Alaska

Don Young is Like a "Rat Head in a Coke Bottle"

Kate Klonick | July 25, 2008, 4:47PM

We reported earlier that Rep. Don Young (R-AK) falsely claimed that he was named "Hero of the Taxpayer" by the non-partisan reform group, Taxpayers for Commonsense.

But Taxpayers for Commonsense denies even having such an award, yet alone awarding it to Young, a long-time target of the political watchdog.

As it turns out, Young was named "Hero of the Taxpayer", by the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform, founded and run by Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist.

But now even Norquist is throwing Young under the bus, issuing a press release late this afternoon slamming the Congressman and claiming he "betrays taxpayers."

"Republicans that vote for tax increases are like rat heads in Coke bottles,"Norquist said. "They ruin the Republican brand for all members. It should be readily apparent to a former 'Hero of the Taxpayer Award' recipient that you don't vote for tax hikes."

According to the press release, Young voted for H.R. 2642, the Blue Dog Tax Hike-- a move that makes him ineligible to receive ATR's "Hero of the Taxpayer Award" in 2008.

We called Young's campaign press contact for comment, Mike Anderson, who told us that the bill was a lot more complicated than it looked.

"If you vote for the bill you vote for veterans and Alaska has 75,000 veterans, but you're also colored as pro-increasing taxes, but if he voted against the bill, he's anti-raising taxes but anti-veteran," Anderson told TPMmuckraker. "Young said that he had to take care of the veterans. Veterans have always been very important."

Grover Norquist

Happy Ending

Paul Kiel | March 6, 2008, 5:19PM

What's a little plagiarism between movement conservatives?

Tim Goeglein has had a tough week, but he still has friends in the “right” places. The former White House aide in charge of religious and conservative outreach resigned late last week after admitting he plagiarized pieces he wrote for the News-Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Ind. Goeglein took passages from Pope John Paul II and Dartmouth professor Jeffery Hart, among others.

But Goeglein is still embraced by the conservative community. At the weekly meeting of center-right leaders at American for Tax Reform on Wednesday morning, he received three rounds of applause from the packed room, including one standing ovation, as he asked for their forgiveness.

Via Nancy Nall, Goeglein's least favorite blogger.

Grover Norquist

Senate Report Slams Norquist, Charities for Cheating

Justin Rood | October 12, 2006, 4:54PM

A long-awaited report by the Senate Finance Committee accuses Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and other Abramoff-linked non-profits with committing acts that are likely in violation of their tax-exempt status.

You can read the full report here. The document is 608 pages in total, but most of that is devoted to appendices and exhibits; the report itself is 55 pages long.

The report hits ATR for a number of activities unrelated to its nonprofit purpose. Like the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Report on Abramoff, the Senate Finance Committee criticized ATR for acting as a lobbying operation, advocating certain positions in exchange for donations from Abramoff clients.

The panel began investigating the use of charities by disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff in spring 2005. A bipartisan effort, the report was released today by the Democrats alone. Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) did not release a statement on the report, nor did he announce hearings. A Grassley staffer told the Washington Post that the senator endorsed the report but said he "did not co-author the report because he had hoped it would have included Democratic groups that he believes also breached their tax status."

The panel found that ATR set up meetings for Abramoff clients with administration officials, such as President Bush and Karl Rove, in exchange for hefty contributions.

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Jack Abramoff

Post Quotes Fox on Henhouse Security

Paul Kiel | July 11, 2006, 12:35PM

Here's a lesson in Beltway journalism, by way of an unwitting Washington Post: always check your source's background.

On Sunday, the Post ran an article on GOP power broker Grover Norquist, and how his influence is waning as a result of his ties to the Abramoff scandal. "Powerful GOP Activist Sees His Influence Slip Over Abramoff Dealings," the headline announced.

To balance the piece, the Post's Jonathan Weisman quoted Cesar Conda, a lobbyist who disagreed with the article's thesis:

"I don't think he's lost one iota of influence in conservative circles," said Cesar Conda, a Republican lobbyist and a former top aide to Vice President Cheney.

Great, but. . about that Conda fellow. Just the day before, Weisman's own paper reported that Conda himself had ties to Abramoff. Newly released Secret Service records showed that Conda was one of a handful of White House aides who had been scheduled to meet with Abramoff.

As the Post reported

Among those with whom Abramoff met in the spring of 2001 was Cesar Conda, then assistant to the vice president for domestic policy....

Conda, now a lobbyist, said in an interview that he invited Abramoff to a "casual social lunch" at the White House mess. "It was so long ago I don't remember anything about it," Conda said. "He was just a guy that I knew from the Hill. I invited folks from around town, K Street, think tanks, to chitchat."

Next up: the Post writes a piece on Conda's waning influence, featuring a quote from Norquist sticking up for the guy?

Grover Norquist

McCain Aides: Norquist Should Go "Pick on Some Fourth Graders"

Justin Rood | July 5, 2006, 9:42AM

The Norquist-McCain verbal slugfest continues. Norquist -- who feels his integrity was impugned by details of money-laundering schemes outlined in Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) recent report on Jack Abramoff -- has opined that McCain is "delusional" and a liar. (As we all know too well, 373 pages of painstakingly documented facts is what passes for delusional among certain D.C. circles.)

McCain's people have fired back. “The one thing I admire about Grover is how hard he works to make himself relevant. But he’s not relevant. He never has been and never will be," McCain strategist John Weaver told The Hill newspaper. "He should go pick on some fourth-graders.”

One McCain adviser told the paper rather matter-of-factly that there was no way to write the report and not include details of Grover's malfeasance, which was mostly laundering money from Abramoff's questionable sources to conservative outfits: McCain adviser: “Grover’s fingerprints where all over this stuff, " the adviser said. "You would have to work hard to keep him out of it."

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Grover Norquist

Norquist: A Blast from His Money Washing Past

Paul Kiel | June 27, 2006, 12:25PM

Some TPMm readers have written in to ask whether Grover Norquist limited his laundering activity to his buddies Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed. No, it turns out.

Norquist's group Americans for Tax Reform almost got in some serious trouble in 2002 for helping his Oregonian mini-me, Bill Sizemore of Oregon Taxpayers United.

Fearing political consequences, some of Sizemore's supporters wanted to keep their donations to his organization hush-hush. So they wrote checks to Norquist's ATR, who forwarded the money to Sizemore's group.

From The Oregonian, back in December of 2002:

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Grover Norquist

Norquist and McCain - The Feud Continues

Paul Kiel | June 27, 2006, 11:12AM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) used his report to clobber Grover Norquist, and Norquist rebutted by calling McCain a "liar" and "delusional."

Oh, but this wasn't the first time. This is namecalling with a history -- dating at least back to the 2000 election, when Norquist mounted an ugly effort to defeat McCain.

McCain suddenly found himself with the upper hand in 2004, so the story goes, when the Abramoff investigation landed in his lap at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, where he was chair. He had all sorts of damning emails at his disposal.

Back in March, Ryan Lizza wrote in The New Republic where things went from there...

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Grover Norquist

Norquist: McCain's a Liar, Delusional

Justin Rood | June 26, 2006, 5:57PM

Norquist found the time to talk with conservative news site Newsmax.com about the recently-released McCain Report, which highlighted numerous transactions between Jack Abramoff, Norquist's nonprofit, and various recipients, including organizations tied to former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed.

"When McCain claims this was something other than an annual contribution, he is lying," Norquist said of the report, which found that ATR frequently pocketed several thousand dollars off the top of the "pass-through" amounts Abramoff funneled through ATR to needy Republican causes:

"McCain has misused his chairmanship of the Indian Affairs committee for two years to attack me and Ralph Reed because he thinks we beat him in South Carolina," Norquist said, referring to McCain's primary battle for the presidency. "He has told people I personally spent $12 million to defeat him in South Carolina. He is delusional[.]"

Grover Norquist

Grover Explains It All

Paul Kiel | June 26, 2006, 2:00PM

Ouch. As we've noted many times here, GOP uber-operative Grover Norquist used his nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform to wash money for Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed. Reed didn't want it known, remember, that he's "kind of like hypocritical." The story is memorably told by Abramoff's emails and various players' testimony to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

But not so fast, says Grover. He can explain why large amounts of casino money flowed into his organization and then flowed out to Christian groups. He was going to work for the casino, but then decided not to.

The Choctaw tribe of Mississippi donated $1.225 million to ATR, which then paid $1.15 million out (there were $75,000 in "management fees"). Why? ATR had just been indecisive.

Norquist said in The Post interview that the Choctaw tribe originally wanted ATR to direct the anti-lottery campaign, but his organization decided that it would be better to assist Christian groups already fighting the lottery.

"When we looked at it, we said they have an actual ongoing effort, we don't need to run it and [could instead] just contribute there, which was a continuation of the previous coalition," Norquist said. "They said fine."

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Grover Norquist

More Bad News for Norquist

Justin Rood | June 24, 2006, 8:26PM

Courtesy of the AP's John Solomon:

Wanted: Face time with President Bush or top adviser Karl Rove. Suggested donation: $100,000. The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's tax-exempt group.

Come to think of it, this doesn't shine well for the administration, either. The selling of the White House, 2002?

Grover Norquist

Norquist Doings Not Criminal? Not So Fast

Paul Kiel | June 24, 2006, 2:26PM

It would appear that if there's a will, there's a way to prosecute Grover Norquist.

Yesterday, I noted former federal prosecutor Melanie Sloan's opinion that the Justice Department would not be pursuing Norquist on criminal charges for using his nonprofit, Americans for Tax Reform, as a money-washer and lobbying front. He's in real trouble with the IRS, she said, but it's not clear he committed a crime.

We at TPMm have some current and former federal prosecutors in our readership, who wrote in to disagree with Sloan's analysis.

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Grover Norquist

Grover Faces Ruin, But No Jail Time

Paul Kiel | June 23, 2006, 5:36PM

As I mentioned yesterday, Grover Norquist, the cold-blooded anti-tax bogeyman of the right, got hit hard yesterday in the McCain report.

It's now clear to anyone who's paid attention that Norquist used his non-profit, Americans for Tax Reform, as a money-washing business and lobbying firm. He took a "management fee" for laundering gaming money through to Ralph Reed. He has a long list of corporate donors that seek his help; and like any other lobbyist, his advocacy is for sale -- even to Democrats.

So what? Is there even a chance that he's going to jail?

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Jack Abramoff

Committee: Reed, Norquist Used as Pass-Throughs

Paul Kiel | June 22, 2006, 11:25AM

Here are some damning details about Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, courtesy of the newly-released McCain Report. It goes into great detail describing Ralph Reed's scheme to launder casino fees through non-profits.

Everybody who's been paying attention to the Abramoff scandal knows that when Ralph Reed, the boy-king of the Christian right, went to work for Jack Abramoff's Indian casino clients (his job was to roust grassroots Christians against competiting gambling platforms), he got skittish about accepting money from the tribes directly, since he's, you know, supposed to be anti-gambling. So he used non-profits, like Grover Norquist's American for Tax Reform, as pass-throughs to disguise the origin of the funds.

But it's refreshing to hear the Senate Indian Affairs Committee not mince words in their report. As part of their retelling of Abramoff's work for the Mississippi Choctaws, the report provides a damning blow-by-blow of how Reed came on this scheme, and how Norquist got started accepting a "management fee" (read: laundering fee) for his services.

The report is unequivocal. According to the Choctaw's planner, Nell Rogers, the tribe agreed to launder the money because "Ralph Reed did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests." And at one point, she told the committee, Norquist became "nervous" about laundering the money. (But apparently not too nervous, because he kept on doing it.)

The section on Reed and Norquist begins on page 23 of the 373-page report, but I've reproduced the juiciest excerpt below (with my emphasis). In the beginning, Abramoff paid Reed through his lobbying firm Preston Gates (Abramoff even once suggested that the Choctaw pay Reed directly). But at some point, Reed became uncomfortable with that arrangement.

The report goes on (what follows is all excerpted):

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Grover Norquist

Norquist Shills for Democrat

Paul Kiel | April 14, 2006, 5:42PM

I guess everyone has their price. For Grover Norquist, it was $4.3 million.

Two weeks ago, Grover Norquist's non-profit Americans for Tax Reform was exposed in The Boston Globe as a lobbying front - maybe you missed it. The piece had the misfortune to land on a busy news day (Tony Rudy pled guilty), but, man, is it good.

For years, journalists have been trying to get their hands on ATR's donor list, to no avail. But the Globe finally got it, and found, as many have suspected for quite awhile, that "contributors include an array of special interests ranging from tobacco companies to Indian tribes to a Las Vegas casino." ATR is a big-time lobbying firm posing as a nonprofit. But that's not even the good part.

The biggest contributor to ATR was Richard Scruggs, a Democratic lawyer from Mississippi. He put in $4.3 million. What was he after?

Scruggs' law firm had won a $1 billion fee for their work on a lawsuit that resulted in a $246 billion settlement against tobacco companies (some of whom were also ATR donors). He wanted to keep his money. But Republicans were making noises in Congress of passing legislation that would limit legal fees. So:

Scruggs decided that he needed to hire a prominent Republican antitax activist to fight what he viewed as a tax on legal fees. "'There is an expression, 'If you need a thief, take him from the gallows,' " Scruggs said.

And just so there was no ambiguity about what the money was for, here's what Scruggs wrote as a bookeeping note when he made the $4.3 million transfer:

Did Scruggs get his money's worth? The Globe tersely notes, "The effort to reduce legal fees never became law. It is unknown what, if anything, Norquist did to help Scruggs."

Hmm... one would imagine that there was at least some understanding between Norquist and Scruggs of what this money was for. Norquist is probably not too accustomed, after all, to being the recipient of a multimillion dollar donation from Democrats.

Says Scruggs: "I paid a lot of money.... I thought that was the way the game was played."

Grover Norquist

K Street Project (All Rights Reserved)

Paul Kiel | April 14, 2006, 12:40PM

Aha! Two days ago, there was a story in The Hill that Grover Norquist was seeking to trademark "K Street Project."

Well, you can see the application here. It turns out, despite all of Norquist's chest thumping about suing anyone who gets "the real phrasing" wrong, that it really pertains to the "K Street Project" icon - yes, that same icon we've posted here for you to see (since it's not yet trademarked, we can show it to you without fear of hearing from Norquist's lawyers).

Obviously Norquist was just blowing smoke when he said, "We will jealously guard the real phrasing the way Kleenex and Coca-Cola do. We will sue anyone who says it wrong and make lots of money." That doesn't seem likely to happen unless someone uses his icon while saying "it wrong." But you know, just to rib him, we'll be using this little bugger whenever we bring up the K Street Project - his application is likely to take upwards of 18 months to process, so we should get plenty of use out of it.

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Jack Abramoff

Interview with Nina Easton

Paul Kiel | April 6, 2006, 5:23PM

Nina Easton is the author of the seminal Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendacy, which told the story of five conservatives who played a major role shaping the modern conservative movement (they were the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, former Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN), Clint Bolick, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist). We talked with her last week about two of her gang, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, and their friend Jack Abramoff, who didn't make the cut.

TPMm: I wanted to start out talking about the work you did on the book. But most of all we at TPMmuckraker concentrate on Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. So I'd like to first ask you why you decided to pick the five you did for the book, and why Abramoff didn't make the cut.

NE: I chose the five for very specific reasons. The first was I wanted each of them to represent a different piece of the movement, so I chose Ralph Reed, for example, to represent the religious right, Grover Norquist as a tax activist, Bill Kristol as the neoconservative Straussian. Each one of them represents a different piece of the movement, and then they also had to be institution builders.

And this is why Jack Abramoff at the time, when I started the book in '96, he wasn't - he was a lobbyist, he wasn't a big movement-conservative-player at the time. So I chose movement-conservative-players who were institution builders, who looked like they would be on the scene for a long time. Like I said, he was a lobbyist.

TPMM: Do you think in retrospect he was more of an institution builder than he seemed like he was?

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Grover Norquist

Wired GOP Nonprofit Exposed as Lobbying Front

Justin Rood | March 31, 2006, 1:14PM

Americans for Tax Reform, the non-profit organization run by powerful GOP operative Grover Norquist, is little more than a front for lobbying operations, the Boston Globe reports today.

With the cover of a nonprofit enterprise, Norquist's "clients" become "donors," and ATR never needs to disclose who they are. Meanwhile, Norquist lobbies heavily on Capitol Hill for their interests, the Globe says, and no one's the wiser.

Until now -- the Globe's Michael Kranish got hold of ATR's donor lists. Fun stuff.

Remember, Norquist was a close associate of Jack Abramoff's. He laundered money for the disgraced lobbyist, set up front groups to fight battles for Abramoff's clients, arranged meetings between Abramoff's clients and the White House, and more. I have a feeling we may hear more.

Grover Norquist

Grover's Laundering Tax

Paul Kiel | March 15, 2006, 3:30PM

As I mentioned yesterday, the pressure's building on Grover Norquist, an even more significant player in the Republican machine than Jack Abramoff.

But I didn't go into detail on how he collected his fees for laundering money for Jack's tribal clients (why the laundering? Because Ralph Reed didn't want it to be known who he was working for). Norquist's non-profit, Americans for Tax Reform, made a pretty penny on the transactions - at least $60,000 that we know of.

There's one transaction that's particularly sketchy, and which Norquist has never adequately explained. In early 2000, Abramoff was trying to funnel money to Reed in order for him to start one of his anti-gambling jihads down in Alabama - the Mississippi Choctaw were footing the bill. The Choctaw's money went to Reed (through ATR) in three payments of $300,000. Of the first $300,000, Abramoff wrote Reed in an email, "I need to give Grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit lighter." ATR then wrote a check for $275,000 - so $25,000 was Grover's fee. But it seems Abramoff thought that fee would apply for the total of the money funneled through ATR, so when Grover took another $25,000 off the second payment of $300,000, Abramoff wrote to himself in an email, "Grover kept another $ 25K!" If Abramoff wasn't totally expecting Grover to keep this money, it's hard to believe that the Indians were.

When Time asked him about this last year, Norquist vaguely replied that he had permission: "He says a Choctaw representative--he can't remember who-- instructed him on two occasions to keep $ 25,000 of the money for his group."

If the CREW complaint results in an IRS investigation, and the Senate Finance Committee really starts asking questions in their investigation of Abramoff's shenanigans with non-profits, Norquist is going to have to sharpen up his answers. From the pieces out today, it appears that he's decided to hunker down and wait out the storm following the complaint. Usually talkative, he didn't respond to requests for comment, although ATR has promised an "official" reaction later. Can't wait.

Grover Norquist

Norquist: The Heat Is On

Justin Rood | March 14, 2006, 12:13PM

For quite awhile, Grover Norquist has stood blithely in the eye of the hurricane as his pals Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed have been swept up in bad publicity. Maybe that's changing. As we noted below, the Senate Finance Committee is ramping up their investigation of Abramoff's sham charities. They will no doubt be giving Grover's Americans for Tax Reform a hard look.

And today CREW filed a complaint with the IRS - pointing out that it's not exactly in ATR's mission statement to be a money-laundering operation for Jack Abramoff. Ask not for whom the bell tolls? Oh, but if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that Grover will NOT go easily.

For those eager for all the gruesome details, we have a rundown of Grover's shenanigans with Abramoff here.

Grover Norquist

Why Is McCain Sparing Abramoff Crony?

Justin Rood | March 13, 2006, 12:20PM

The New Republic has an interesting story on the feud between Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Grover Norquist, the Republican power broker and head of Americans for Tax Reform, who has extremely close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

McCain, who has spearheaded an investigation into Abramoff's misdeeds, appears to be letting Norquist off the hook, despite the fact that Norquist's fingerprints are all over Jack's dealings.

Norquist and McCain have hated each other for about a decade, since McCain started pushing for campaign finance reform, TNR's Ryan Lizza tells us. Norquist, whose livelihood depends on the sizeable GOP power base he maintains in part by directing donations to various candidates and organizations, doesn't take kindly to McCain trying to swipe his lunch money. Hence, feud.

When McCain, head of the Indian Affairs Committee, heard of Abramoff's misdeeds, he jumped at the chance to investigate them, knowing of Jack's ties to Norquist.

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