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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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 Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject: Reid Implicated in Abramoff Scandal |
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| Quote: | Abramoff Reports to Prison; Officials Focus on Reid, Others
November 15, 2006 1:23 PM
Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz Report:
As convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff reported to federal prison today, a source close to the investigation surrounding his activities told ABC News that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was one of the members of Congress Abramoff had allegedly implicated in his cooperation with federal prosecutors.
A spokesperson for Reid, elected yesterday as the Senate Majority Leader, said the senator had done nothing illegal or unethical.
"We have no idea what Abramoff is telling prosecutors to save his skin, but I do know that these kind of old allegations are completely ridiculous and untrue," Sen. Reid's spokesman Jim Manley told ABC News.
A source close to the investigation says Abramoff told prosecutors that more than $30,000 in campaign contributions to Reid from Abramoff's clients "were no accident and were in fact requested by Reid."
Abramoff has reportedly claimed the Nevada senator agreed to help him on matters related to Indian gambling.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to the tribes that had contributed money to his campaign.
Reid has denied there was any connection between the letters and the contributions and has said he is a longtime opponent of certain kinds of Indian reservation gambling.
The AP reported that Reid acknowledged "routine contacts" with Abramoff's lobbying partners and intervening to block rival tribal casinos.
The AP also reported that Abramoff's billing records showed extensive contact with Reid's office over a three-year period in which Reid collected more than $68,000 from Abramoff's firm, partners and clients.
Prosecutors have said that Abramoff's cooperation is essential to the corruption investigation, but, so far, they have brought only one prosecution against a member of Congress connected to Abramoff, Republican Bob Ney of Ohio, who resigned.
The source said prosecutors do not intend to rely solely on Abramoff's account of events, and his allegations against Reid and others will not necessarily result in criminal charges.
Sources close to the federal investigation say Abramoff has offered testimony about his contacts with "six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators" and an ever larger number of Republican members of Congress.
In addition to Reid, the sources say Abramoff has been most closely questioned about his contacts with Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), who was defeated in last week's election.
"Being defeated may have been one of the best things that ever happened to Burns," said a source close to the investigation. "There is much more interest in members of Congress who are still in office," the source said.
Burns, who received more than $150,000 in Abramoff-connected campaign contributions, has strongly denied any wrongdoing and returned the money.
Sen. Reid has been an outspoken critic of the connections between Abramoff and Republican legislators.
In a speech earlier this year, Sen. Reid described it as "a program where the lobbyists paid and the Republican members of Congress played."
The Justice Department said it would have no comment on the ongoing Abramoff investigation. |
Source - ABC News
I do hope this is true - and provable.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:30 am Post subject: |
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Hope....hope.....hope.....hope.
Dusty
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Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right! |
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Stevie
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 1451
Location: Queen Creek, Arizona
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:47 am Post subject: |
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who else thinks they'll spin it so good he'll get a promotion...
if not sainthood? 
_________________
Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged. |
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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Don't Bet on Coincidence The Washington Post November 18, 2005 Friday
Final Edition
SECTION: Editorial; A22
LENGTH: 514 words
HEADLINE: Don't Bet on Coincidence
BODY:
WASHINGTON, it seems, is a city of coincidences.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) held a fundraiser at lobbyist Jack Abramoff's restaurant on June 3, 2003. His political action committee, Keep Our Majority, took in at least $21,500 from Mr. Abramoff's law firm and Mr. Abramoff's Indian tribal clients.
One week later the speaker and his three top deputies wrote Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, urging her to reject a request for a new casino from the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians. As it happened, the Louisiana Coushatta and Mississippi Choctaw, two of Mr. Abramoff's biggest tribal clients, were furiously working to block the casino.
To hear Mr. Hastert's office tell it, the checks had nothing to do with the letter. "We've always opposed these things, in our back yard, in our state, someplace else," Michael Stokke, Mr. Hastert's deputy chief of staff, told the Associated Press. In all, Mr. Hastert received more than $100,000 in donations from Mr. Abramoff's firm and tribal clients from 2001 to 2004.
On the Senate side, Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), now the Senate minority leader, also wrote Ms. Norton in opposition to the casino. The letter was dated March 5, 2002. On March 6, 2002, one of Mr. Abramoff's tribal clients wrote a $5,000 check to Mr. Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund. "There is absolutely no connection between the letter and the fundraising," said Mr. Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley. Another coincidence! Mr. Reid's Abramoff-related total: $66,000 between 2001 and 2004.
And so it goes, according to an account by Associated Press reporters John Solomon and Sharon Theimer. They reveal that nearly three dozen members of Congress pressed to block the Jena casino as they harvested checks from rival tribes and from Mr. Abramoff.
The lawmakers insist they were motivated not by the contributions but by their righteous opposition to expanding Indian casino operations. Somehow, though, that distaste didn't stop them from scooping up contributions from gambling tribes. Of 27 lawmakers who signed a joint letter to Ms. Norton urging rejection of the casino because of the "societal damage" of gambling, all but eight received Abramoff-related donations or used his restaurant as a fundraising venue. For example, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) received $5,500 from casino-operating tribes represented by Mr. Abramoff a month after signing the letter; Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) got $1,000 from Mr. Abramoff several weeks before signing the letter and $16,000 from casino tribes two months later.
An environment that requires politicians to raise money to finance their campaigns inevitably raises questions about the influence wielded by donors. But the close proximity in time between the writing of the checks and the sending of the letters, the intrusion into executive branch decision making and the flimsiness of any policy explanation for the involvement of many of these legislators presents a particularly odiferous instance of the ways in which money talks in Washington. Unless, that is, you believe it's all a coincidence.
LOAD-DATE: November 18, 2005 |
SBD |
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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Reid, Ensign show no worry Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada) January 4, 2006 Wednesday
SECTION: A; Pg. 4A
LENGTH: 806 words
HEADLINE: Reid, Ensign show no worry
BYLINE: Steve Tetreault
BODY:
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Nevada's senators distanced themselves Tuesday from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to charges of influence peddling while agreeing to give authorities information for a widening corruption probe of Congress.
Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign said neither they nor their aides have been questioned nor contacted by Justice Department investigators digging into allegations that Abramoff steered campaign donations and expensive perks to lawmakers in exchange for official acts.
"Neither Senator Reid nor anyone on staff is under investigation or has received any notice" from prosecutors, Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.
Reid said at a news conference in Carson City that he has "not a thing" to be worried about as far as Abramoff. "I've never been in the same room with the man as far as I know," he said.
Likewise, Ensign said neither he nor his aides have been contacted by authorities, "and I would not expect us to be."
Reid, a Democrat, and Ensign, a Republican, were linked to the lobbyist in a news report in November that focused on a letter they wrote on March 5, 2002, to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
The Nevadans urged Norton to reject an application from the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, which was seeking to open a casino outside its Louisiana reservation.
An Abramoff client fighting the Jena casino, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, donated $5,000 to Reid's political action committee, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, the next day, according to The Associated Press report.
Nearly three dozen other lawmakers who pressed Norton to reject the Jena tribe's application also collected donations from Abramoff or his clients and associates, according to the report.
Between 2001 and 2004 Reid received $61,000 from donors with links to Abramoff, Reid's office confirmed.
"Any contributions he received were part of lawful fundraising," Hafen said Tuesday. "Senator Reid has done nothing wrong and sees no need to return the donations."
Ensign received $16,293 from donors tied to Abramoff and gaming tribes, according to the report.
In October, two months after Abramoff was indicted on bank fraud charges, Ensign said he donated the money to the Nevada Patriot Fund, which helps families of Nevadans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who also signed a Norton letter, received $2,500 from Abramoff-linked sources. She has denied any connection between her action and the donations.
Ensign and Reid disclosed Tuesday they have asked the Senate Ethics Committee for an opinion on their 2002 letter, which they argued was ethical and proper. Representing a state with legalized gambling, they said it was not unusual for them to fight Indian tribes trying to expand gaming.
They also disclosed they wrote a similar letter in 2003.
"Our March 5 letter was consistent with this long-standing policy goal and any suggestion that the letter was motivated instead by political contributions is baseless," the senators told the Ethics Committee in a letter sent Dec. 14 to Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, the panel chairman, and Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., the ranking Democrat.
"We know what we did was right and fine and within ethics rules, and we wanted a stamp of approval from the Ethics Committee," Ensign said. A committee spokesman could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Among perks at his disposal, Abramoff controlled skyboxes at the MCI Center in Washington and at other sports venues that were used for fundraising. Ensign said his staff checked and found no records that he attended any such event.
Hafen said she had no comment on whether Reid has attended a sporting event in any such suite, saying Reid conducts "lawful fundraising."
Reid also has been linked to Abramoff through Edward Ayoob, who is from Las Vegas and worked for Reid from June 1997 to March 2002 variously as legislative counsel, tax counsel, appropriations manager, foreign affairs adviser and chief aide on judicial nominations, according to a biography on his employer's Web site.
Ayoob in 2002 was hired as a lobbyist by Greenberg Traurig LLP, where his work included teaming with Abramoff and other lobbyists on client matters.
Abramoff left Greenberg Traurig in March 2004 after the Senate and the FBI began investigating his activities.
Ayoob, 36, left Greenberg Traurig in spring 2005. He now is a senior lobbyist at Barnes & Thornburg LLP.
Contacted at his office last week, Ayoob declined to comment.
Reid on Tuesday downplayed Ayoob's role, saying Ayoob was a legislative assistant on his staff and not an adviser.
Ayoob and Reid met "from time to time" after Ayoob became a lobbyist, Hafen said. She said she did not know when they last spoke or how Reid would characterize their relationship today.
Review-Journal Capital Bureau writer Sean Whaley contributed to this report.
LOAD-DATE: January 9, 2006 |
SBD |
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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That all these senators are guilty of influence peddling is obvious.
That Democrats and Republicans are receiving different levels of judgement in the matter is also obvious.
Why?
Dusty
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Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right! |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| dusty wrote: | That Democrats and Republicans are receiving different levels of judgement in the matter is also obvious.
Why? |
Spin peddling |
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