Abramoff to Ralph Reed: "Need serious swat....Can you ping Karl on this?"

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Sun Oct-23-05 08:27 AM
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Abramoff to Ralph Reed: "Need serious swat....Can you ping Karl on this?"

TIME: 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 WASHINGTON

Posted Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005

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 meeting and just talked to the AG ," he e-mailed Abramoff on his BlackBerry. "Will report the substance shortly." Reed agreed to give Rove materials arguing the Choctaws' case....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."...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1121973,00.html?cnn=yes