Reed says he regrets working with Abramoff

Reed says he regrets working with Abramoff

Associated PressATLANTA - Georgia lieutenant governor candidate Ralph Reed said recently that he regrets having worked with Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is the subject of a federal investigation.

The comments are in the text of a speech posted on Reed's campaign Web site. Campaign manager Jared Thomas said Reed made the speech Dec. 9 before a Christian youth group in Alpharetta.

In the speech, Reed said a lot of good came of the antigambling work he did on behalf of Abramoff.
"Nevertheless, had I known then what I know now, I would not have undertaken that work," he said.

Reed, a former leader of the Christian Coalition, angered religious groups when it was revealed that his antigambling campaign received money from tribal clients of Abramoff who were trying to preserve their own casino markets

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http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/politics/13420483.htm

Ralph Reed's Other Cheek

News: The man who mobilized the religious right puts his conservative connections to work for business.

By Peter Stone
Mother Jones
November/December 2004 Issue

When the casino-rich Coushatta tribe of Louisiana began a lobbying blitz in 2001 to block three other tribes from opening competing casinos, they hired two of Washington's top influence brokers, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations whiz Michael Scanlon. But Abramoff and Scanlon -- who are now at the center of a Washington scandal sparked by the multimillion-dollar fees they charged several tribal clients -- knew that to win any lobbying campaign in the South, they needed help mobilizing social and religious conservatives. So they turned to one of the best-known names on the religious right: Ralph Reed. Since his departure as head of the Christian Coalition in 1997, Reed has emerged as a highly sought-after corporate consultant, putting his organizing skills and political connections to work for business interests -- even those that conflict with his followers' conservative beliefs.

On the casino issue, Scanlon's company, Capitol Campaign Strategies, paid Reed to help assemble anti-gambling coalitions in Louisiana and Texas. Among other things, those coalitions backed a lawsuit filed by Texas' attorney general that early in 2002 succeeded in shutting down two Texas casinos that posed competition to the Coushattas' highly lucrative operation.

Reed says he has not wavered from his anti-gambling convictions and points out that his company was paid by Scanlon's firm, not the tribe. "We have never been retained by a casino to serve their interests," he says. But antigambling activists say that argument doesn't wash. "When you get paid big money, it's got to be gambling money," says Tom Grey, a Methodist minister who runs the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "Ralph Reed with all his sophistication should have known where the money came from."

The gambling work is just one instance in which Reed has used his credentials with the religious right to further his clients' business agendas. Since its founding in 1997, his consulting firm, Century Strategies, has racked up millions in fees from companies including Enron, Microsoft, Verizon, and other Fortune 100 companies, according to sources familiar with its client list.

Reed's value to corporate America has been enhanced by his close ties to the Bush administration and especially to Karl Rove, the president's chief political guru. Not long after Century Strategies started, Rove reportedly helped Reed land an Enron contract worth at least $300,000 to help build support for energy deregulation. Century Strategies did voter-mobilization work for the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee in 2000; it has been retained again this year for similar projects. Reed has also been serving as Southeast regional coordinator for the Bush campaign, with responsibility for delivering Florida and four other Southern states. Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman has called Reed "the guy who gets it done" in the South, especially in reaching out to evangelicals and other religious groups and advising the national campaign on strategy.

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http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_400.html

An Unholy Alliance?

A TIME investigation shows the lobbyist now at the center of a federal probe had a good friend eager to open doors at the White House: former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed

By ADAM ZAGORIN, KAREN TUMULTY, MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON
Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005

There was only one reason that clients ranging from Native-American tribes to Fortune 500 CEOs to Pacific Island potentates were willing to pay Jack Abramoff millions. The lobbyist at the center of a spreading scandal that has touched numerous lawmakers, including former House majority leader Tom DeLay, had access like few others to people in power. But in the place that mattered most, even someone as well-connected as Abramoff needed help. When he had to make sure his clients' concerns got the attention of the right people in the George W. Bush White House, Abramoff often turned to a longtime friend and business associate whose ties there--especially with the President's most trusted adviser, Karl Rove--were far better than his: former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, an operative of such political talent that he made the cover of TIME in 1995, at age 33, with a line that declared him "the Right Hand of God."

Reed, a key Bush campaign strategist and the favorite in the 2006 race to become Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, was an obliging, even eager middleman, judging by e-mail exchanges between the two, which have been obtained by TIME. (The e-mails have attracted the interest of federal investigators already looking into whether Abramoff defrauded his Indian clients--a charge he denies.) Ten days after 9/11, for instance, Abramoff was promoting a business venture to rent cruise ships to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to billet rescue workers off New York City. Reed assured Abramoff he had "put in a tag call to karl to find out the best contact at fema." Four months later, Abramoff wrote Reed that he needed some "serious swat from Karl" to get the Justice Department to free $16.3 million for a jail that his Choctaw Indian clients were planning to build in Mississippi. As it happened, Abramoff had caught Reed at a ripe moment. "Am at a lunch with Rove at the meeting and just talked to the AG ," he e-mailed Abramoff on his BlackBerry. "Will report the substance shortly." Reed agreed to give Rove materials arguing the Choctaws' case.

Did he? Or was Reed humoring his old friend? "Ralph receives unsolicited requests all the time for assistance on such matters," says his spokeswoman Lisa Baron, "but he does not recall following up on these matters." The cruise-ship scheme never came to fruition. The Choctaws got their jail, but so far, there's no evidence that the White House lifted a finger to make it happen. Abramoff declined to comment.

But in at least one instance, Reed acknowledges he used his White House access for Abramoff. In December 2001 the lobbyist was eager to prevent Angela Williams from being appointed head of the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs, which oversees the government's dealings with the Northern Mariana Islands, an important Abramoff client. Williams is married to former Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle, who was a Vietnam POW with Senator John McCain. The subject header of Abramoff and Reed's e-mail exchange (it is unclear who initiated it) contained a misstatement about Williams that is practically Freudian in what it reveals about their animosity toward McCain: "Were you able to whack McCain's wife yet?" Reed assured Abramoff he had "weighed in heavily" with the White House personnel office to block her appointment but had received no commitment. "Any ideas on how we can make sure she does not get it?" Abramoff asked. "Can you ping Karl on this? I can't believe they just don't get this done?" Reed replied, "I am seeing him tomorrow at the WH and plan to discuss it with him as well." Baron says, "Ralph passed the information on to the White House. He is confident the Administration's decision was based on the merit." As for Rove, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy tells TIME, "It is my understanding that Mr. Rove does not recall any of these incidents."

Williams didn't get the job. She and her husband wrote it off to hard feelings from the bruising 2000 Republican presidential primaries. "I just assumed it was my close friendship with Senator McCain and her being married to me," Swindle tells TIME.

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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1122014,00.html

David Safavian: An "Old Friend" of Abramoff's

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

News from the DNC:

David Safavian, former Chief of Staff for GSA and Chief Procurement Officer at the Office of Budget and Management, was arrested this week for obstructing an ongoing federal investigation into Jack Abramof'’s questionable business dealings with the Bush Administration and Republican members of Congress. Safavian repeatedly told investigators that he had no ongoing business with the Republican mega-lobbyist. However, during that time, Safavian was helping Abramoff lease government property controlled by the agency where he worked. He gave him advice over email, reviewed memos that Abramoff was sending to other GSA employees, and set up a meeting for Abramoff’s wife and business partner with Administration officials. To say thank you, Abramoff took him to Scotland on a golf junket with Republican members of Congress. But Safavian did'’t rest on his laurels. Up until his arrest, he was busy setting contracting policy for billions in federal funds earmarked for the Gulf Coast relief effort. This is what Bush’s policies of political cronyism and patronage have produced: political hacks and lobbyists handling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, while jetting off to Europe on trips paid for by their old lobbying partners.

EXCERPT...

SAFAVIAN: THE MICHAEL BROWN OF OMB

Safavian Was Working On Katrina Relief Efforts Before Being Arrested. Safavian, in his capacity as the chief procurement official, for the Office of Management and Budget was involved in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, until he was charged and arrested for lying to a government investigator. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Safavian had recently been working on developing contracting policies for the multibillion-dollar relief effort after Hurricane Katrina."

Safavian's Wife Was Chief Counsel for Republicans On Committee That Would Investigate Katrina, Had Oversight Of Safavian's Work. "His wife, Jennifer Safavian, is chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement and is, among other things, expected to conduct the Congressional investigation into missteps after Hurricane Katrina."

Safavian Had Limited Background in Procurement When Nominated by Bush. "'He doesn't have a lot of background in procurement, so the hope is that he's a good learner,' says Steven Kelman, who served as federal procurement administrator in the Clinton administration. 'I don't know where David Safavian comes out on ,' says Allan Burman, another former procurement chief. Angela Styles, who held the top acquisition post until last September, says Safavian has 'no apparent philosophy' on procurement issues."

Qualifications for Employment: Norquist Connections. "Safavian, in addition to once working on the Hill as an aide to lawmakers, has also been a lobbyist. He was a co-founder of the lobby and consulting shop Janus-Merritt Strategies -- with Grover Norquist, a Republican anti-tax activist -- and has lobbied for the National Indian Gaming Association, the Interactive Gaming Council, the Interactive Services Association, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, NorthPoint Communications Inc. and Covad Communications, among others."

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http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/09/ale05142.html

The Abramoff primer

Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange.com

12.12.05 - The ever-widening scandal surrounding Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff threatens to take down at least a half-dozen Congressmen in 2006, more of their aides, Executive Branch employees, and untold numbers of other members of the Republican Beltway hierarchy. At least four dozen lawmakers from both parties are documented as having taken actions favorable to Abramoff clients around the time they received large donations from Abramoff and/or his clients. It's a sordid tale of Washington corruption, and of crony capitalism at its worst, and it is so dizzyingly complex that few media outlets and even fewer members of the public have yet appreciated just how thoroughly it indicts not just Republican leadership, but the entire bipartisan way of crafting public policy that masquerades as 21st century American democracy.

Abramoff figures in at least four separate, interrelated scandals:

1) He and partner Adam Kidan have been indicted on wire fraud and conspiracy charges involving the 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casinos, a Florida gambling boat venture;
2) He funneled money into the PAC run by House Majority Whip Rep. Tom DeLay that has led to Texas charges against DeLay for illegally laundering campaign donations;
3) He and partner Michael Scanlon are suspected of defrauding and vastly overbilling Native American tribes and other clients with gaming interests; and
4) He and Scanlon are also suspected of bribing and offering gifts and spousal jobs to Congresspeople and Executive Branch officials in exchange for actions favorable to their clients.

Appallingly, it's hard to tell with many of Abramoff's activities whether they are crimes, D.C. business as usual, or both. Here, then, compiled from the Washington Post and other sources, is a summary in alphabetical order of 25 of the key players involved, how they relate to each other, and what they're suspected of. It's rather long and exhaustive (of what we know so far), but then, the indictments will be far longer. Read it, keep it as a scorecard, and weep for democracy.

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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20051

Casino Lobbyist Indictment May Lead To White House

Anton Chaitkin
Executive Intelligence Review

Following a Federal indictment by the Florida U.S. Attorney on Aug. 11, the FBI arrested and jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the financial godfather for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Now released on bail, Abramoff will face trial for fraud and conspiracy in the takeover and looting of the Florida-based SunCruz gambling casino cruise-ship line. SunCruz's former owner Gus Boulis was murdered in a mob-style killing on Feb. 6, 2001.

Abramoff has been an architect of the power cartel behind DeLay, feeding the Congressman money siphoned from the multi-billion-dollar empire of Indian gambling casinos and Pacific island sweatshops under Abramoff's sway.

Abramoff and his two behind-the-scenes career partners, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, organized the rise of "DeLay, Inc.," by coercing corporations and their lobbyists (the "K Street Project") and whipping up religious fanatics (the Christian Coalition) for the money and muscle that bought DeLay his dictatorship over Congress.

These same arrangements are at the heart of the political system sustaining the Bush-Cheney Administration. With multiple criminal and Congressional investigations now pursuing DeLay, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and their cohorts, Abramoff's fall opens a new window on the criminal underpinnings of the entire Bush regime.

Jack, Grover, and Ralph

Tom DeLay moved up fast in the Republican leadership in the 1990s, funded by Enron and other donors through Political Action Committees (PACs), with Abramoff as DeLay's leading fixer and solicitor. The climb to power depended on Abramoff's personal ties to Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, dating back to the trio's joint leadership of the College Republicans on behalf of radical-right financiers.

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http://www.lasvegastribune.com/20050902/bizfin2.html

High-stakes players who gambled at the table with Casino Jack

By Josephine Hearn, The Hill
December 7, 2005

In the fall of 2003, a butterfly in Louisiana flapped its wings. The American Press in Lake Charles reported that members of the gambling-rich Louisiana Coushatta Indian tribe were questioning lavish fees their leaders had paid to two Washington political insiders, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon.

Since then, the scandal surrounding Abramoff has metastasized into one of Washington’s most widespread corruption investigations, spreading to members of Congress, administration officials, lobbyists and activists. One longtime congressional observer has said the imbroglio “has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a century.’’

Federal investigators signaled recently that their probe could implicate as many as six members of Congress and upwards of a dozen former congressional aides and lobbyists.

Four people have already been charged — Abramoff, Scanlon, his Florida business associate Adam Kidan and David Safavian, the former top procurement official for the Bush administration — and one member of the House, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), has been subpoenaed and dubbed “Representative #1” in court documents describing his alleged misdeeds. Rumors abound that Abramoff is close to making a plea deal with prosecutors, a development that could speed future indictments.

SNIP...

Ralph Reed

The former Christian Coalition head was contracted by Abramoff and Scanlon on a number of occasions to stir up evangelical opposition to new casinos that could threaten the existing business of Abramoff’s clients. Reed, who is running for Lt. Governor in Georgia received over $5 million from the duo and has said he did not know he was being paid by gambling interests, but e-mails released later suggest he did.

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http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/pressclip.php?view=1144