Dean denies party ties to Abramoff
By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 11, 2006

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says that Democrats took no money from Jack Abramoff in the lobbying scandal, but a public-interest group official said yesterday that they did accept contributions from the lobbyist's clients, who were trying to buy influence.

    Mr. Dean has stepped up attacks on Republicans, charging, "Every person named in this scandal is a Republican."

    "Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal," Mr. Dean said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

    But Republican officials and a major public-integrity group counter his assertion with a growing list of Democrats who have received contributions from American Indian tribes represented by Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to tax evasion and fraud in connection with his lobbying activities.

    "What our list shows is that both Republicans and Democrats received contributions from Indian tribes that were represented at one time by Jack Abramoff," said Lawrence Noble, executive director and general counsel for the Center for Responsive Politics.

    "So the answer to Dean depends on how you define scandal," Mr. Noble said. "I would say, broadly defined as a question of the tribes' buying influence in Washington, it includes Democrats."

    The political news wire the Hotline has compiled a list of nearly three dozen Democrats who have received campaign contributions from Abramoff-related tribes. More than a dozen of them to date have refused to give back the money, saying that the contributions were legal.

    Leading the list of Democrats is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has received $61,000 in campaign contributions from various donors with links to Abramoff. His office has said he will not return any of the funds because they "were part of lawful fundraising."

    Other Democrats listed who have refused to return Abramoff-linked money include Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

    Some of the Democratic senators who have returned a portion of the money from Abramoff clients or donated it to charity include Max Baucus of Montana, Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Kent Conrad and Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota.

    A top aide to Mr. Dean defended the assertion that "as far as we know," no Democrats were directly or indirectly part of the influence-buying scandal that is under a Justice Department investigation.

    "Indian tribes are not criminals. Jack Abramoff is a criminal who did not give any money to Democrats," said Karen Finney, the DNC's spokeswoman.

    But Mr. Noble said Abramoff may have had a hand in who received money from the tribes he represented.

    "We assume that Abramoff gave the tribes a list of names of members [of Congress] who should receive contributions," Mr. Noble said.
   

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060110-112524-8296r.htm

I think Howard should continue the line that he has been taking.  "Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal."

I'll chime in here.

There are two different scenarios. 

#1.  Indian tribes (or it could be corporations, PACs or any other organization) are perfectly within their rights to contribute directly and legally to any one they choose.  Until there is an accusation by the ethics committee as to the inappropriatness of regular campaign contributions, Harry Reid nor anyone should be lumped with Abramoff.
If so, how about naming all the recepiants of money from the two corporations that provided the $190,000 that Delay switched over to the Republican candidates in Texas?  I haven't heard about them returning the 'laundered' cash.

#2.  Contributions spread around by Abramoff, no matter where the contributions came from initially.  The question is whether he was expecting something in return.
It's all just the Rovian 'best defense is an attack on the opposition' crap.

Consider the source here: this neocon rag is owned by Syun Yung Moon.  It is a mouthpiece for the right wing criminal element within the K Street Conspiracy cabal.  They haven't printed an honest word since the dawn of creation.

The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The Center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists, and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.

Support for the Center comes from a combination of foundation grants and individual contributions. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses or labor unions. You can support the work of the Center directly by contributing through opensecrets.org.

I know the Washington Times is a conservative publication.  However, the person who is quoted...

http://www.crp.org/index.asp

It doesn't matter who was being quoted or for which organization they were quoting.  The simple fact is: Abramoff's clients are not Abramoff.  I have no idea of what Jack's client list looked like, but just for a moment pretend that National Widget Corporation is among them.  National Widget hires Jack to petition government to get a contract approved at the DoD and he bribes someone in the Pentagon.  At the same time they send Congressman X (D) $1,000 because he/she has consistantly helped National Widget get things done in X's district.  Why should X give the money back?  There is no connection between Jack's bribe and National Widget's donation.  It's a McCarthyesque notion- guilt by association.

A top aide to Mr. Dean defended the assertion that "as far as we know," no Democrats were directly or indirectly part of the influence-buying scandal that is under a Justice Department investigation.

    "Indian tribes are not criminals. Jack Abramoff is a criminal who did not give any money to Democrats," said Karen Finney, the DNC's spokeswoman.

    But Mr. Noble said Abramoff may have had a hand in who received money from the tribes he represented.

    "We assume that Abramoff gave the tribes a list of names of members [of Congress] who should receive contributions," Mr. Noble said.

This is the key portion of the article for Democrats:

A big and totally unsupported assumption.  You know what they say about the word "assume": it makes an ASS of U and ME.

And even if that were 100% true, and that such suggestions were acted upon 100% of the time, how would a recipient know that?  How would a recipient know that the contributor was even a client of Abramoff's, let alone what Abramoff asked them to do?  Like I said, it is an unsupportable assumption with absolutely no relevence at all.  This is a Republican problem; they brought it upon themselves.

I agree that this is a Republican problem - this time... Democrats certainly have their own corruptions.

If you assume that everyone's dirty that got a contribution from one of the 6 Indian tribes that were clients of Abramoff, you make the assumption that gaming was the only issue that concerned the tribes. Reid represents Nevada, a state that I daresay is NOT supportive of Indian gaming. So they'd be foolish to expect Reid to support their casinos. Perhaps they wanted to bring attention to other issues of importance to Native Americans. If you need a list of issues of interest and concern to Native Americans, there are a few web sites I can point you towards.

If you assume that everyone's dirty that got a contribution from one of the 6 Indian tribes that were clients of Abramoff, you make the assumption that gaming was the only issue that concerned the tribes. Reid represents Nevada, a state that I daresay is NOT supportive of Indian gaming. So they'd be foolish to expect Reid to support their casinos. Perhaps they wanted to bring attention to other issues of importance to Native Americans. If you need a list of issues of interest and concern to Native Americans, there are a few web sites I can point you towards.

I agree that this is a Republican problem - this time.  I'm just pointing out the arguments that the Republicans will use.

However, I don't believe in this good guy/bad guy mentality that people often get into here when it comes to Republicans and Democrats.  Democrats certainly have their own corruptions.

An interesting interview I heard on NPR this morning.  The interviewee was a longtime washington observer (did not catch name) who said that both parties had individuals or small groups that were involved in corruption, but the new Republican twist is that corruption was institutionalized as a system openly called "pay-to-play."  In the past, you could get what you wanted by either legitimate means, or if you found a willing recipient, bribery. The scandal today is that bribery is the only way.  And it is a republican scandal because the republicans steered bribes to other republicans and punished anyone who gave too much money to democrats.  It is the republicans' own greed that may prove their undoing.

So, maybe it is not good guy/bad guy.  It's more like bad guy/Satan's spawn.

If you assume that everyone's dirty that got a contribution from one of the 6 Indian tribes that were clients of Abramoff, you make the assumption that gaming was the only issue that concerned the tribes. Reid represents Nevada, a state that I daresay is NOT supportive of Indian gaming. So they'd be foolish to expect Reid to support their casinos. Perhaps they wanted to bring attention to other issues of importance to Native Americans. If you need a list of issues of interest and concern to Native Americans, there are a few web sites I can point you towards.

Nicely said!! 

Why are the tribes being singled out like this?  I don't see other lobbyist being raked across the coals in this manner.  I hope these tribes have found legal representation.  Hopefully someone will check with them to make sure they have done so.  They last thing they need is to be raked across the coals, I think there has been just about enough of that done over the last 200 years. 

If you assume that everyone's dirty that got a contribution from one of the 6 Indian tribes that were clients of Abramoff, you make the assumption that gaming was the only issue that concerned the tribes. Reid represents Nevada, a state that I daresay is NOT supportive of Indian gaming. So they'd be foolish to expect Reid to support their casinos. Perhaps they wanted to bring attention to other issues of importance to Native Americans. If you need a list of issues of interest and concern to Native Americans, there are a few web sites I can point you towards.

January 15, 2006 -- 05:22 PM EST

Summa Abramoffica.

For a lot of you this will cover old ground. But there have been a number of questions on this. So let me try to briefly sort out some of the main points and make a couple key distinctions.

Did Jack Abramoff give money pretty much equally to both parties? Or did he only give to Republicans?

You can hear people saying both on the web and the airwaves. And in almost every case the seeming contradictions stem from the fact that the people talking -- either intentionally or otherwise -- are comparing apples and oranges.

Did Jack Abramoff give money to Democrats? To the best of my knowledge Abramoff never contributed any money to Democrats. And that's hardly surprisingly. Abramoff is a life-long professional Republican. How much money do you figure James Carville has contributed to Republicans over the last two decades. Or Paul Begala? It's almost a silly question.

When you hear about Republicans and Democrats getting 'Abramoff money' what's being talked about aren't personal contributions from Abramoff but contributions from entities he worked for as a lobbyist. So, for instance, Abramoff lobbies for Indian tribe X. Indian tribe X contributes to politician Y. Hence, politician Y got 'Abramoff money'.

(Often these calculations figure in only the tribes are not other groups or individuals Abramoff worked for; but that's another story.)

Now, is that logic fair? Is that 'Abramoff money'?

As a political matter, it probably makes sense now for every pol to unload that money -- a conclusion most of them, as you can see, are coming to on their own.

On the merits, though, it's more difficult to make genrealizations.

We know from some of the publicly released emails, that Abramoff in many cases used his clients' bank accounts very much as if they were his own, often giving them specific amounts and recipients for political contributions. In many cases, too, he had them make donations that had little or nothing to do with their own interests (defined in lobbying terms). For instance, what interest did a couple of Abramoff tribe clients have giving money to the New Hampshire Republican party a day or two before they pulled their phone-jamming scam?

There are other cases though where a given politician was associated with Indian rights issues either before Abramoff came on the scene or because of the state or district they represent. There are members of Congress in both parties who fall into that category and are, to some extent, being unfairly tarred.

For these reasons, pure dollar amounts can't tell the whole story without getting more deeply into the context.

More generally, I think you'll see over the course of the next year that these federal 'hard' money contributions -- either from Abramoff or his clients -- aren't where the real game was being played. The real action was in money funnelled or laundered through various DC-based non-profits or de facto cash payments to members of Congress or their staffs.

Stay tuned.

-- Josh Marshall