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[.]"

Don't think we've forgotten, TPMm readers. It's Ralph's big day down in Georgia, as voters line up for what many see as a referendum on the Jack Abramoff scandal (here's our brief for how he ties in). Reed is running to be the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor.

Check in here for election returns this evening - all signs are that it will be a squeaker.

The Indians made me do it.

On the eve of a tense primary election, that's Ralph Reed's defense against corruption accusations that threaten to capsize his candidacy for Georgia lieutenant governor.

Reed is suffering some punishing body blows from his opponent for his schemes to use money from Indian casinos to pay for Christian anti-gambling efforts -- by funneling the cash through shell companies to disguise its true source.

The charges have been around for months, of course -- accompanied by ample evidence that Reed played a key role in concocting the schemes and putting them into practice. To date he has dodged the allegations by first claiming ignorance of the clients, and then woodenly chiming that "Had I known then what I know now, I would not have undertaken the work."

But yesterday, he changed his tune -- and blamed the Indians. During a debate with his primary opponent Saturday, Reed claimed:

I would have been happy if they [Abramoff's tribal clients] paid me directly. They were the ones who made the decision that I would be paid through nonprofits.

Quick reality check: It has been long-established that Abramoff's casino-owning tribal clients hired Reed to whip up religious anti-gambling fervor and use it to squash any neighboring competition. In order to obscure the fact that Abramoff's casino money was funding Reed's anti-gambling campaigns, the money was funneled through various entities (shell companies and non-profits) before making its way to Reed. Read all the nitty-gritty here.

McCain's Senate investigation found that the funneling had been Reed's idea, because that is what the tribal representatives told investigators.

Read more »

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.

Over in Ohio, I see that Zach Space's campaign has released a poll showing him leading Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) 46-35.

And down in Georgia, Ralph Reed is locked in a dead heat to win the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor - with only one week to go until the primary.

Will the muck stick? Stay tuned....

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.