Refresh Memory: Vitter & Abramoff Connection

[homerk]

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)
 

CONTRIBUTIONS — VITTER RECEIVED $6,000 FROM ABRAMOFF CLIENTS:
“Vitter received $6,000 from Abramoff tribes from 1999 to 2001
and refunded it the day before he sent one of his letters to
Norton in February 2002. He also used Abramoff’s restaurant
for a September 2003 fund-raiser but failed to reimburse for
it until this year.” [AP, 11/17/05]

COUSHATTA CAMPAIGN — VITTER INSERTED LANGUAGE INTO BILL
HELPING ABRAMOFF CLIENT: One of Abramoff’s tribal clients, the
Coushattas, “opposed a plan by the Jena Band of Choctaw
Indians to open a casino at a non-reservation site, expected
at the time to be outside Shreveport, La., not far from a
casino owned by the Coushattas.” Vitter “inserted language in
the fiscal 2004 Interior appropriations bill — completed late
in 2003 — requesting that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the
National Indian Gaming Commission deny an application from the
Jena Choctaw Tribe of Louisiana for land for a gambling
casino.” To encourage him, Abramoff had hosted a September
2003 fundraiser at his restaurant, “just two months before
Vitter inserted a provision in an Interior spending bill
helping one of Abramoff’s tribal clients [the Coushattas].”
[Washington Post, 9/28/04; Roll Call, 3/16/05]