Lobbyists deliver $66 million insults

WASHINGTON – Days after the week-long celebration of the new National
Museum of the American Indian, tribal members and Congressmen were fuming
over revelations about a new scandal in Indian country, the doings of
lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associate, Michael Scanlon.

At a Sept. 29 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on $66 million in
lobbying fees that the two received from several tribes, Sen. Daniel K.
Inouye noted the contrast, saying that attention now turns from the museum
and its promise for the Native future to “another most unseemly
manifestation of the exploitation of the American Indian.”

In e-mail exchanges that the Committee blew up on large panels in the
hearing room, Abramoff and Scanlon referred to tribal clients who paid them
$66 million over three years in terms of “absolute contempt,” said Chairman
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo. Campbell said Abramoff on one occasion
sent an e-mail stating “I have to meet with the monkeys,” referring to his
clients, the Mississippi Choctaw tribe.

On other occasions, Campbell said, the e-mails refer to tribal clients as
“morons, stupid idiots … troglodytes, losers.” Campbell, the only Indian
in the Senate, said the words offended him personally.

Witnesses and senators at the hearing referred to the two men variously as
“vultures,” “con men,” “crooks,” “charlatans” and “a pathetic, disgusting
example of greed run amok.”

No one called them guilty of criminal wrongdoing though.

The committee has issued at least 45 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of
documents in exposing an alleged pattern of business practice aimed by
Abramoff and Scanlon at “impressionable” tribal leaders, in Sen. John
McCain’s word.

During the years when the e-mails were exchanged, 2001 to 2004, the
committee alleges that Abramoff and Scanlon received or directed the
spending of at least $66 million from six tribes: The Mississippi Choctaw,
the Louisiana Coushatta, the Agua Caliente, Sandia Pueblo, the Saginaw
Chippewa and the Tigua of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.

Despite assertions from the committee that Abramoff and Scanlon put minimal
effort into earning their fees, newspaper accounts indicate that some of
their efforts went into keeping track of likely competitors for casino
tribes.

In one incident, reported at length in the Washington Post, the two along
with Christian conservative Ralph Reed, worked to support efforts of the
state of Texas to shut down the casino of the Tigua in El Paso. (Reed, a
known foe of gaming, has not been implicated in the other Indian-specific
ventures of Abramoff and Scanlon.) Upon succeeding, the e-mail trail shows,
the two gloated over the unemployment of casino workers. Having fulfilled
the requirements of one tribal contract by lobbying to get the Tigua casino
shut down, they turned around and took $4.2 million from the Tigua to lobby
for its reopening. Along the way, in an exchange of e-mails, they belittled
the Tigua for needing their help. The casino has never reopened.

In securing lucrative contracts for themselves, Abramoff and Scanlon may
have interfered in at least two tribal elections by backing slates of
candidates favorable to them, said senators and witnesses. Agua Caliente
Chairman Richard Milanovich told the committee that the two tried to
arrange his defeat. In the case of the Agua Caliente, Campbell said,
Scanlon “did everything but vote” – he wrote speeches, advertised for his
favored candidates and sniped at the others, and even counted votes.

The same pattern occurred during a Saginaw Chippewa election season,
Campbell said.

In addition, the committee alleged, Abramoff directed tribal contributions
to a charity he controlled.

The Sept. 29 hearing was the first in a series on the subject, Campbell
said, adding that they’ll continue after he retires at the end of the
current 108th Congress. If Republicans retain control of the Senate,
McCain, R-Ariz., is likely to become the next committee chairman, and his
hard line of questioning indicates he’ll pursue the committee’s
investigation into the 109th Congress. Democrats on the committee, led by
Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, both D-N.D., urged him to follow the trail
wherever it leads, a not-so-subtle reference to the case’s potentially
explosive political features.

“What we are discussing this morning merely scratches the surface of
activities that surround $66 million dollars,” Dorgan said.

The committee investigation began with news articles that originally
appeared in the Washington Post. Other newspapers have reported on
activities involving the tribes in their regions. A federal inter-agency
task force has also investigated Abramoff and Scanlon, and a federal grand
jury has been empanelled. Dorgan recounted one of the questions before the
investigators, “Was there any federal money that we sent to tribes that
found its way back to this stream?”

Abramoff appeared before the committee but made no opening statement and
answered no questions. Instead he asserted his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination, his right to due process of law and other
constitutional rights. “I respectfully assert the same privileges sir,” he
said to a succession of questions.

“I’m going to continue asking questions,” Campbell said. “You can continue
dodging if you want to.”

Eventually, during questioning from Democrats on the committee, McCain
intervened to end it with a caution against baiting the witness.

Scanlon did not appear. “Last I heard, Mr. Scanlon was dodging U.S.
marshals trying to serve him” with a subpoena from the committee, McCain
said.