Funny how ever frocking Christian "leader" eventually winds up
being exposed as either a child rapist or organized crime goon.
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Oct. 23, 2005
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 AND MASSIMO CALABRESI
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 [Republican National
Committee] meeting and just talked to the AG [John Ashcroft]," 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.
Abramoff was not without his own ties inside the White House—including
his former executive assistant Susan Ralston, who now works in that
capacity for Rove. Although Abramoff repeatedly tried to contact Rove,
sources tell TIME, he had been able to arrange only one private
meeting with Bush's top political strategist, early in 2001. Ralston
subsequently referred his occasional requests to the White House
intergovernmental-affairs office. When Abramoff pleaded by e-mail in
February 2003 for her to help arrange a "quiet message" from Rove to
the Interior Department on behalf of a tribal client, Ralston rebuffed
him: "Karl and others are aware, but the WH is not going to get
involved." So Abramoff sent a copy of Ralston's curt e-mail to Reed,
who replied, "this is ridiculous. want any help ...?"
Abramoff's friendship with Reed goes back to their political
organizing in the early 1980s, when Abramoff was national chairman of
the College Republicans and Reed was executive director. Reed slept on
Abramoff's couch at one point and introduced him to the woman he
married. After Reed started his consulting firm in 1997, Abramoff
threw him what would end up being as much as $4 million worth of
business on campaigns to stop gambling—which Reed had once called "a
cancer on the American body politic."
However mutually beneficial that relationship was, it has returned to
haunt Reed in his first campaign for elected office. Reed, a former
Georgia G.O.P. chairman who was considered the engineer of an
impressive sweep of Republican victories in that state in 2002, has
tapped his national connections and swamped his rivals at fund raising
in his race. Lieutenant Governor is largely a ceremonial job, but it
could give Reed, 44, a leg up for a gubernatorial bid in 2010.
Yet in recent months Reed has mostly been on the defensive. Questions
have been raised about his golfing trip with Abramoff to Scotland in
2002 and whether Reed knew that the ostensibly antigambling campaigns
he waged with Abramoff were actually paid for by gambling interests
eager to get rid of their competition. It is a particularly
uncomfortable situation for a politician famous for his ability to
rally religious conservatives. Those supporters largely dismiss the
revelations as a left-wing smear, but Rusty Paul, Reed's predecessor
as Georgia G.O.P. chairman, acknowledges "a lot of very nervous people
around waiting for other shoes to drop." Allies of his chief rival in
the primary have circulated a memo among local Republicans warning
that having Reed on the ticket could jeopardize incumbent Governor
Sonny Perdue and the G.O.P.'s legislative majorities.
Reed has rested his defense on fine distinctions, saying the payments
he received from Indian tribes didn't come from gambling. But that
line may be tested when the Senate Indian Affairs Committee—chaired by
his old nemesis McCain—holds another hearing on the Abramoff scandal
next week. Reed has not yet been called to testify, but the hearing
will focus on the Louisiana Coushattas, whom Abramoff arranged to pay
more than a million dollars to Reed for his services.
Inconveniently, the tribe has no profitmaking ventures other than
gambling.
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