I've been swimming in corruption.
I've been reviewing old Jack Abramoff files, documents and news clips.
Not surprisingly, the number of Republicans with ties to Jack Abramoff and the Slush Fund behind the Gingrich/DeLay/Bush era of incompetence and corruption is growing.
At the beginning of August I posted a Diary about 21 GOP Candidates tied to Jack Abramoff. Since then I've kept digging. I've gotten some nice leads, tips and suggestions. More names have been added to the list.
Now I need your help.
53 Republican candidates in this election cycle have an Abramoff problem. (And I suspect that more names will be added to the list as the research continues).
I need your help to promote these links and to help me make more connections between these candidates and Jack Abramoff and the GOP Culture of Corruption.
Each of the Abramoff 53 has multiple ties to the scandal. Some connections are politically embarrassing, some smell fishy and some are clear criminal acts.
So, if you're ready, please join me on the jump and meet the Abramoff 53...
Putting together a list of the Republican candidates in the 2006 cycle with a Jack Abramoff problem is time consuming. There are so many candidates--so many connections to Abramoff. Every time I think I'm done, I find a few more. The list has grown from 21 names to 53 names. I'm sure I am missing somebody. Let me know if you have a name to add (and what the connections is to Abramoff). This is a work in progress.
When it comes to this list I have focused on how Abramoff and the Republican Party spent the last eleven years protecting a system of sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion on the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI) for fun, power and profit. I want to remind folks that this GOP corruption is about more than ripping off casinos. Here are a few background Diaries for those who want the grotesque details:
Tom DeLay's connection to sex, money and cockfights...
Sex, Abortion, Sweatshops and GOP Values
NEW Abramoff News: The Chinese/Sweatshop/GOP Connection
Jack Abramoff explains how the GOP protected sweatshops
WOW! No wonder Rove & Abramoff block the 2002 CNMI/Guam Security Report
The focus on the Native American casinos is an effort to build a firebreak around the Abramoff scandal and limit the damage to DeLay, Ney and a few others. John McCain has led the effort to contain the damage to the GOP and the Bush Administration is rewarding him with support for McCain's 2008 White House bid.
The gambit is working with traditional news outlets. And if I used the standard that the AP and others embrace to muddy the waters and tie Democrats to Abramoff, then every Republican Candidate in this cycle would make the cut.
But, I'm just posting a Diary as part of the Daily Kos community, so I'll have to set the bar a little higher than the AP's John Solomon. After all, you will let me know if I get things wrong and I respect your insights. It helps me sharpen the research.
To make this list, a Republican candidate had to have multiple points of contact with Jack Abramoff, his team and/or his clients. I looked across four main areas of contact between Abramoff and the GOP. Here they are:
Money
Candidates with contributions directly from Jack and the other lobbyists from his team (Scanlon, Rudy, Volz, Buckham, Ring and Safavian) and their spouses/family made the list. And so did the folks who pocketed contributions from the Tan Family and the sweatshop lobby on Saipan.
Over the last 10 years this small part of the GOP slush fund Abramoff managed moved $825,192 in recorded donations to Republican candidates (more than $600,000 since 2000). It is a very small fraction of the money Abramoff's GOP slush fund moved to the GOP, but it does point to Jack's Team of elected officials.
This does not include even more donations from the Slush Funds main lobbying firms (Preston Gates, Alexander Strategy, Greenburg Traurig and more). Then there were all the contributions from Abramoff's other clients and the clients of Abramoff trained lobbyists.
Another source of funds I looked for was GOP Leadership PAC donations, especially the ones funded by Abramoff, his team and his clients. And candidates who got money from Leadership PACs controlled by Jack's inner circle of Congressmen and Senators stood a good chance of making the list. Under the GOP the Leadership PACs work as a series of connected washing machines to launder money to hide pay-offs for earmarks and other favors. Abramoff and Duke Cunningham are just the tip of the iceberg ripping through Capital Hill.
In addition to the FEC reported donations there are also solid reports of some off-the-books donations, trips, freebies, meals and jobs for family and friends of elected officials and their staffs. Candidate tied to Jack through creative financial reimbursements always made the list.
Staff Connections
Abramoff was the point of the spear for the K Street Project. He trained a generation of GOP lobbyists and staffers in his way of doing "business". He was also a legendary head of the College Republicans in the early 1980s. In his lobbying days, Jack always made time to mentor the youngsters at the CRNC.
Candidates who had a staffer who went to work for Jack, or one of Jack's Team members who went to work the candidate made the list. So did those with ties to Jack through their College Republican days. And the candidates whose staff took trips on Jack's dime to the Marianas Islands (and other locals) made the list.
If you want to see if a particular GOP candidate has an Abramoff connection, a good place to start is a list of their staff members over the years. Almost everybody on Team Abramoff (except Jack) spent time on Capital Hill. Feel free to send me a list of staff members for any of the 53 or any other candidates who should be added to the list.
The Public Record
There is a rich public record of Abramoff's connections to GOP Candidates in this cycle. Some are reports after Abramoff's fall from grace in 2004. Others are reports from 1980 through January 2004 when Jack was at the height of his power. Candidates with long time ties to Abramoff through these reports made the list. So did the candidates who traveled to the Marianas Islands to support the GOP's Hong Kong based sweatshop owning patrons who run the US Territory as a feudal fiefdom. The local press on Saipan and Guam reported many connections to Abramoff, especially the Tan Family's newspaper, the Saipan Tribune.
The reports and records of human rights workers trying to end the abuse on CNMI was another source. Candidates who made these reports as sweatshop protectors made the list.
If you know something in the public recard that connect a candidate to Abramoff let me know, especially if I've left them off the list.
Billing Records/Emails
There are thousands of pages of emails, memos and other records related to Abramoff's lobbying work. Some have been released. Some have not. The Indian Affairs Committee reviewed over 80,000 pages of documents and released around 2,000 pages of documents and testimony. While these were scrubbed to protect Republican Members of Congress, the Senate and George Bush, there are still quite a few documents that connected some members to Abramoff, especially when compared with other bits of information.
A better set of documents is the billing records and emails for Jack's lobbying work for the CNMI Government. These records were collected as part of a 2001 audit of all the lobbying expenses that the CNMI government paid for between 1994 and the end of 2001. The audit was done by the CNMI Office of Public Auditor (OPA) and the records were released to various news outlets in the last couple of years. I have a set.
It is a core sample of how Lobbying in the Gingrich/DeLay/Bush era of incompetence and corruption is conducted. These are roadmaps of graft.
The billing records are day by day details of Team Abramoff's efforts to protect sweatshops and shower their Chinese Patrons with favorable earmarks, appropriations and laws. If a candidate repeatedly made the Abramoff's CNMI invoices, they made the list.
The CNMI invoices are incomplete. They represent only a fraction of Abramoff's work. The same types of records exist for every one of Jack's clients and for every month he worked for them. John McCain hid the existence of these records from the press, public and his final report. That was his Abramoff GOP firebreak. I expect that a Democratic Majority might share these records with the people in an act of REAL oversight.
Congressional Favors
In a few cases the CNMI invoices or press reports have tied a candidate and an official action taken for Jack Abramoff. More often than not, the official action is only implied. In these cases I looked to see if a candidate was in a position to help Jack and his clients. If they were a member of DeLay's House Leadership, on the Resources Committee, and/or on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (or the Senate equivalent) they stood a good chance of making the list, especially if the had Abramoff connections in other categories. The same is true of the Appropriations Committee and a few others on specific issues.
And then there is the hunt for the quid pro quo, the search for the payback. In 2001 alone it looks like Congress found an extra $28 million for various projects just on CNMI. There are a lot of earmarks to search through. And the CNMI was just one of Jack's clients.
I've posted about Abramoff for some time now and have been researching him since 1999. This is an extremely complicated criminal enterprise. It may take years for the DOJ to unravel the case. A Democratic victory in November will help to expose this conspiracy.
Earlier this year, after Abramoff plead guilty, a reporter told Newshour:
EAMON JAVERS: I have one source who says it could be as many as 60 members of Congress that they are looking at.
I think he might be right, but I do not think it will happen before November. And he wasn't even factoring in the Duke Cunningham scandal in the tally.
Our best chance to expose and hold accountable the GOP Culture of Corruption is to elect Democrats this November and take back the House and Senate.
I hope this list helps that effort.
It is presented in four sections:
Section 1: Jack's Dirty Dozen
These folks are deeply tied to Abramoff and his crimes. Some have bee exposed. Some have (so far) avoided the limelight. They are all dirty.
Section 2: Jack's 25 Team Players
These folks have many connections to Abramoff. They were his Team on Capital Hill. Jack's gone, but these folks are still here. Perhaps we can change their status in November.
Section 3: Jack's Bench of Nine
These folks have enough ties to solidly make the list, but there is more research to be done and more connections to discover.
Section 4: Jack's Shadowy Seven
These folks have a few connections to Jack and his scams. They may be bit players or more research may expose deeper ties to the scandal. Feel free to join the hunt.
For each section I'll give the race, the Democrat and the Abramoff connected Republican. Links are provided to help you support these Democratic Candidates with your time, energy and money.
In a future post I'll go into more detail about the connections between Jack and the candidates. If you have some details, please post a Diary about the connections you know.
So, let's meet the Abramoff 53:
Section 1: Jack's Dirty Dozen
AK-AL: Diane Benson(D) running against Don Young(R)
CA-04: Charlie Brown(D) running against John Doolittle(R)
CA-11: Jerry McNerney(D) running against Richard Pombo(R)
CA-46: Jim Brandt(D) running against Dana Rohrabacher(R)
IL-14: John Laesch(D) running against Denny Hastert(R)
IN-05: Katherine Carr(D) running against Dan Burton(R)
MO-7: Jack Truman(D) running against Roy Blunt(R)
MT-Senate: Jon Tester(D) running against Conrad Burns(R)
NC-11: Heath Shuler(D) running against Charles H. Taylor(R)
OH-18: Zach Space(D) running against whichever (R) replaces Congressman #1 (AKA Bob Ney)
TX-04: Glenn Melancon(D) running against Ralph Hall(R)
TX-22: Nick Lampson(D) running against the blank space replacing Congressman #2 (AKA Tom DeLay)
UT-3: Chris Cannon(D) running against Christian Burridge(R)
Section 2: Jack's 25 Team Players
AL-Governor: Lucy Baxley(D) running against Bob Riley(R)
AZ-5: Harry Mitchell(D) running against J. D. Hayworth(R)
CA-41: Louie Contreras(D) running against Jerry Lewis(R)
CA-50: Francine Busby(D) running against Brian Bilbray(R)
CA-52: John Rinaldi(D) running against Duncan Hunter(R)
CO-4: Bill Winter (D) running against Marilyn Musgrave(R)
CT-02: Joe Courtney(D) running against Rob Simmons(R)
FL-24: the winner of the Primary (Clint Curtis or Andy Michaud) against Tom Feeney(R)
GA-01: Jim Nelson(D) running against Jack Kingston(R)
KY-3: John Yarmuth(D) running against Anne Northup(R)
MD-Governor: Martin O'Malley(D) running against Bob Ehrlich(R)
MI-8: Jim Marcinkoski(D) running against Mike Rogers(R)
MI-9: Louis Vandenberg(D) running against Ken Calvert(R)
MT-AL: Monica Lindeen(D) running against Dennis Rehberg(R)
NJ-07: Linda Stender(D) running against Mike Ferguson(R)
NV-3: Tessa Hafen(D) running against Jon Porter(R)
NY-20: Kirsten Gillibrand(D) running against John Sweeney(R)
OH-14: Lewis Katz(D) running against Steven LaTourette(R)
PA-06: Lois Murphy(D) running against Jim Gerlach(R)
TX-32: Will Pryor(D) running against Pete Sessions(R)
VA-7: Jim Nachman(D) running against Eric Cantor(R)
WA-05: Peter Goldmark(D) running against Cathy McMorris(R)
WI-Governor: Jim Doyle(D) running against Mark Green(R)
WV-2: Mike Callaghan(D) running against Shelley Moore Capito(R)
Section 3: Jack's Bench of Nine
CA-19: TJ Cox(D) running against George Radanovich(R)
CO-6: Bill Winter(D) running against Tom Tancredo(R)
IL-06: Tammy Duckworth(D) running against Peter Roskam(R)
IN-2: Joe Donnelly(D) running against Chris Chocola(R)
PA-10: Chris Carney(D) running against Don Sherwood(R)
SC-3: Lee Ballenger(D) running against J. Gresham Barrett(R)
VA-11: Tom Davis(D) running against Tom Davis(R)
VA-5: Al Weed(D) running against Virgil Goode(R)
VA-Senate: Jim Webb(D) running against George Allen(R)
Section 4: Jack's Shadowy Seven
CA-44: Louis Vandenberg(D) running against Ken Calvert(R)
GA-06: Steve Stinton(D) running against Tom Price(R)
GA-12: John Barrow(D) running against Max Burns(R)
IA-Governor: Chet Culver(D) running against Jim Nussle(R)
NC-8: Larry Kissell(D) running against Robin Hayes(R)
NJ-11: Rodney Frelinghuysen(D) running against Tom Wyka(R)
NV-Senate: Jack Carter(D) running against John Ensign(R)
There you have it: the Abramoff 53.
The list will grow and some may be added and some may be dropped as the research comes in. I hope to follow this Diary with one that will provide more details on the ties between each candidate and the Abramoff/Gingrich/DeLay/Bush web of money laundering, graft and corruption.
Yesterday, SherAn posted a Diary about a Federal Judge postponing Abramoff's sentencing hearing until December. It was suppose to happen on Tuesday. While SherAn was concerned about the development, I am not. This is a very complicated conspiracy.
In many ways this announcement puts more pressure on the players the DOJ is targeting in the next round of indictments and pleas.
Either Ed Buckham or Kevin Ring should make a deal soon. I think they will have to fall before elected officials are indicted. As I said this is a very complicated conspiracy. You will not be able to convict DeLay, Ney, Doolittle, and the gang until you understand the mechanics of the pay-for-play system of corruption.
The professionals at the DOJ seem to be focused on the case and not the politics. That is a good sign.
We, on the other hand are not constrained by the rules of evidence. We can make a political case to hold the Abramoff 53 accountable.
And this list does not include the Executive branch and the dozens of GOP/Right wing flacks (Grover, Ralph, etc.) who need to worry about indictments, investigation and oversight.
A Democratic victory is they best course of action and the fastest route to justice for these scoundrels who used a system of sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion to fund their rise to power.
Please support a Democratic victory with your time, energy and money. The list above includes links to the Democrats who will defeat these scoundrels on November 7th.
2006 is now. Let's take our Country back.