Return to Reference Section

Conrad Burns

Republican Conrad Burns was the junior Senator from Montana who lost his re-election bid in 2006 probably due to his connection with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Burns had been named by the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post as one of the main possible targets in the Jack Abramoff investigation. In January 2008 the Department of Justice announced that Burns was no longer under investigation.

While in the Senate, Burns had oversight over the budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior.

For more Burns coverage, see TPMmuckraker.

Key Points:

Burns went to bat for Abramoff's clients, who gave generously to Burns.

In 2004, Burns successfully pressed for a $3 million grant to Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, an Abramoff client. The cash came from a federal grant designed for impoverished tribal schools, despite the objections of officials in the Department of the Interior (each member of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe makes $70,000 annually from gambling profits). It required exempting the Saginaw Chippewas from standard requirements under which they would not have been eligible for the grant.

Burns' favorable action followed significant donations from Abramoff and his tribal clients, which composed 42% of soft-money contributions to Burns' PAC from 2000 to 2002. The AP has assessed his total Abramoff-linked contributions at $150,000.

Abramoff himself admitted "Every appropriation we wanted [from Burns' committee] we got. Our staffs were as close as they could be. They practically used Signatures as their cafeteria."

Burns changed his vote on a bill after a $5,000 contribution from Abramoff's client.

After at least eight meetings between Burns' office and Abramoff's lobbyists, Burns voted against abolishing the guest worker program which makes possible the Northern Marianas Islands' lucrative sweatshop garment industry, including the Tan company - Abramoff clients. Burns had voted in favor of abolition two years earlier.

A few weeks before his new vote, Burns received $5,000 from a Tan executive whose sister-in-law he had met with, along with the Islands' Governor Fitial (himself elected with Abramoff's help) a few weeks prior.

A Team Abramoff member went to work as an aide for Burns, then returned to work with Abramoff.

In 2002, Burns hired Abramoff lobbyist Shawn Vassel, who had worked for the Choctaws and Coushattas the previous year. In 2003, Vassel returned to work for Abramoff on tribal accounts.

Another Burns aide was feted by Abramoff and then worked for him.

In 2001 Abramoff coordinated a free Super Bowl trip for Burns' then Chief of Staff Will Brooke and one of Burns' appropriations aides, Ryan Thomas. Brooke and Thomas flew with Tony Rudy on a jet Abramoff had leased and stopped on a SunCruz gambling boat.

Brooke told the Billings Gazette that he first refused the trip because he thought it was illegal but then took it when he was told it was paid for by tribes rather than lobbyists. Brooke is now under investigation about the trip. In fall 2003, an Interior Appropriations conference report was adopted, which supported Abramoff clients' call for recognition as a tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs so that they could open a casino. Two months later, Brooke was hired by Abramoff.

Burns has spent $264,000 in campaign funds on legal fees since being named in the FBI investigation of Abramoff in November 2006.

According to his recently filed campaign disclosure report, Burns paid more than $160,000 in legal fees to the law firm Powell Goldstein between January and March of this year. That means Burns' campaign has doled out more than $264,000 since he hired attorney Ralph Caccia of that firm in April 2006.

Research by Josh Eidelson and Adrianne Jeffries

Return to Reference Section