http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/10/16abramoff.html
Abramoff investigation has GOP holding its breath
CIA leak probe may be getting more attention, but troubles surrounding
former lobbyist worry Republicans more.
Dennis Cook/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Scott Shepard
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, October 16, 2005
WASHINGTON — A grand jury investigating the White House leak of a CIA
agent's name is expected to wrap up its work in the next couple of
weeks, but it is another investigation — of former Republican superstar
lobbyist Jack Abramoff — that has the Republican political establishment
holding its breath.
Abramoff is at the center of ever more complicated inquiries that touch
on subjects as wide-ranging as allegations of influ- ence-peddling in
Congress and the White House, a gangland-style slaying in Florida and
political shenanigans in Guam.
And while the CIA leak investigation by special prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald, now in its second year, has yet to yield indictments, the
investigations of Abramoff have resulted, so far, in bank fraud charges
against him; obstruction charges against David Safavian, the Bush
administration's former chief procurement official; and the withdrawal
of President Bush's nomination of Timothy Flanigan, a onetime associate
of Abramoff, to be the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.
Abramoff has had close connections with leading Republicans, including
Bush; U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, the former House majority
leader; Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; party strategist Grover
Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform; and strategist Ralph Reed,
the former Christian Coalition executive director and Bush campaign
official who is now running for lieutenant governor of Georgia.
Ethical 'linchpin'
Karl Rove, Bush's longtime senior political strategist and the White
House deputy chief of staff, testified before Fitzgerald's grand jury
for a fourth time Friday.
Rove "has some serious problems," said Naomi Seligman, spokeswoman for
the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington. "But while most of Washington is focused on Mr. Rove, we
know that the linchpin to the ethical downfall of the White House and
some members of Congress is the Abramoff investigation."
Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report
newsletter, agreed that the Abramoff investigation is "the one that they
(Republicans) are really worried about" because it has the potential of
tarring the party.
"This is a real one," Cook said. "It has the potential to take the
scandal issue to the next level."
Republicans are clearly nervous. Two prominent GOP figures, Santorum and
Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have returned campaign donations that they
received from Safavian.
"We just felt, with so many unanswered questions, that was in the best
interest," Santorum media consultant John Brabender said.
A federal multiagency task force and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee
are investigating Abramoff's past lobbying activities on behalf of
Indian casinos, which reportedly netted him as much as $82 million in
fees, and his golfing trips for members of Congress and other Republican
luminaries.
Congressional Democrats have called for the appointment of a special
counsel to investigate whether Abramoff played a role in the demotion of
a federal prosecutor in Guam in 2002 after the prosecutor started
investigating a lobbying deal between Abramoff and Guam court officials.
Their actions were prompted by an article in the Los Angeles Times this
month suggesting that Rove might have been involved in the demotion.
Abramoff also is slated to stand trial in Florida in January on bank
fraud charges in connection with his 2000 purchase, with partner Adam
Kidan, of the SunCruz gambling ships from Greek financier Gus Boulis.
They are accused of defrauding lenders in the $147 million purchase.
In an unusual twist of events, Boulis was shot to death at the wheel of
his BMW sedan shortly after leaving his office one evening in February
2001, about a month after he had filed suit against Abramoff and Kidan,
accusing them of failing to pay him $23 million in connection with the
SunCruz sale.
Throughout the investigation, lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan repeatedly
have said their clients know nothing about the circumstances of Boulis'
death, and last month two men from Florida and a third from New York,
none of whom have any known ties to Abramoff, were charged in the slaying.
Abramoff's lawyer, Neal Sonnett of Miami, did not respond to requests
for comment.
Consequences
Safavian's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said federal officials are
pressuring her client, who once worked in a lobbying firm with Abramoff,
to cooperate in their investigation of Abramoff. She accused the
officials of "a creative use of the criminal code to secure his
cooperation."
Safavian became the first government official charged in the corruption
inquiry related to Abramoff's activities in Washington when, in a
complaint filed by the FBI in mid-September, he was accused of making
repeated false statements to government officials and investigators
about a congressional golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002 and of
concealing his efforts to help Abramoff acquire federally managed
property in Washing- ton.
The 2002 golf trip has attracted a lot of attention because it included
not only Abramoff and Safavian, then the chief of staff of the General
Services Administration, but also Reed and Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio,
chairman of the House Administration Committee. It was similar to a 2000
trip that DeLay made to England and Scotland for which part of the
expenses were charged to a credit card of Abramoff's.
House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related
expenses from registered lobbyists, but DeLay and Ney have both said
they thought the trips were financed through a conservative think tank,
the National Center for Public Policy Research, whose board of directors
included Abramoff.
Flanigan, a former deputy counsel for Bush, had his Justice Department
nomination withdrawn this month, the day after the Senate Judiciary
Committee decided to question him further about his ties to Abramoff.
Before joining the Bush administration, Flanigan worked for Tyco
International Ltd. as a lawyer, a position in which he oversaw
Abramoff's lobbying efforts for the Bermuda-based company.
From 2002 to 2004, Tyco paid Abramoff's firm $2.1 million to stop
congressional efforts to deny federal contracts to companies that moved
offshore to save on U.S. taxes.
The Judiciary Committee's action was prompted by a written response from
Flanigan in which the Bush nominee said that Abramoff, one of the elite
"Pioneer" fundraisers for the Bush presidential campaign, had boasted of
his contacts with Rove.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the questions
raised about Flanigan's ties to Abramoff "merit answers."
'Exploitation, deceit'
Abramoff has largely avoided public events since he and onetime partner
Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aide, endured blistering attacks from
members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committeeinvestigating the fees
that they received for lobbying on behalf of six casino-operating tribes.
The committee released hundreds of e-mails that Abramoff and Scanlon
exchanged during their representation of the tribes, some of which
referred to their clients as "idiots" and "troglodytes" and celebrated
the hefty fees that they received. "Is life great or what!" Abramoff
wrote in one.
While "every kind of charlatan and every type of crook" has exploited
American Indians since the sale of Manhattan Island, said Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, "what sets this tale apart,
what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the
apparent exploitation and deceit."
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