TIME >> The Golf Junket that Haunts Abramoff and Friends

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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1193223,00.html

The Golf Junket that Haunts Abramoff and Friends

Newly obtained e-mails show how one particular trip to Scotland hosted by the Washington lobbyist has tainted all four guests, including Congressman Bob Ney and a Bush Administration official


Back in July 2003, now disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his old College Republicans buddy, Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, were exchanging e-mails about Jeff Ballabon, another lobbyist they were trying to use for an entrée to the Bush White House where Ballabon had friends. Reed forwarded Abramoff an unctuous message Ballabon had sent him and Reed added the comment, "It's now becoming physically painful," an apparent reference to Reed's distaste at the prospect of sidling up to Ballabon. Abramoff responded with an allusion to the Scottish golf trip he and Reed were to make the following month: "Hey, let's bring Jeff to Scotland and hit balls into him!" Reed, who had traveled to Scotland with Abramoff the year before, wrote back, "Let's hang him upside down from a crane over the 18th at the Old Course and use him to line up our drives!"

When it comes to the world of Washington lobbying, golf seems to bring out the worst in people. At least that's the impression you get from the Abramoff e-mails, hundreds of thousands of which have been obtained by federal investigators. A wide-ranging inquiry has spread across Washington and led Wednesday to the release by the Secret Service of the dates and times of two Abramoff visits to the White House. The Administration has previously acknowledged three other visits Abramoff made to the complex. The Administration also released e-mails Wednesday showing that a former official, David Safavian, offered to help Abramoff when the scandal broke in 2004.

But while the free meals, luxury sky box tickets and other gifts Abramoff spread around Washington have gotten a lot of powerful people in trouble over the last year, one junket that he arranged is proving particularly damaging. In August 2002, Abramoff flew Reed, Safavian, Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, and Ney's former chief of staff, Neil Volz, on a rented Gulfstream II jet to St. Andrews, Scotland, for five days of golf, food and merriment. In the last few weeks, court action and new e-mails have tainted all four guests on the trip.

This week Ney came under renewed scrutiny when Volz pleaded guilty to conspiracy for helping Abramoff provide "things of value" to Ney in exchange for help with Abramoff's lobbying interests, most notably Indian casinos. Federal investigators already have plea agreements with Abramoff and two other colleagues alleging Ney participated in a bribery scheme whereby the Congressman performed official acts in exchange for gifts. First on the list of "things of value," the Justice department said in the criminal information document it released as part of the Volz plea agreement this week, was the Scotland trip.