Lobbyist cited US help in blocking rival casino

WASHINGTON -- Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff asserted in e-mails sent in 2002 that the deputy secretary of the interior had pledged to block an Indian casino that would compete with a client of the lobbyist. Abramoff later told two associates that he was trying to hire the official.

A federal task force investigating Abramoff's activities has conducted interviews and obtained documents from Interior Department officials and Abramoff associates to determine whether conflict-of-interest laws were violated, people with knowledge of the probe said. It can be a federal crime for government officials to negotiate for a job while being involved in decisions affecting the potential employer.

The two former Abramoff associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are under scrutiny in the investigation, said Abramoff told them in late 2003 that he was trying to arrange for his firm, Greenberg Traurig LLP, to hire J. Steven Griles, deputy interior secretary. Federal investigators are interested in those discussions and in job negotiations Abramoff may have had with a second department official, sources said.

Abramoff told associates that he thought Griles was ''committed" to blocking an effort by the Gun Lake Indian tribe to build a casino near Grand Rapids, Mich., according to the content of e-mail messages reviewed by The Washington Post. Abramoff said the block would involve an environmental challenge, a tactic also proposed by Michigan business leaders opposed to the casino. Abramoff fought the project because it would draw business from a casino operated by his clients, the Saginaw Chippewas.

Environmental concerns ended up delaying action on the Gun Lake casino. The project was cleared last May by the Interior Department.

Gun Lake was not the only casino that Abramoff tried to derail through his departmental contacts. The Post has reported on e-mails indicating that the lobbyist enlisted Griles to stop a Louisiana tribe's proposed casino, which threatened another of Abramoff's clients.

Griles, who left the Interior Department earlier this year to form a consulting firm, ''said he never had anything to do with the Gun Lake casino issues," a spokeswoman at his company said. He did not comment on any job discussions with Abramoff. A spokesman for Abramoff also declined to comment. Greenberg Traurig, citing the ongoing investigation, had no comment on possible job talks with department officials.

In a separate case, Abramoff and a business partner were indicted this month on federal wire fraud and conspiracy charges in Florida. They are accused of providing lenders with a counterfeit financial document to consummate their purchase of a casino cruise line in 2000. Allegations of fraud emerged after the seller was later killed in a gang-style hit.

The Washington probe, being conducted by the Justice Department's fraud and public corruption unit, focuses on Abramoff's lobbying work on Capitol Hill for Indian tribes for which he and public relations executive Michael Scanlon were paid $82 million. Scanlon, one of about a dozen congressional staff members who went to work with Abramoff, had served as press spokesman for House majority leader Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas.

The Justice Department task force, which includes the FBI and IRS, is looking into Abramoff's dealings with lawmakers and their staffs. Investigators from the Interior Department's inspector general's office, part of the task force, have been asking witnesses about the Gun Lake casino project, according to people who have had contact with the investigators.

The task force also is examining Abramoff's relationships and influence with officials in the Bush administration, as highlighted by the previously undisclosed Gun Lake e-mails. The e-mails show how Abramoff relied on the president of a conservative group, Italia Federici, to intercede with Griles, who was her friend.

Copies of Abramoff's e-mails referencing Griles and Federici were obtained from a variety of sources, including the Interior Department. Some e-mails involving Gun Lake were read to the Post by a person who declined to release them because of the federal probe.

Department officials said the Gun Lake process was proper, adding that they could not comment further because of the ongoing investigation into Abramoff's contacts with the Interior Department.

The Gun Lake tribe, formally known as the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, began seeking approval in 2001 for a casino on 147 acres near Grand Rapids.

As part of its application, the tribe prepared an environmental assessment and was close to approval by the end of 2002. The tribe was not asked to produce an environmental impact statement, or EIS, which is a much more detailed study.

In the first half of 2003, the Gun Lake tribe remained under the impression that its application was about to be approved. But in July of that year, the Department of Justice's Indian law section raised concerns about the project and sought an environment impact statement.

Federal investigators are examining the circumstances that led the section to raise its objections, according to people who have been interviewed in the probe.

Thomas L. Sansonetti, then the assistant attorney general overseeing the Indian law section, told Interior Department officials that his office did not want to take on the burden of defending the department if it was sued by opponents of Gun Lake on environmental grounds.

Asked to comment on how his tribe's application was handled, Gun Lake leader D.K. Sprague issued a statement complaining of the cost of the delay and urging ''a thorough investigation" by the Justice Department task force.

''We have been denied our federal rights, economic self-sufficiency, and jobs that will benefit our community," he said.