Abramoff Tied GOPer Turns to Former Abramoff Associate for FundraisingOld habits die hard, I guess.
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) is under investigation for his ties to Jack Abramoff, who’s still causing plenty of trouble for Republicans, Feeney and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) most of all. A Scottish golf junket with Abramoff in 2003 is the source of Feeney’s problems. But even as Feeney tries to put Abramoff far behind him (“There’s no relationship”) with the help of a legal defense fund, he can’t help himself.
Abramoff’s old associate Todd Boulanger, The Orlando Sentinel reports, will be co-hosting a $500-a-person fundraiser for Feeney tonight. Boulanger, Abramoff enthusiasts might remember, was among Abramoff’s coterie of go-getting young lobbyists at the firm Greenberg Traurig. And Boulanger’s go-getting spirit was on full display in an email TPMmuckraker obtained last year, where he urged others in the office to pony up for Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), who was a fast friend to the firm’s clients (he’d “never said ‘no’”). In it, Boulanger allowed that Abramoff’s team had already delivered thousands in contributions for Cochran, but that wasn’t “good enough for the member who keeps the lights turned on here at Greenberg.”
The Sentinel notes that Boulanger, who now works at the lobby shop Cassidy & Associates, represents among other clients Freddie Mac; Feeney sits on the House Financial Services Committee. Boulanger gave Feeney $1,250 in contributions in 2005. Though a number of Boulanger’s former colleagues are either in prison or under investigation, Boulanger himself appears never to have been a focus of the investigation.