In my post examining who BushCo has replaced the fired USAs with on the Native American Issues Subcommittee, I pointed out that DOJ decided to hide a salient fact about CO's USA Troy Eid's background. His DOJ bio reads:
Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig in 2003, Troy served for five years on the Cabinet of Colorado Governor Bill Owens.
And here's the new one, helpfully titled "eid_bio_new":
Returning to law practice in 2003, Troy was a partner in the Denver office of a national law firm, focusing on environmental, energy, technology, and federal Indian law, and was rated as one of America's best business attorneys by CHAMBERS USA.
Mind you, the USA site used the older bio until the last couple of weeks. Only since USA Purge has become a scandal has DOJ made a concerted effort to hide the fact that Troy Eid worked in Native American law at Greenberg Traurig at the same time as Jack Abramoff worked there (Eid started at GT in November 2003, and Abramoff resigned under pressure in March 2004, after the scandal started breaking out).
But, as work from Rayne and MBW has revealed, that's not the only thing Troy Eid seems to be hiding. In fact, there seems to be no lobbying disclosure record that he sent a letter to Gayle Norton on behalf of one of GT's tribal clients. Effectively, Eid seems to have lobbied DOI for a Greenberg Traurig/Abramoff client without disclosing it.
Not long after Eid started at GT, he wrote a letter to fellow Coloradan, Gayle Norton, to push to accelerate tribal recognition for the Mashpee tribe. (Eid seems to have known Norton from joint service on the Columbine report, if not from their mutual work on Western land use issues.)
On Nov. 25, 2003, Troy A. Eid, a shareholder with the lobbying firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP. wrote Norton.‘’Thanks for taking the time to visit last week. I really enjoyed seeing you,’’ the letter begins. ‘’The Mashpee would like to meet with Interior to discuss the concept of developing a timetable for resolving the tribal recognition issue one way or another.’’ Instead of agreeing to a meeting, Norton sent back a letter detailing the status of the tribe’s petition.
Troy Eid only registered for the lobbying he did for Covergsys,
and he only listed the White House, Labor, and DHS ("and others"), and the House and Senate, among those he lobbied. You'll note that Kevin Ring, who just stepped down from his own law firm and who has ties to the DOJ Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division who had to resign because of potential ties to the Abramoff scandal, was on the contract with Eid. So were Michael Smith and Stephanie Leger Short, who were found to have accepted improper payments from Native American tribes (and Edward Ayoob, who has ties to Harry Reid, is on there too). Bob Ney staffer Neil Volz even shows up. Right there on the same lobbying disclosure form with the current USA from CO.
Meanwhile, GT's lobbying disclosure for work they did for the Mashpee names many of those same people. But it only records lobbying the House and Senate, not Department of Interior. This, even though the lobbying disclosure admits they were lobbying about tribal recognition, precisely the subject of Eid's letter to Norton.
Now, Eid claims that he and Jack Abramoff had nothing to do with each other.
Eid and Abramoff both worked in divisions that represented American Indian tribes. But Eid has said he joined Greenberg Traurig in 2003, about the time Abramoff was being fired.
But to make that claim, he rewrites history, pushing back Abramoff's forced resignation by six months. Besides, this wouldn't be the first time a Republican claimed not to know Jack Abramoff, in spite of hundreds of interactions with him.
Presumably all this stuff was checked out when he was vetted to be USA. But the bulk of that vetting happened after March 2006, when (we now know) Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson were in charge of hiring and firing. But a letter (and, from the context, apparently a visit) sure seems like it counts as lobbying to me. So why didn't Troy Eid disclose the letter?
See also MB's Wampum post on this.