June, 2004:

According to The Nation, the burgeoning scandal/investigation into the activities of DeLay cohorts Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon is about to reach out and touch former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed.

In early 2002 the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana was desperately trying to kill a planned competing casino that the rival Jena Band wanted to build in southwestern Louisiana. This new casino would have broken the Coushattas’ geographical monopoly and cost the tribe–whose casino was grossing $300 million a year– an estimated $1 billion in gambling revenue over five years. The Jena Band had hired former GOP national chairman Haley Barbour to make sure its casino compact was approved by the heavily politicized Bureau of Indian Affairs. So the Coushatta tribe, which already was in the process of paying Abramoff and Scanlon some $32 million over three years, also hired Reed, according to three witnesses and documents obtained by The Nation. This was not a crime, just furtive hypocrisy.

Two casino industry lobbyists–Philip Thompson and Bill Grimes–say they were in a meeting in Baton Rouge early in 2002 and heard William Worfel, vice chair of the Coushatta tribe, say he was hiring Reed to lobby for the tribe with the BIA to neutralize the influence Barbour had with the Bush Administration. According to Thompson, Worfel, who also did not return phone calls, “said he was putting Reed on his payroll. He said, ‘If they have Barbour, we need Reed.'” A third casino lobbyist at the meeting, who requested anonymity, says Reed helped “mobilize Christian radio and ministers against the casino.” But, he says, “He wanted to be able to deny it. Or if it came out, he wanted to be able to claim he was against the Jena casino, without anybody knowing he was getting paid by a bigger tribe with a bigger gambling operation.”

The documents obtained by The Nation show that Reed sent bills to Abramoff and Scanlon and that one of his consulting companies, Century Strategies of Duluth, Georgia, received $250,000 from one of Scanlon’s companies, Capitol Campaign Strategies. An invoice to Abramoff from another Reed company, Capitol Media, for $100,000, states only that the payment is for “Louisiana Project Mgmt. Fee.” (The main thrust of the Justice Department investigation involves money laundering among Scanlon, Abramoff and Republican campaigns. Abramoff was fired by his firm for not disclosing $10 million in payments from Scanlon.)

Liberal Oasis linked to this yesterday. You can find some more background on the Abramoff/Scanlon story here, here, here, and here.

And speaking of Abramoff and the Senate investigation, the next stop may be Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Court officials have heard through “unofficial channels” that a Senate investigative committee may visit the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam to investigate lobbying activities.

“The court has not received any visits or any inquiries yet thus far from any Senate staff or any Senate officials,” said Dan Tydingco, the Judiciary of Guam director of policy, planning and community relations. “But we have heard from unofficial channels that there was to be a Senate investigative committee coming out to Guam and (CNMI) to investigate the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff.”

Tydingco, who was the former Supreme Court executive officer, said Abramoff did not do lobbying work for the Supreme Court and would not comment on what type of work he did for the Superior Court of Guam. Tydingco did not know when the committee will come to Guam.

A Senate committee is investigating millions of dollars in fees paid to powerful Republican lobbyist Abramoff and public relations executive Michael Scanlon, according to a May 18 Washington Post article.

Scanlon, a former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and Abramoff, a top Republican lobbyist and adviser to DeLay, are both under investigation by the Senate Commerce Committee. The panel, under the direction of Sen. John McCain, is seeking to determine the legality of $45 million paid by Indian tribes to the pair for lobbying and public affairs work, the Washington Post reported.

Tydingco could not say what the connection was between Abramoff and former Superior Court lobbyist Howard Hills.

Former Superior Court Administrator Tony Sanchez has said the court hired Hills, an off-island attorney, in 2002 to do work for the court, including lobbying against a proposed federal legislation that would make the Supreme Court of Guam the head of Guam’s judicial branch of government. The Superior Court paid Hills about $500,000 for his work, according to Pacific Daily News files.

I don’t know about you, but those places sound to me like they’d be pretty good for stashing money that you’d rather not have to explain. Thanks as always to AJ Garcia for the tip.

This op-ed by Ed Shack, an “attorney specializing in First Amendment law and state and national election and campaign laws and regulations” makes the case that no one really knows how to follow campaign finance laws because it’s all so complicated. He does a pretty good job of it, too, which makes the omission from his byline that he represents the Texas Association of Business, one of the main targets of Travis County DA Ronnie Earle’s investigation into misuse of corporate campaign donations, that much more glaring. Whether through indifference or incompetence, the Chron’s editorial page has a very blemished history of printing op-eds by people who aren’t the disinterested observers their bylines claim them to be. See “Rushing, David” for an earlier and equally egregious example.

The Chron also printed Rep. John Carter’s fact-free attack piece on Rep. Chris Bell on page one of the Outlook section. For whatever the reason, it doesn’t appear to be online, so you’ll have to take my word for it or buy a copy of the dead-tree version yourself. If you’d like to give the Chron some feedback about printing ad hominems, send an email to [email protected].

On a side note, this unsigned editorial from yesterday asked why Bell’s complaint merely mentioned Tom DeLay’s Bacardi fixation as a footnote. Good question, though a better question might be “why hasn’t the Chron done any real reporting on the DeLay/Bacardi connection?”

According to this Statesman article, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle is saying that the corporations that financed the 2002 GOP takeover of the state Legislature is facing greater scrutiny than Tom DeLay himself.

The shift in emphasis is just the latest twist over the past 20 months as prosecutors wrestle with mounds of evidence and a long list of witnesses in the biggest political investigation of District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s 27-year career.

On Friday, the direction of the massive investigation, with repercussions from the Legislature to the halls of Congress, became clearer as Earle updated its progress and defense lawyers weighed in with their speculation.

In a 90-minute interview, Earle acknowledged he would have retired this year if not for the investigation, which he said he is determined to pursue to the end.

Lawyers for DeLay said Friday that prosecutors have told them their client is not a specific target of the investigation, a claim Earle didn’t fully dispute, though he added, “It’s too early to pass out get-out-of-jail-free cards.”

Earle said portions of the investigation could be completed later this summer, but some complaints might take longer.

Over the 20 months, Earle hasn’t cooled his populist message about the significance of the investigation: “Democracy can’t depend on who owns the microphone, and that’s the issue here: unbridled wealth controlling the electoral process.”

Earle said the investigation has expanded to include at least five political organizations, many individuals and the corporations that financed them.

“This isn’t about Tom DeLay,” Earle said of the investigation’s breadth. “It’s about corporate greed. They can always find another Tom DeLay.”

[…]

The allegation behind the expansive grand jury investigation is whether Republicans and their business allies violated state laws that prohibit corporate money being spent on campaign activity.

The focus is on Texans for a Republican Majority; Texas Association of Business; Law Enforcement Alliance of America; Americans for Job Security; and the Lone Star Fund, a Democratic committee added recently when Republicans filed a complaint.

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, and his Democratic predecessor, Pete Laney, are subplots to the overall investigation. Prosecutors are checking whether Craddick violated any laws when Texans for a Republican Majority turned over $152,000 to Craddick’s office to be distributed to his supporters in the Legislature. Craddick has claimed he didn’t do anything that Laney and the Democrats haven’t done in the past — a charge Laney denied.

The newest wrinkle, however, is prosecutors’ interest in the corporations that gave the money.

Sources close to the investigation say legal liability for corporations varies from case to case because of different laws and the defenses that corporations can offer.

For example, corporations that gave $1.9 million for ads by the Association of Business can argue that they gave the money with assurances from the association’s lawyers that the donations were legal. Corporations that gave the $600,000 to Texans for a Republican Majority might not have the same defense, the sources said.

Indicting corporations also has a political benefit.

“Earle versus Enron — Ronnie likes the sound of that,” one source said, using Enron generically though it did not donate in this case.

On Friday, Earle insisted that no one — individual or corporation — is in the clear yet.

“Anybody who committed a crime is a target,” Earle said. “The only pressure I feel is not to stop until we get to all of the truth.”

Very interesting. It’s a long article, so read it all. I don’t know if this will undermine Chris Bell’s ethics complaint against DeLay – he’s alleging that DeLay broke House rules, not Texas law, after all – but it looks like it might be a little ammo for DeLay’s defenders, if they ever feel like ceasing with the slime attacks for a minute.

And to an extent, I agree with what Earle is saying. The picture is bigger than Tom DeLay, and there will always be someone like him looking to exploit any weakness in the rules for their purposes. If the process he set in motion gets shut down but he gets away, I’ll still take that.

May as well get used to this sort of thing now that Chris Bell has taken his stand against Tom DeLay. You will note that nowhere in this piece does Rep. John Carter offer any kind of rebuttal to any of Bell’s charges. Not a single word given in evidence to support the position that the actions which Bell claims violate House rules do not in fact do any such thing. Nothing but slime and more slime, much of which as Greg notes is inaccurate, misleading, or downright dishonest. If this is the best DeLay’s defenders can do, then he really is in deep doo-doo, as someone once said.

By the way, if you want to let the Statesman know what you think of Carter’s little hatchet job, you can do so here.