half a dozen House and Senate members, officials familiar with the
inquiry said. He also is to provide evidence about congressional staffers, Interior
Department workers and other executive branch officials, and other lobbyists.
"The corruption scheme with Mr. Abramoff is very extensive," Alice S. Fisher, head of
the Justice Department's criminal division, said at a news conference with other highranking officials of the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI. "We're going to follow this
wherever it goes."
Fisher declined to identify the officials under scrutiny. "We name people in indictments,"
she said, adding: "We are moving very quickly."
Among the allegations in the court documents is that Abramoff arranged for payments
totaling $50,000 for the wife of an unnamed congressional staffer in return for the
staffer's help in killing an Internet gambling measure. The Washington Post has
previously reported that Tony Rudy, a former top aide to DeLay, worked with Abramoff
to kill such a bill in 2000 before going to work for Abramoff.
Abramoff's appearance in U.S. District Court came nearly two years after his lobbying
practices gained public notice because of the enormous payments -- eventually tallied at
$82 million -- that he and a public relations partner received from casino-rich Indian
tribes. Yesterday, he admitted defrauding four of those tribal clients out of millions of
dollars. He also pleaded guilty to evading taxes, to conspiring to bribe lawmakers, and to
conspiring to induce former Capitol Hill staffers to violate the one-year ban on lobbying
their former bosses.
Under terms of his plea agreement, Abramoff can expect to receive a jail sentence of 9
1/2 to 11 years, and he is required to make restitution of $26.7 million to the IRS and to
the Indian tribes he defrauded. Today he is to plead guilty to fraud and conspiracy counts
in a related case in Florida involving his purchase of a casino cruise line.
Standing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in Washington yesterday,
Abramoff looked sheepish and sad. "Your Honor, words will not be able to ever express
how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of
mistakes and harm I have caused," he said softly. "All of my remaining days, I will feel
tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done. I only hope that
I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to
suffer."
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Abramoff has been in extensive discussions with government lawyers for months leading
up to yesterday's plea.
Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee, is among the first of those
expected to feel the fallout. In the court documents -- which identify him only as
"Representative #1" -- Ney is accused of meeting with one of Abramoff's clients in
Russia in 2003 to "influence the process for obtaining a [U.S.] visa" for one of the client's
relatives and of agreeing to aid a California tribe represented by Abramoff on tax and
post office issues.
Ney also placed comments in the Congressional Record backing Abramoff's efforts to
gain control of the Florida gambling company, SunCruz Casinos, and offered legislative
language sought by Abramoff that would have reopened a Texas tribe's shuttered casino.
The court papers said Ney advanced the prospects of an Abramoff client, a
telecommunications company that won a contract to wire the House.
Two of Abramoff's former partners have already pleaded guilty and have promised to
cooperate in the ongoing investigation of congressional corruption and are prepared to
testify against Ney in connection with his aid in the SunCruz purchase. Prosecutors in
Florida and Washington are in discussions about where a case against Ney should be
brought, officials said.
Ney reiterated yesterday that he had done nothing wrong and said he was misled by
Abramoff.
One of Abramoff's former associates, Michael Scanlon, a onetime press aide to DeLay,
was a secret partner in Abramoff's Indian tribal scheme. Abramoff not only charged the
tribes lobbying fees but also urged them to hire Scanlon's public relations firm at hugely
inflated prices. Scanlon, in turn, kicked back half of the money to Abramoff, who was
thus able to conceal the funds from public disclosure and even from the lobbyist's law
firm.
They spread tribal money around and sought legislative favors in return. Abramoff and
Scanlon "offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials in exchange
for official acts and influence and agreements to provide official action and influence," a
statement of facts attached to the plea agreement said. "These things of value included,
but are not limited to, foreign and domestic travel, golf fees, frequent meals,
entertainment, election support for candidates for government office, employment for
relatives of officials and campaign contributions."
Among the things of interest to investigators are payments made by Abramoff and his
colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and actions taken by Rudy and other senior
Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg
Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.
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Another person under scrutiny, sources said, is DeLay, who is facing separate campaign
finance charges in his home state of Texas.
"Tom DeLay is not concerned that Mr. Abramoff is cooperating," said Richard Cullen,
his attorney. "He urges everyone involved to cooperate in the investigation and to tell the
truth." Cullen had no comment on allegations involving former DeLay aides Rudy and
Scanlon.
Among the trips under scrutiny is a golf excursion to Scotland that DeLay and aides took
with Abramoff in 2000 and a similar trip Ney took two years later.
DeLay has taken three overseas trips with Abramoff since 1997 -- to the Mariana Islands,
Russia and Scotland -- and received more than $70,000 from Abramoff, his associates
and tribal clients for his campaign committees.
Investigating DeLay, who is facing campaign finance charges in Texas, could take up to a
year and require the cooperation of other witnesses before issues surrounding the Texas
Republican are resolved, according to people familiar with the case.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other legislators
involved with Indian issues are among those being investigated, sources said.
A spokesman for Doolittle, whose wife received payments from Abramoff's lobbying
firm, has previously said there was no connection with her husband's work. Burns's office
has said his actions on behalf of Abramoff's tribal clients were in sync with his support
for improving the lot of Indian tribes.
Also of interest to prosecutors is former deputy interior secretary J. Steven Griles, who
held the job from 2001 to 2004. He has said he never tried to intercede on behalf of
Abramoff's clients, but e-mails released by a Senate committee show more than half a
dozen contacts Griles had with Abramoff or with a woman working as the lobbyist's gobetween.
Prosecutors are continuing to investigate two of DeLay's top former deputies, Rudy and
Edwin A. Buckham. Rudy is under investigation for assistance he allegedly provided
Abramoff's lobbying clients while he was working for DeLay. Payments from Abramoff
clients and associates to Liberty Consulting -- a political firm founded by Rudy's wife,
Lisa -- are also under review by the Justice Department. Rudy did not return calls seeking
comment yesterday.
Abramoff maintained a business relationship with Buckham, who runs the Alexander
Strategy Group with Rudy. Among the areas of interest to prosecutors is client business
directed to the Alexander Strategy Group when the firm was hiring the spouses of
members of Congress, including DeLay's wife, Christine.
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Christine DeLay was paid about $115,000 over three years while performing a special
project -- contacting members of Congress to find out their favorite charity, according to
her attorney.
Fisher, offering the Justice Department's first public comments on an inquiry that began
in spring 2004, said that the Abramoff case is "very active and ongoing." She said the
department is committed to making sure that people know "government is not for sale."
Probe into tax foe's ties to Abramoff sought
Group says Norquist 'laundered' funding in bid to block gaming
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | March 15, 2006
WASHINGTON -- A watchdog group yesterday asked the Internal Revenue Service to
investigate whether Grover Norquist, the antitax activist, broke laws in his dealings with lobbyist
Jack Abramoff and a former Christian Coalition chief, Ralph Reed.
The private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, based its complaint to
the IRS partly on an article The Boston Globe published last year.
The newspaper reported that Norquist collected at least $1.15 million from a Mississippi Indian
gaming tribe, represented by Abramoff, that wanted to block competition in Alabama.
Norquist then sent the funds to two antigambling groups in Alabama, which passed the money to
Reed, who led a fight against gambling in Alabama.
In its complaint, the group said Norquist had ''laundered" most of the money by disguising the
true source of the contributions to groups opposed to gambling.
The group alleged that Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, had received some funds as
a payment for the laundering, and, therefore, that the group had gone beyond its tax-exempt
status by operating as a commercial enterprise.
Norquist used Americans for Tax Reform, or a related foundation, ''to benefit a private party,
rather than the general public, by allowing the organizations to be used as a pass-through to
funnel money generated by Indian casino gambling to individuals or groups engaged in
antigambling efforts," the complaint says.
A spokesman for Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform did not return a call seeking comment.
An IRS spokesman said he could not comment on the complaint.
The money trail began with the Choctaw tribe of Mississippi, which operates a casino and
wanted to block competing operations in Alabama.
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The tribe gave at least $1.15 million to Norquist's group. Norquist, in turn, sent $850,000 to the
Alabama Christian Coalition and $300,0000 to Citizens Against Legalized Lottery.
Most of that money eventually was given by both groups to Reed, the former executive director
of the national Christian Coalition, to lead a political fight to block gambling in Alabama.
Reed, whose involvement in the matter has become a major issue in his campaign to become
lieutenant governor of Georgia, has said he should have informed the Alabama Christian
Coalition that ''the contributions came from the Choctaw."
Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to defrauding his tribal clients, also figures prominently in the
complaint. In an e-mail to Reed, released in June in connection with a Senate investigation,
Abramoff wrote, ''I need to give Grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit
lighter." Abramoff elaborated in an e-mail to himself, writing, ''Grover kept another $25k!" or
$25,000.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington cited those e-mail messages in alleging that
Norquist had received payment for transferring the funds, and thus had operated his organization
as a commercial enterprise, in violation of its tax-exempt status.
''The casinos made contributions to [Norquist's group], which then skimmed a fee off the top
before passing the money on to former Christian activist Ralph Reed and other antigambling
activists," the citizen's group said in a news release.
''In this way, Norquist, Reed, and Abramoff were able to disguise the fact that the money used to
fund antigambling activities was generated through Indian gambling."
Meanwhile, the group itself was the subject of a critical article yesterday in The Hill, a
Washington newspaper, which questioned its tax-exempt status and said the organization had a
record of filing complaints against Republicans.
A spokesman said the organization is nonpartisan.
Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com.
APPENDIX
1. EPA Ethics Advisory 96-04, re: Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. March 14,
1996
EPA ETHICS ADVISORY 96-04
SUBJECT: Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995
FROM: Scott C. Fulton, Principal Deputy General Counsel
Designated Agency Ethics Official (2311)
TO: Deputy Ethics Officials
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This Ethics Advisory summarizes the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, P.L. No. 104-65 (Dec.
19, 1995) ("the LDA") to the extent that its provisions affect confirmed Presidential appointees
and Schedule C employees ("covered executive branch officials") in EPA and those who make
"lobbying contacts" with them. Essentially, the LDA requires "lobbyists" to register with the
Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives no later than 45 days after
first making a "lobbying contact" with a "covered executive branch official." The resulting list of
all registered lobbyists and lobbying firms, along with their clients, will be available to the
public. Violators of the registration requirement are subject to a civil penalty of up to $50,000.
Duties of Persons Making "Lobbying Contacts"
Under LDA Section 14(a) and (b) the following requirements apply to anyone who makes a
"lobbying contact" with a "covered executive branch official":
(1) if the "covered executive branch official" so requests, an person or entity making an "oral
lobbying contact" must
(A) state whether the person or entity is registered and identify the client on whose behalf
the contact is made; and
(B) state whether the client is a "foreign entity" and identify any "foreign entity" having a
direct interest in the outcome of the lobbying activity; and
(2) in the case of a "written lobbying contact," anyone who makes a "lobbying contact" must
always
(A) if the client is a foreign entity, identify the client, and state whether the lobbyist is
registered on behalf of the client; and
(B) identify any other foreign entity that has a direct interest in the outcome of the
lobbying activity.
Duty of Confirmed Presidential Appointees and Schedule C Employees
Under LDA Section 14(c) each "covered executive branch official" (or "the office employing
that official") must
[u]pon request by a person or entity making a lobbying contact * * * indicate whether or
not the individual is * * * a covered executive branch official.
Who is "Covered"?
As relevant to EPA, LDA Section (3) defines the term "covered executive branch official" to
include confirmed Presidential appointees and any officer or employee serving in a position of a
confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character described in
section 7511(b)(2) of title 5, United States Code.
EPA employees described in 5 U.S.C. 7511(b)(2) include employees whose positions have "been
determined to be of a confidential, policy-making or policy-advocating character" by being
54
"excepted" from the "competitive service" by the President, the Office of Personnel Management
or, for positions "excepted" by statute, the President or the head of an agency. All Schedule C
employees are thus "covered," along with the Administrator, the Deputy Administrator, the
Assistant Administrators, and the Inspector General. SES employees (whether career or noncareer) are not "covered" because they are not "excepted service" employees.
***
2. Three-count Indictment of Jack A. Abramoff, dated January 3, 2006, to which he
plead guilty. http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/gov/abramoff.pdf (last viewed
March 20, 2006) (13 pages)
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