Where does a muckraker go on his summer vacation?

I had a few days off last week, and decided to go to a place that should be almost a spiritual home to us rakers: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. That's the charming seaside town where a lifeguard and a waitress met each other, fell in love -- and appear to have triggered a chain of events that led to the biggest scandal to shake Capitol Hill in decades.

From the beginning: In 2002, Michael Scanlon was making millions as GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's "evil elf," as he has since been described. He had earlier left a job under Tom DeLay, where he was known as the former House majority leader's "dirty tricks guy."

Every summer from 2002 to 2005, he took a break from throwing elections, laundering cash and pulling other stunts for Abramoff to be his own man, working as a lifeguard in Rehoboth Beach -- for $11.35 an hour.

In 2002, Scanlon was engaged to Emily Miller, a press secretary for DeLay. But at Rehoboth's Big Fish Grill, another woman caught his eye: 24-year-old waitress Brandy McMahon.

Read more »

This looks like the real deal.

The House Government Reform Committee has been investigating the ties between Jack Abramoff and the White House since at least March. The Washington Post broke the news Saturday that Abramoff's lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig had been subpoenaed by the committee. Today Roll Call's John Bresnahan has much more (sub. req.), revealing that the investigation extends to Abramoff's earlier firm Preston Gates and also Alexander Strategy Group, the now-defunct lobby shop run by Ed Buckham, Tom DeLay's former chief of staff who was very close to Abramoff.

Very quietly, the committee, helmed by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), has been gathering these documents since early March. They're investigating in order “to understand the nature and extent of Jack Abramoff’s interactions with public officials in the executive branch, including the White House, and the legislative branch,” according to a letter from the Committee to Greenberg Traurig's attorney. No hearings have been scheduled yet.

Here's why I'm inclined to think that this is legit. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is the ranking member on the committee. All indications are that he's fully on board. In the past, he's never been shy about complaining publicly when he thinks an investigation is lacking.

Read more »

Ralph Reed barely finished his concession speech when press accounts began fingering Jack Abramoff for Reed's failure. Reed -- Jack's longtime political companion, who was running for Georgia Lieutenant Governor -- appears to be the first electoral casualty of the Abramoff scandal.

CQPolitics: "[I]t appears that the sweeping scandal involving convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff has claimed its first casualty at the polls this year. . . "

Wall Street Journal: "The Abramoff scandal appeared to claim its first electoral victim with the defeat of former lobbying ally and Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed in Georgia's Republican primary to pick a candidate for lieutenant governor."

AP: "Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed struggled to overcome his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in his bid Tuesday for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Georgia[.]"

What's this?

The House Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed the former law firm of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff for records of any contacts he or members of his lobbying team had with the Bush White House.

Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) authorized a subpoena weeks ago to Greenberg Traurig, according to several of the law firm's former clients who have been notified that it is turning over billing records, e-mails, phone logs and other material that reflects efforts to lobby the White House.

Representatives of four of Abramoff's former tribal clients said they have been notified by Greenberg Traurig that the firm is turning over records. In some cases, there were scores of phone calls or other contacts with the White House....

The subpoena -- read to The Washington Post by a former client who received a copy from Greenberg Traurig -- seeks all firm billing records "referring or relating to matters involving Jack Abramoff or any person working with Jack Abramoff," as well as all records reflecting any contacts those lobbyists had with the White House. The subpoena seeks records from Jan. 1, 1998, to the present, though Abramoff did not begin work at Greenberg Traurig until early 2001.

David Safavian, who was convicted for lying about his relationship with Jack Abramoff to ethics officials and Senate investigators, is appealing.

Ralph Reed's primary is only a week away and things are heating up.

In advance of its August publication date, GQ has released a big piece on Ralph Reed today, with one gem in particular: a plan hatched by Reed and Jack Abramoff which sounds suspiciously like "mortgaging old black people," as a former Reed associate told the magazine.

In July of 2003, Abramoff and Reed considered launching something called the Black Churches Insurance Program.

We know how this scheme would have gone, because Abramoff pitched something similar to a cash-strapped Texas tribe, the Tigua. Basically, since the tribe couldn't pay Abramoff, he offered to arrange "a life-insurance policy for every Tigua 75 or older." When those elders died, the death benefits would have gone to Abramoff through one of his non-profits. The Tigua didn't take Abramoff up on the offer, but it was too good of an idea to let go.

So Abramoff apparently thought black churches were a good target. This would have been the same thing, according to GQ's Sean Flynn, except that it was African-Americans. Or as "a former associate of Reed's" told GQ, "Yeah... it sounds like Jack approached Reed about mortgaging old black people.”

According to Abramoff's email exchange (under the subject line "Black Churches insurance program") with Reed in July of 2003 pitching the idea, it would have been huge:

Per our previous discussion, Abramoff wrote. Let me know how we can move forward to chat with folks who can set this up with African American elders. It can be huge. Thanks.

A file called “Charity Elder Program2.doc” was attached.

Three days later, Reed replied: Yes, it looks interesting. I assume you’ll set up a meeting in DC as a next step, or whatever we should do next, let me know.

Reed would have been the point man with the church leaders, one assumes, ushering them through the sticky process of getting all of their elders to sign up for life insurance policies payable to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.

Reed's flack's response to the story was as off-point as always:

Reed’s communications director, Lisa Baron, initially said, “Your sources are wrong,” but not how or in what way. A day later, she notably did not say those sources were wrong. Ralph receives unsolicited requests of a political or business nature all the time, she wrote in an e-mail. Our records show no meeting took place to discuss the proposed project. Ralph had no involvement whatsoever in marketing such policies to African-American churches.

It's still unclear whether Ralph Reed has anything to fear from Justice Department prosecutors, but he's not going to get away without at least one legal headache.

Jack Abramoff hired Reed to squash any competition to his casino owning tribal clients. Now one of those tribes wants to get even. So they're suing him, along with Abramoff and other members of his team, for "fraud and racketeering."

The basis of the tribe's suit against Reed seems mainly to be that he's a hypocrite. I'm not sure what chance they have of winning, but I do anticipate the prospect of Ralph Reed being forced to explain under oath that, even though he was being paid by a rival casino, the work was really motivated out of Christian virtue. That would be a fun cross-examination to watch.

From the AP:

The tribe, which says it has strong Christian values, alleges Reed's group called state legislators, sent targeted mailings to voters and ran radio ads against the bill without revealing their true origins, preventing the tribe from fighting back.

Reed's work made the opposition to the tribe's casino appear to be based on Christian concerns, not competitive concerns from its sister tribe, the Alabama-Coushatta said.

Had the public or tribe known the Louisiana Coushatta tribe was the main opponent, Christian groups would have been "less mobilized." Because the Texas and Louisiana tribes share family ties, Louisiana Coushatta members would have opposed the attack on their sister tribe, the Alabama-Coushatta said.

Yet another sign that the Abramoff investigation is progressing.

Tony Rudy pled guilty back in March to accepting bribes and helping Abramoff bribe lawmakers, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) chief among them.

Apparently he's being cooperative, because prosecutors have asked that no sentencing date be set for Rudy until October "in order to allow Mr. Rudy’s cooperation to continue uninterrupted."

As we've said before, Rudy's cooperation is particularly bad news for Ed Buckham, Tom DeLay's right-hand lobbyist. Rudy and Buckham, both former top aides to DeLay, worked closely together at the now-defunct lobby shop Alexander Strategy Group.

And if Buckham decided to plea out, things would get very, very interesting.

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?

Yesterday, the Secret Service unexpectedly disclosed records of more visits by Jack Abramoff to the White House (we're now to a total of seven). So what was he doing there?

The AP puts a couple of the pieces together:

One Abramoff White House visit, according to Secret Service logs, was on April 20, 2001, to see Cesar Conda, at the time Cheney's assistant for domestic policy.

Five days after the Conda meeting, one of Abramoff's former lobbying colleagues, Patrick Pizzella, was nominated by the president as assistant secretary of labor. The Secret Service logs do not state why Abramoff met with Conda.

One log entry indicates Abramoff visited the White House residence on Dec. 10, 2001, for two hours, as part of a large holiday party.

The Secret Service entry for Abramoff's name that day reads, "POTUS," "WH," "RESIDENCE," and lists the number of people present as 326, according to the documents. POTUS refers to the president of the United States.

OK, revise that -- Jack Abramoff visited the White House at least twice, but had at least six additional appointments there, according to Secret Service records.

This just out from Judicial Watch, the group that sued for the records of Jack Abramoff's visits. Back in May, the Secret Service responded to the suit (which was filed after the agency failed to respond to a FOIA) with records showing only two visits by Abramoff.

But now, after Judicial Watch continued to press their suit, the Secret Service has released more records showing appointments for Abramoff:

The first set of documents released to Judicial Watch on May 10 indicated that Abramoff only made two visits to the White House on March 6, 2001 and January 20, 2004. The new documents show an additional seven data entries concerning Abramoff appointments on the following dates: March 1, 2001; March 6, 2001; April 20, 2001; May 9, 2001; May 17, 2001; December 7, 2001; and December 10, 2001. According to the cover letter accompanying the documents, “The…data reflect appointments involving Jack Abramoff, but do not necessarily reflect actual visits to the White House Complex.”

Yet another addition to the Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff chronicles, this one from The National Journal's Peter Stone.

In this episode, the newly installed Bush administration was staffing the Department of Interior, and Jack really wanted to place his flunky high up. So he calls up Ralph, who's close to the White House...

On January 11, 2001, Abramoff e-mailed Reed. "I was thinking about this appointment" to the Office of Insular Affairs at Interior, Abramoff wrote. "I know it is perhaps a bizarre request, but considering how quickly I was named to the transition advisory team thanks to your request, perhaps it would be possible to ask Karl [Rove, the president's chief political adviser]... that they should appoint Mark Zachares to head the Office of Insular Affairs.... Do you think we could get this favor from Karl? It would be my big ask for sure."

Reed replied quickly: "It never hurts to ask. What's the next move?" Later that day, Reed sounded even more eager. "Just let me know who to call, when to call, and what to say. And while you're at it get me another client! NOW!"

On March 6, Abramoff met with Rove for about half an hour and pushed for Zachares, according to Abramoff's former lobbying colleagues at the firm Greenberg Traurig and to Secret Service logs released earlier this year. But Rove didn't come through, and Zachares didn't get the job.

N.B. In a statement, continuing his streak of bold denials, Reed denies ever getting Abramoff this meeting.

"John Ashcroft" is a name that doesn't come up very often in the Jack Abramoff mucky muck. But it should.

The former Attorney General and his staff had extraordinary ties to Abramoff and his team, as numerous emails and the recent report out from the Justice Department Inspector General make clear.

With Ashcroft, as with so many other power players, Abramoff gained access by hiring someone who already had it. It was former Ashcroft aide Kevin Ring, who joined his firm in 2000. Ring had been Ashcroft's counsel when he was a Senator on the Judiciary Committee.

After Ring left Ashcroft's office, the two stayed in close contact. An Abramoff email shows that the two played basketball together while Ring was with Abramoff (let the eagle soar!). And you can see Ring graciously inviting Ashcroft's staff to bask in the splendor of Abramoff's MCI Center skybox in this email obtained by TPM. In late September of 2001, Abramoff learned of a classified report on the Northern Marianas from Ashcroft's Chief of Staff, who was in Abramoff's box at the FedEx Field.

Read more »

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."

Read more »

One of our favorite aspects of the Jack Abramoff investigation is "the Wives Club," as investigators call them -- the klatsch of wives who picked up checks for their powerful lobbyist and lawmaker husbands so they never appeared to be holding the bag.

Julie Doolittle, whose husband Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) was a go-to lawmaker for Abramoff, was a member of the club.

Among other plum positions, Julie was on Abramoff's payroll for almost two years, netting $67,000. Ever since this was made public, the Doolittles and her lawyer have been telling everyone that she'd worked mainly on organizing a fundraiser for Abramoff's charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation (which was ultimately cancelled).

But as reported by Paul Kane in today's Roll Call (subs. req.), the bulk of Julie Doolittle's fees came after the fundraiser. And guess what? The timing of those payments just happen to coincide with John Doolittle (avowedly anti-gambling) providing a couple favors for Abramoff's tribal clients. It's the starkest evidence yet of a quid pro quo between Abramoff and Doolittle.

The more facts that come out, the more it looks like the Doolittles are going to have to fight felony charges. Former DeLay aide Tony Rudy has already pled guilty to accepting a bribe through one member of the Wives Club, his wife Lisa.

Below I've made a timeline of events so you can see how bad this looks. But let's take it step by step, because it's just amazing how brazen this was.

We'll start with the quid and then we'll roll to the quo.

Read more »

I have to admit that I was mighty suspicious when I heard the results of the Justice Department Inspector General's investigation into Frederick Black's demotion. Jack Abramoff had wanted the guy canned, the report concludes, but even though he tried to take credit for Black's demotion when it happened, he didn't actually have anything to do with it.

I spent yesterday afternoon making my way through the 41 page report (available as a pdf here). First, I have to say that the IG's findings on the narrow question of Abramoff's responsibilty for Black's demotion seem rock solid. It seems he really didn't have anything to do with it.

But there is a broader point that shouldn't be missed. The report makes clear that if Abramoff had needed to take out Black, he could have -- he had the access. It just so happened by a happy coincidence that Abramoff didn't have to go to the trouble.

In a subsequent post, I'll detail Abramoff's access to the higher-ups in the White House and at Justice. But first, in order to satisfy the curiosity and skepticism of TPMm readers, I wanted to lay out how it is that Black happened to be demoted right when Abramoff most wanted him gone. And the report makes some memorable addditions to the growing volume of Abramoff's candid email correspondence that shouldn't be missed (Abramoff's quotes are in bold below).

So let's dig in.

Read more »