Well, the reporters at the
Washington Post have done it again.
Susan Schmidt has a NEW scoop in the growing Abramoff scandal:
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.
This is very bad news for the GOP. There are hundreds of shoes waiting to drop.
In May 2005, the AP reported more than 200 contacts between Team Abramoff and the White House over just ten months in 2001 and those contacts concerned just one Abramoff client: the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI).
A real Congressional investigation is long overdue. I have some doubts, but at least this is a start. And the 2006 election seems to be inspiring Chairman Davis to action.
More on the jump...
Tom Davis, the Chairman of the
House Government Reform Committee, has connections with Jack Abramoff. As Jack was pleading Guilty, Davis decided to
give away some of his Abramoff tainted funds:
U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-11) will donate to charity any campaign contributions he received from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to fraud, public corruption and tax evasion.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Davis received at least $4,500 from Abramoff and firms connected with his alleged conspiracy to defraud American Indian tribes. [snip]
Andy Hurst, a Springfield attorney who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Davis in November, criticized Davis for waiting five years to return the Abramoff contribution.
"The damage has been done here," Hurst said in a statement. "Votes and legislative action by the Republican majority were influenced by all of the funds paid or solicited by Jack Abramoff, and the money was spent to elect people to office. Giving contributions to charity years after the fact is insufficient to alleviate the Republican culture of corruption. After more than a decade in Washington, Tom Davis is an integral part of that culture."
Andy Hurst won the Democratic primary and he will face Davis in November.
This should be a "safe" GOP seat, but it could also be a potential upset. The district has been trending Democratic in the last two VA Governor races and the Senate race should bring out more surprises for the GOP come November.
By leading an investigation into the connections between Team Abramoff and Bush's White House Davis may hope to encourage ticket splitting among VA-11th District voters who supported Gov. Tim Kaine (D) by 13 points in last year's election.
And that investigation will reveal hundreds, if not thousands of contacts between Abramoff, his team of lobbyists and the Bush Administration.
Jack had plenty of disclosed clients and he worked for many undisclosed clients in the shadows of the GOP's Culture of Corruption.
His power was rooted in his tight connections to the GOP House Leadership, the Bush White House and RW operatives like Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist.
Last year the AP reported on how Abramoff worked those connections for just one of his clients:
In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.
The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records. [snip]
In addition, two of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues on the Marianas won political appointments inside federal agencies.
The documents show his team also had extensive access to Bush administration officials, meeting with Cheney policy advisers Ron Christie and Stephen Ruhlen, Ashcroft at the Justice Department, White House intergovernmental affairs chief Ruben Barrales, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles and others.
Most of the contacts were handled by Abramoff's subordinates, who then reported back to him on the meetings. Abramoff met several times personally with top Interior officials, whose Office of Insular Affairs oversees the Mariana Islands and other U.S. territories.
In all, the records show at least 195 contacts between Abramoff's Marianas lobbying team and the Bush administration from February through November 2001.
Now I have copies of the billing records from the CNMI that the AP used as their source material for the article. I think there may be more contacts than the AP cited (I'm sure they missed a few), but they've also left out that admitted felon Tony Rudy was Team Abramoff's go-to-guy for contacts with the new Bush administration. Rudy is meeting with the White House almost every week. And when he's not meeting with the White House Tony is hanging out with the GOP House Leadership.
And all this activity is just for one of Abramoff's many, many clients.
And all of those clients would have invoices from Abramoff as detailed as the ones he sent the CNMI government.
McCain's Indian Affairs Committee kept these invoices under wraps. Perhaps more will come to the surface through this House Government Reform Committee investigation or by law suit filed by the Texas Tribe Abramoff, Reed and their pals ripped off.
The Washington Post foreshadowed an expanding inquiry:
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. It is not known whether any of those contacts resulted in improper aid to Abramoff. Several tribal representatives said they believe many contacts were with staff members at the White House office of intergovernmental affairs.
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.
This is another front in the growing scandal. And the ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee is Henry Waxman, who has a great record of getting facts out of the Bush kleptocracy.
And when we take back the House in November, Waxman will be the Chairman. And then we will have an accountability moment.
But in the meantime we have to rely on nervous Republicans like Tom Davis, who are looking for ways to distance themselves for the Bush White and the Culture of Corruption his party brought to Washington.
This should get interesting.
The race is on as to whom will be the next GOP operative, staffer, or Congressman to fall because of their Abramoff connections.
Next up is Ralph Reed.
The Georgia primary is Tuesday and Ralph's Abramoff connection is weighing him down. Recent polls have him falling behind his GOP rival.
This race is testing how well GOP support for human trafficking and sexual abuse on CNMI as a wedge issue to beat Republicans over the head with this Fall.
Campaign Money Watch is working this wedge issue the final days of the GA primary. Part of that effort is to take the message of Ralph's work to protect sexual abuse to television.
This is where we can really help. Click here to donate. It is time to stop Ralph Reed in his tracks.
I know that there are some who feel that Democrats in Georgia might have more of a chance against Reed than Cagle in November. They may be right.
But if Reed falls because of his connection to Abramoff and the human trafficking on CNMI it will open a new National campaign issue for the fall. It is a wedge issue that will divide "values voters" from the GOP. They will either stay home or vote Democrat out of disgust.
Doolittle, Pombo, Taylor, Burns, Hastert, Bilbray and a host of others GOP grifters with their hand in the Abramoff slush fund are sweating this weekend with Ralph.
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.
You can help. Donate and support the effort to test this as a Campaign issue in 2006.
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.