Senate's Abramoff Report Disputes Rep. Ney (Pants on fire!)

[johnfunk]

Someone cue Jon Lovitz saying, "LlllllllllllLIAR!"

Senate's Abramoff Report Disputes Rep. Ney
Indian Affairs Panel Cites Lobbyist Abuse of Tax Exemptions

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 23, 2006; A01

In the fall of 2004, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) told Senate investigators that he was unfamiliar with a Texas Indian tribe represented by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Days later, evidence emerged that the congressman had held numerous discussions with Abramoff and the Indians about getting Congress to reopen their shuttered casino.

...

The report includes new details about some of Abramoff's activities, including his collaboration with former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and conservative strategist Grover Norquist. The Senate report recommended that the Senate Finance Committee investigate the use of tax-exempt organizations "as extensions of for-profit lobbying operations."

...

In his interview with the committee staff, "Congressman Ney said he was not at all familiar with the Tigua" and could not recall meeting with members of the tribe, the report said.

Six days after the interview, Tigua representatives testified at a committee hearing that Abramoff had set up a lengthy meeting with Ney in his office in August 2002 as well as a conference call, and that the congressman had assured them he was working to insert language that would reopen their casino into an unrelated election reform bill. Team Abramoff and the tribe that year became Ney's biggest donors, contributing $47,500 to his campaign committees.

Soooo busted!

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[UpInArms]

2. ThinkProgress: Abramoff: The House That Jack Built

(awesome summation and links)

http://www.thinkprogress.org/abramoff

A Lobbyist in Full

Published: May 1, 2005

Abramoff planned to slip a provision granting the Tiguas gaming rights into a bipartisan election-reform bill before Congress. He turned to an old Republican friend, Representative Bob Ney of Ohio. On March 20, 2002, he sent Scanlon good news: ''just met with Ney!!! We're gold!!!! He's going to do Tigua.'' A few days later, Abramoff sent Schwartz an e-mail message asking for $32,000 in donations to Ney's campaign fund and political action committee -- ''asap.''

In June, Abramoff sent Schwartz an e-mail message with a new request: ''our friend asked if we could help (as in cover) a Scotland golf trip for him and some staff . . . for August. The trip will be quite expensive (we did this for another member -- you know who) 2 years ago. I anticipate that the total cost -- if he brings 3-4 members and wives -- would be around $100K or more.'' (Schwartz later testified before a Senate committee that Ney was ''our friend'' and that Abramoff told him that ''you know who'' was DeLay. Records show that DeLay did, in fact, travel to Scotland in 2000, accompanied by Abramoff as well as his wife and two top aides.)

Abramoff told the Tiguas that Ney ''would probably do the trip through the Capital Athletic Foundation as an educational mission'' and asked them for a donation to the foundation, a charity Abramoff had founded ostensibly to support youth athletics. That August, Ney traveled to Scotland with Reed. (Eventually, money from other Abramoff clients paid for the trip.) In a disclosure form, Ney -- who now says he was ''duped'' and ''misled'' by ''these two nefarious individuals'' -- would report that the purpose of his trip was to give a speech to Scottish parliamentarians, attend an Edinburgh military ceremony and visit the British Parliament.

[oasis]

3. A bright orange jump suit awaits.

[samsingh]

4. more repug corruption

corruption = republican

[MagickMuffin]

5. Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na

Ney Ney Ney GOODBYE!

[radfringe]

6. here ya go

a Liar-Liar emoticon

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Senate Report Lists Lobbyist Payments to Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed

NYT: Senate Report Lists Lobbyist's Payments to Ex-Leader of Christian Coalition
By PHILIP SHENON
Published: June 23, 2006


(U.S. District Court, via Associated Press)
A photograph of a 2002 golf trip to St. Andrews in Scotland shows, from left in the front row, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, David H. Safavian and Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio.

WASHINGTON, June 22 — A bipartisan Senate report released on Thursday documented more than $5.3 million in payments to Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a leading Republican Party strategist, from an influence-peddling operation run by the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian tribe casinos.

The report by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee portrayed Mr. Reed, now a candidate for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in his home state of Georgia, as a central figure in Mr. Abramoff's lobbying operation, the focus of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

Mr. Reed was depicted as having used his contacts among conservative Christian groups in the South and Southwest beginning in the late 1990's to block the opening or expansion of casinos that might compete with the gambling operations of Mr. Abramoff's clients.

Mr. Abramoff and his former partner, Michael Scanlon, have pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials and bilking some Indian tribe clients out of tens of millions of dollars. They are cooperating with a federal grand-jury investigation that is threatening to derail the careers of several members of Congress.

There has been no suggestion by prosecutors that Mr. Reed is under special scrutiny by the grand jury....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23abramoff.html

[MagickMuffin]

9. Funny how they left out Grover's part in all this

Casino Jack funneled a large portion of the money through Grover's firm, which wrote checks back to Reed.

Something smells in DC.

I hope we will get to see more of the emails that they not become public yet.

[MagickMuffin]

10. However the WaPo did mention the connection

The report traces Abramoff's business dealings with Reed, who is running for Georgia lieutenant governor, and Norquist, the prominent conservative thinker and anti-tax advocate. Both are longtime Abramoff friends who became involved in his work for Indian tribes. Reed conducted grass-roots anti-gambling campaigns against casino initiatives that would rival those of Abramoff's clients; Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform served as a "conduit," according to the committee, to move money from Abramoff's gambling clients to Reed's Christian groups while taking a small cut.

The report cited interviews with Mississippi Choctaw and Louisiana Coushatta tribal representatives. Reed "did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests," said Choctaw official Nell Rogers. "It was our understanding that the structure was recommended by Jack Abramoff to accommodate Mr. Reed's political concerns."

Coushatta official William Worfel said Abramoff let the tribe know that its funding of Reed's operation had to be kept quiet. "It can't get out. He's Christian Coalition. It wouldn't look good if they're receiving money from a casino-operating tribe to oppose gaming. It would be kind of like hypocritical."

Norquist has said his group shared an anti-tax philosophy with tribes opposed to business taxes being levied at casinos.

Rogers told the committee that the Choctaw tribe had no interest in Americans for Tax Reform other than as a conduit for its money to Reed's for-profit consulting firm, Century Strategies. She told the committee that "when we discussed needing a vehicle for doing the pass-through to Century Strategies that Jack had told me that Grover would want a management fee. And we agreed to that, frankly didn't know any other way to do it at the time."

[Eugene]

8. Caught in a bold-face lie as well a quid pro quo.

kick and recommend

Bye, bye, Bob! Now, if there is any justice, this scam should stick to Ralph Reed like tar.

[suegeo]

11. Ney needs his ass kicked

For freedom fries alone, Ney needs his ass kicked. Not to mention all the other crap he has shovelled out onto us.

[johnfunk]

13. Another GOCOCP (Grand Ol' Culture of Corruption Party) Poster Boy

I have this feeling he's going to be wearing a lot of orange soon...

[gratuitous]

12. Why should this affect Ney's political career?

Don't you people know that lying, cheating, stealing and corruption are wrong? But IOKIYAR -- It's okay if you're a Republican! Ney might actually advance in the GOP leadership scheme because of this. Whip? Majority Leader? That guy's going places!