More Improprieties Alleged with Abramoff
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee heard testimony today from Louisiana Coushatta tribal leaders today alleging they paid lobbyist Michael Scanlon, a partner of Jack Abramoff, $870,000 in an effort to gain political protection for their Louisiana gambling casinos.
Scanlon and Abramoff have been associated with senior Bush administration officials and Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX).
The AP reports that, according to the tribal leaders, Scanlon and Abramoff,
“[E]xaggerated the threat of competing casinos opening in Texas and Louisiana to siphon millions from the Louisiana Coushatta tribe and then used the money to pad coffers of personal charities and political allies.”
"They preyed on our political insecurities, economic insecurities and insecurities about each other."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee was quoted as saying Abramoff and Scanlon viewed the Coushatta as their “money train.”
In October 2001, the tribe paid Michael Scanlon $870,000 to create a grass-roots political structure in Texas because it was told Texas was on the verge of legalizing gambling and that would devastate the Coushatta casino, which relies on customers from Houston, the Senate panel was told.
"Our vulnerability simply provided an opportunity to steal and they hit the jackpot with us," Sickey said of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Scanlon, his partner.
The Senate committee has been investigating Abramoff and Scanlon, a public relations specialist who formerly was a spokesman for ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the more than $80 million they were paid between 2001 and 2004 by six American Indian tribes with gaming casinos.
McCain plans for the investigative committee to issue a report of their findings in January.
As to the Bush administration connections:
McCain said the committee also had subpoenaed Italia Federici, head of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that Interior Secretary Gale Norton helped found before she joined the Bush administration.
Federici did not respond to the subpoena, McCain said. Federici’s group received at least $250,000 in contributions from the Coushatta, but McCain said the committee could not find anything the group did for the tribes.
Another former Bush administration official, David Safavian, who was chief of staff of the General Services Administration, the government’s procurement arm, was charged this fall with making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation of a 2002 golf outing to Scotland that Abramoff took with Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and others.
False statements and obstruction – that has a familiar ring.
