Last Thursday, Senate's Indian Affairs Committee
released its final report,
"GIMME FIVE"-- INVESTIGATION OF TRIBAL LOBBYING MATTERS.
Initially it was left to TPMmuckraker to do the heaving lifting. That is starting to change as more people besides Paul Kiel have a chance to sift through the material.
Over at the Washington Post they have been treating the document dump like the candy store it is. They started by quickly pointing out that Bob Ney LIED to the Committee. And this evening they released a long story on how Jack, Ralph, Grover and the gang used their nonprofits and charities to launder money, break US laws and build a GOP culture of Corruption.
And even the AP is cleaning off their Rove-colored glasses to dig in the dump.
To the jump...
As I mentioned the other day, the
Massive Abramoff document dump = BIG GOP Trouble.
That was quickly clear to anybody who even skimmed the report. That meant there was a need to downplay the event.
John McCain jumped in to help by releasing the report at the moment when the two Democratic Iraq War resolutions were being voted on in the Senate.
That helped to move the story off the front page.
And the AP was happy to help. Their first story over the wire celebrated McCain's cowardice as a virtue and the headline declared: Panel: Laws Sufficient in Lobbyist Probe.
But then more people besides Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker starting reading the report.
One close reader was Sue Schmidt of the Washington Post. Her first story in response to the document dump let every news organization know there was gold in the report and the more than 1,000 pages of newly released documents. Compare her headline to the AP: Senators' Report On Abramoff Case Disputes Rep. Ney.
The article pointed out that Representative #1 LIED to the Indian Affairs Committee:
In the fall of 2004, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) told Senate investigators that he was unfamiliar with a Texas Indian tribe represented by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Days later, evidence emerged that the congressman had held numerous discussions with Abramoff and the Indians about getting Congress to reopen their shuttered casino. [snip]
Ney's comments to the panel could add to his problems with the Justice Department.
In the aftermath of Schmidt's reporting, the AP changed their wire story. Now if you look for Mark Sherman's AP story from last Thursday it has a new headline, Report: Ney Denied Aiding Abramoff Clients and the various scandal elements are not buried in the story.
Media competition is a good thing. And this would be a good time for me to tip my hat to the Washington Post on this scandal. Sue Schmidt, Jeffrey Smith, James Grimaldi and many others at the Post have led the way on this story for a long time. While not everybody would agree with me, I think they are all excellent reporters and those of us who seek justice and the truth owe them some respect. Their work is forcing organizations like the AP to do their job and cover the Republican aspect of this scandal.
Tonight Schmidt and Grimaldi turn up the heat. Their new story, Nonprofit Groups Funneled Money For Abramoff details how the Abramoff/GOP bagman money laundering operation worked. It is damning stuff and well worth a read. Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Ed Buckham, Amy Ridenour and others are shown to be involved in the very complicated criminal enterprise (emphasis added):
Newly released documents in the Jack Abramoff investigation shed light on how the lobbyist secretly routed his clients' funds through tax-exempt organizations with the acquiescence of those in charge, including prominent conservative activist Grover Norquist.
The federal probe has brought a string of bribery-related charges and plea deals. The possible misuse of tax-exempt groups is also receiving investigators' attention, sources familiar with the matter said.
Among the organizations used by Abramoff was Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. [snip]
A second group Norquist was involved with, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, received about $500,000 in Abramoff client funds; the council's president has told Senate investigators that Abramoff often asked her to lobby a senior Interior Department official on his behalf. The committee report said the Justice Department should further investigate the organization's dealings with the department and its former deputy secretary, J. Steven Griles. [snip]
The Senate committee report also details Abramoff's dealings with two others from the College Republicans crowd: Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition executive director; and Amy Moritz Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which sponsored a golf trip in 2000 to Scotland for then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). [snip]
E-mails show that Abramoff also moved client money through a conservative Jewish foundation called Toward Tradition, run by longtime Abramoff friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin. In January 2000, when Reed sent Abramoff an $867,000 invoice to be billed to a Choctaw official, Abramoff responded: "Ok, thanks. Please get me the groups we are using, since I want to give this to her all at once." Reed responded: "Amy, Grover, Lapin and one other I will get you."
The article goes on to add new details about the growing scandal and where the investigation may be headed.
So, off course it mentions the rogue US Territory of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI):
As far back as 1996, Abramoff was using Ridenour's National Center for Public Policy Research to hide the source of funding for trips and other ventures intended to boost the interests of his lobbying clients, e-mails show. [snip]
Abramoff used the center to hide his sponsorship of an all-expenses-paid trip in 2000 for three congressional staffers to the Northern Mariana Islands that now figures in the investigation. The trip is listed as an illicit activity in the plea agreements of Abramoff and three associates.
The congressional staffers on the Marianas trip worked on the campaign of a Marianas politician who pushed through a $100,000-a-month government lobbying contract for Abramoff.
Abramoff e-mailed instructions to his assistant, Susan Ralston, and others to conceal the true source of funding for the "very important" trip. "The tickets should not in any way say my name or our firm's name," Abramoff wrote. "They should, if possible, say 'National Center for Public Policy Research.' We should pay using my Visa."
Ridenour readily agreed to help, e-mails show. A Marianas client wired about $25,000 to the center's bank account.
The line I bolded refers to the election of Ben Fitial as Speaker of the CNMI House. As I mentioned in a recent Diary, Ney's Aide Cops Plea = BIG trouble for the GOP, the DOJ investigation is focusing on the bribes paid to CNMI Legislators from Rota and Tinian in exchange for their support of DeLay's candidate for Speaker of the CNMI House. That is how Scanlon, Volz, Rudy and others "worked" on Fitial campaign.
In a January 2001 Abramoff sent a pitch letter to the Governor of CNMI, Pedro P. Tenorio to the case why CNMI should rehire him and Greenberg Traurig as their lobbyist for the coming Bush era. In the letter Jack brags about the payoff to the two vote switchers from Rota and Tinian:
Working on behalf of the Western Pacific Economic Council, our team not only stopped all anti-CNMI legislation from being enacted, we helped to secure $1.4 million in extra CNMI appropriations for infrastructure improvements in Tinian and Rota.
The Western Pacific Economic Council was controlled by the Tan Family. They are the Hong Kong base family behind the sweatshops on Saipan and many other bits of business across the Pacific. They would be the "Marianas client" who wired Ridenour the $25,000. Some of their money seems to make its way into every aspect of the Abramoff scandal.
They are long-time GOP patrons and the conduit of Chinese money into US politics. While gambling money might be embarrassing for the moralists of the GOP, Bill Bennett has shown that core wing-nuts will forgive that link. Human trafficking, forced prostitution, forced abortion and Chinese money might be harder to dodge. So it is a not surprising that Abramoff went to extraordinary lengths to hide the involvement of the GOP's Hong Kong patrons.
Now the Washington Post is not the only news organization who has been busy reading Thursday's massive Abramoff document dump. The NY Times has weighed in, as have quite a number of other news organizations.
And most are now focusing on the scandal. As I said, competition in journalism is a good thing. In fact, the Associated Press has shifted a bit off their ass as the competition heats up.
As mcjoan notes on the Front Page, the AP is reporting on the Abramoff payoff's to Norquist for meetings at the White House. And since the Schmidt story about Ney, the AP has stopped downplaying the scandal news in the report.
But I know for a fact that they are still protecting the GOP with their reporting. They have documents that other news organizations do not have and they are sitting on them.
In 2001, the CNMI Office of Public Auditor (OPA) conducted an audit of all the lobbying expenses that the CNMI government paid for between 1994 and the end of 2001. Most of the $9.5 million went to Abramoff.
Since at least April 2005, the AP has had copies of the billing records (invoices, emails and more) that the OPA used to create the audit. They have referenced these documents in some of their reports, but they have not used them to connect Abramoff to the GOP Congress and Conservative movement.
And yet those details are on almost every page.
I've seen the documents. I know that they are sitting on stories that would link dozens of members of Congress to the Abramoff scandal.
Here is a a sample of the type of information in the CNMI invoices (Feel free to post the image if you know how).
It is from late December 1996 while Abramoff, Brian Bilbray, Dana Rorhabacher and John Duncan visited the islands with Jack Abramoff.
As long as the GOP can keep the focus of the Abramoff Scandal away from CNMI, the AP can continue to ignore the news value of the documents they have (just like they did in their initial reporting on Thursday's Abramoff document dump).
That is why we need to move the scandal focus to CNMI and the human trafficking, forced prostitution, forced abortions and labor abuse that the GOP used to fund their rise to power over the last twelve years.
One great way to help drive that focus is to support H.R. 5550, the Human Dignity Act.
The Bill would extend US labor, immigration and custom laws to the rogue US Territory: the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI). This is the legislation Abramoff, DeLay and the GOP have blocked for more than a decade. Justice is long overdue.
So far there ONLY 24 Members of Congress joining with George Miller as Co-Sponsors of this Bill, they are:
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28 (D)] - 6/19/2006
Rep Capps, Lois [CA-23 (D)] - 6/14/2006
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7 (D)] - 6/13/2006
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10 (D)] - 6/19/2006
Rep DeLauro, Rosa L. [CT-3 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Gonzalez, Charles A. [TX-20 (D)] - 6/13/2006
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Harman, Jane [CA-36 (D)] - 6/13/2006
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22 (D)] - 6/14/2006
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15 (D)] - 6/22/2006
Rep Lantos, Tom [CA-12 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Matsui, Doris O. [CA-5 (D)] - 6/14/2006
Rep McCarthy, Carolyn [NY-4 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4 (D)] - 6/22/2006
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Pascrell, Bill, Jr. [NJ-8 (D)] - 6/13/2006
Rep Pelosi, Nancy [CA-8 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9 (D)] - 6/22/2006
Rep Solis, Hilda L. [CA-32 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Spratt, John M., Jr. [SC-5 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13 (D)] - 6/13/2006
Rep Udall, Mark [CO-2 (D)] - 6/7/2006
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6 (D)] - 6/13/2006
The above list includes the date they signed on as co-sponsors. Three signed on this last week.
They are all Democrats.
EVERY Democrat should be a sponsor. We need to get on the phone, send out emails, letters and demand that every Democrat becomes a co-sponsor. And we need to apply the pressure to every member of the GOP caucus.
This should be a National campaign issue. The Republican Party has some explaining to do. They put the interests of their Hong Kong patrons ahead of justice and America.
They used their offices and positions to protect abuse and promote injustice. They put the Government of the United States of America in the business of supporting sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion. And they did it for money and power.
We need to talk about this. You can help.
We need to make this an issue for every House race in 2006. The more we talk about it the less likely it is that the Bush political appointees will be able to sweep the Abramoff/DeLay abuse investigation under the rug (once again).
Every member of the GOP Caucus who worked to block legislation extending US labor, immigration and custom laws to CNMI should be put on the defensive. The crimes were real and the evidence has been presented to Congress since before 1994. And the abuse continues to this very day. It is time to hold these folks accountable: both as co-conspirators and at the ballot box.
2006 is now.
Let's do this.