Abramoff's Specter Rises Again, Troubling GOP Hopeful

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 19, 2007; Page VA04

Gary H. Baise said he had "not a clue" that the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, the group that still lists him as an honorary board member, was in the middle of the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, as federal investigators now allege.

Baise, a Washington lawyer and Republican candidate for chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, "hardly ever saw" CREA co-founder Italia Federici, who, according to Legal Times, has been told by prosecutors that she might be charged with fraud, tax evasion and giving false testimony to a Senate committee.

Federici had a romantic relationship with J. Steven Griles, a coal industry lobbyist and deputy interior secretary during President Bush's first term. Griles pleaded guilty last month to lying to Congress in 2005 about his relationship with Abramoff. It was Federici who introduced Griles to Abramoff, and it was CREA that received $500,000 from Abramoff's clients, which included Native American tribes, and from energy and mining interests.

Abramoff is serving nearly six years for fraud, tax evasion and bribery of public officials.

Baise, a former Nixon-era Environmental Protection Agency chief of staff who frequently represents industrial and agricultural clients in environmental litigation, said he got involved with CREA through two friends, James R. Moseley, a former deputy secretary of agriculture, and Douglas P. Wheeler, a former California secretary of resources who serves on what CREA's Web site called its Honorary Board.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041800951.html