Tribe links key Democrat, lobbyist in probe
WASHINGTON -- New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist in 2002, shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients.
A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians said Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Senator Byron Dorgan's political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program for Abramoff's clients.
The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed in a tribal ledger as being issued on March 6, 2002, to various lawmakers' campaigns and political causes at the instruction of Abramoff, tribal lawyer Jimmy Faircloth said.
Many of the recipients were lawmakers who had just written letters to the Bush administration or Congress supportive of Abramoff's tribal causes, documents show.
''I am confident of that fact," Faircloth said when asked whether Abramoff had requested the donations listed in a tribal ledger obtained by the AP.
The revelation was made as Dorgan took to the offensive Monday, saying there was no connection between the $20,000 in donations he got from Abramoff's clients and a February 2002 letter he wrote urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund the tribal school building program.
Dorgan criticized an AP story last week divulging that he and about a dozen other lawmakers, including Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid and former top Republican leaders Trent Lott and Tom Delay, had received Abramoff-related donations around the time they sent letters supporting the school building program.
Dorgan said he had never met Abramoff, did not know about the donations from the lobbyist's clients, and saw no reason to step aside from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation of Abramoff. 