DeLay aide got nearly $1M from nonprofit

WASHINGTON -- A top adviser to Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, received nearly a third of all the money collected by the US Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a profamily political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.

DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin Buckham, helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ. Buckham and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.23 million in revenues, collecting payments totaling $996,754 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.

The group's revenue was mostly drawn from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. An FBI subpoena for the records appears to indicate that the bureau is exploring whether there were links between the payments and favorable legislative treatment of Abramoff's clients by DeLay's office.

In recent months, Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and conspiracy to defraud clients and bribe a public official; DeLay has stepped down from his post as House majority leader; and Buckham has folded his lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group.

In the late 1990s, when DeLay's influence was growing, the lawmaker depicted the network in a promotional letter as a nationwide, grass-roots organization. In fact, it had a tiny staff that barely registered an impact on Capitol Hill. The group appears to have served mostly as a vehicle for funneling corporate funds to DeLay's advisers and financing ads that attacked Democrats.

The group's payments to the Buckhams -- in the form of a monthly retainer as well as commissions on donations by Abramoff's clients -- overlapped briefly with Edwin Buckham's service as chief of staff to DeLay and continued during his subsequent role as DeLay's chief political adviser.

During this latter period, Buckham and his wife, acting through their consulting firm, made monthly payments averaging $3,200 to $3,400 apiece to DeLay's wife, Christine, for three of the years in which he collected money from the network and some other clients.

The Buckhams and their lawyer, Laura Miller, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Even though Buckham, an evangelical minister, left DeLay's staff at the end of 1997, he still coordinated much of the congressional office's work and ran DeLay's principal fund-raising committee from a building bought with the network's money, according to three former DeLay staff members who said they had first-hand knowledge of his role then.

''If an individual called DeLay's appointments secretary, saying they wanted to talk to DeLay about overregulation, the appointment secretary would say, 'Go speak to Buckham,' " said one former aide. Buckham, an evangelical minister, also continued to serve as DeLay's spiritual adviser and prayed frequently with him, the former aides said.

DeLay's lawyer, Richard Cullen, disputed the accounts of Buckham's influence. He said Buckham made appointment requests but was not involved in final decisions on scheduling after he left the office.

He also said Buckham did not coordinate the office's activities, contending that was done by successors.

The accounting records reviewed by the Post included a list of every transaction by the network from 1996 to 2000 and the group's tax returns for 2001, the last year it existed. They demonstrate that the consulting fees, bonuses, and fund-raising commissions for the Buckhams -- plus the purchase of a townhouse that served as the locus of DeLay's own fund-raising efforts -- consumed far more of the group's budget than its spending for lobbying on ''moral fitness" issues.

A previous article in the Post detailed how the network had drawn its largest checks from Abramoff's clients, including $1 million from what several former Buckham associates described as Russian oil and gas executives and hundreds of thousands of dollars from an Indian tribe client of Abramoff's.

Records obtained by federal investigators after that article appeared and reviewed by the Post make clear just how unusual the network's spending was.

Its revenues were lavished not only on DeLay's advisers, but on a variety of expenses that specialists say are atypical for such a small nonprofit: $62,375 for wall art, a vase listed at $20,000, a plane ticket for Abramoff that cost $11,548, and $267,202 in travel and entertainment expenses that appear to have mostly benefited Buckham, the group's board members, and its tiny staff.