Influence pedaling masquerading as a "family values" charity.
This will be the lead story Saturday in WaPo:
WASHINGTON--The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.
During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners will not identify the money's origins.
online here
Ah Yes, Abramoff Family Values ...
Looks more like a money laundering scheme to me.
I had been wondering why Abramoff had been steering clients to donate to Congressmen's "favorite charities." Now it is quite clear what was going on.
More from WaPo:
The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy.
...
Records and interviews also illuminate the mixture of influence and illusion that surrounded the U.S. Family Network. Despite the group's avowed purpose, records show it did little to promote conservative ideas through grass-roots advocacy. The money it raised came from businesses with no demonstrated interest in the conservative ``moral fitness'' agenda that was the group's professed aim.
In addition to the million-dollar payment involving the London law firm, for example, half a million dollars was donated to the U.S. Family Network by the owners of textile companies in the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, according to the tax records.
The textile owners--with Abramoff's help--solicited and received DeLay's public commitment to block legislation that would boost their labor costs, according to Abramoff associates, one of the owners and a DeLay speech in 1997.
A quarter of a million dollars was donated over two years by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Abramoff's largest lobbying client, which counted DeLay as an ally in fighting legislation allowing the taxation of its gambling revenue.
The records, other documents and interviews call into question the very purpose of the U.S. Family Network, which functioned mostly by collecting funds from domestic and foreign businesses whose interests coincided with DeLay's activities while he was serving as House majority whip from 1995 to 2002, and as majority leader from 2002 until the end of September.
But the records show that the tiny U.S. Family Network, which never had more than one full-time staff member, spent comparatively little money on public advocacy or education projects. Although established as a nonprofit organization, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to Buckham and his lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group.
The scheme even involved a D.C. townhouse dubbed the "Safe House."
Some of the U.S. Family Network's revenue was used to pay for radio ads attacking vulnerable Democratic lawmakers in 1999; other funds were used to finance the cash purchase of a town house three blocks from DeLay's congressional office. DeLay's associates at the time called it ``the Safe House.''
DeLay made his own fund-raising telephone pitches from the townhouse's second-floor master suite every few weeks, according to two former associates. Other rooms in the town house were used by Alexander Strategy Group, Buckham's newly formed lobbying firm, and Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), DeLay's leadership committee.
In a separate WaPo story:
WASHINGTON -- Lawyers met with a federal judge Friday to discuss a wire fraud case against Jack Abramoff amid indications that a plea agreement could be reached next week in two federal probes of the once-powerful lobbyist.