Was the WaPo's Abramoff money chart yesterday incomplete & misleading?

The Post published an interesting article and graphic purporting to show the sources and the beneficiary's of Abramoff's influence-buying schemes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/12/12/GR2005121200286.html

About 90 percent appears to be fees from Indian tribal gambling outfits. Most of the rest of the payolla that ended up flowing to Capitol Hill and the White House seems to be from Abramoff's own pocket or his closely controlled PAC, Team Abramoff.

But, what about Abramoff's other reported shakedown schemes, such as the Guam "MADE IN USA" scandal, the multi-million dollar extortion of the President of Ghana for a face-to-face with Bush through Rove's office, and the various deals hatched with Grover Norquist to milk Grover's pals at the Islamic Institute and Islamic Bankers groups.

What is most interesting about the Post graphic is that it omits all the widely-reported foreign funding sources that went through Abramoff's various shell companies (which also aren't identified) -- contributions that might be illegal under U.S. campaign laws.

Anyone know why this part of the Abramoff machine is missing in the Post's graphic?

is shown.

Makes the interesting point, however, that 75 percent of the $5.3 million indicated goes to one person, Ralph Reed.

I'll ask again, does anyone want to conjecture why foreign-source revenues harvested by Abramoff aren't even shown in the Post? Is there an assumption on the part of that paper's editors that even indicating foreign money would be tantamount to accusing Abramoff of crimes for which he has yet to be indicted? Anyone care to offer an alternative explanation?

At any rate, this says a lot about the way the case is being handled by The Post by its omission.

since he's indicted on what was in the graphic, its valid to use. If the other is merely alleged and cannot be independently verified, it COULD have been used, with proper disclaimers, but they might have chosen not to do so for legal reasons.


or, they're just doing a rovian admission to some parts as defense against other parts to come out later.

:shrug: