E-mails show details of Abramoff donation requests
Nonprofit groups funneled money for lobbyist
WASHINGTON -- Newly released documents in the Jack Abramoff investigation shed light on how the lobbyist secretly routed his clients' funds through tax-exempt organizations with the acquiescence of those in charge, including prominent conservative activist Grover Norquist.
The federal inquiry has brought a string of bribery-related charges and plea deals. The possible misuse of tax-exempt groups is also receiving investigators' attention, sources familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this year, after Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiring to ply lawmakers with gifts in exchange for favors, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Mark Everson, said, ``One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence."
Among the organizations used by Abramoff was Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.
According to an investigative report on Abramoff's lobbying released last week by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, the organization served as a ``conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. As the money passed through, Norquist's organization kept a small cut, e-mails show.
A second group Norquist was involved with, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, received about $500,000 in Abramoff client funds; the council's president has told Senate investigators that Abramoff often asked her to lobby a senior Interior Department official on his behalf.
The committee report said the Justice Department should further investigate the Republican organization's dealings with the department and its former deputy secretary, J. Steven Griles.
Norquist has long been an architect of tax-cutting policies and political strategies that have boosted the Republican Party.
He and Abramoff have been close since they were conservative leaders of the College Republicans more than two decades ago.
The Senate committee report also details Abramoff's dealings with two others from the College Republican crowd: Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition executive director; and Amy Moritz Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which sponsored a golf trip in 2000 to Scotland for then-Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas.
``Call Ralph re Grover doing pass through," Abramoff wrote in one e-mail reminder to himself in 1999, a year in which Norquist moved more than $1 million in Abramoff client money to Reed and Christian antigambling groups.
Reed was working to defeat lotteries and casinos that would have competed with Abramoff's tribal and Internet gambling clients.
In a recent interview at The
He said that ATR was not used to conceal the source of funds sent to Reed.
Reed reiterated in a statement last week that he did not know the money he received originated as the proceeds of gambling at Indian casinos.
Ridenour, appearing before the Indian Affairs Committee last year, acknowledged that her organization had accepted grants lined up by Abramoff and disbursed funds at his suggestion. She said that she told Abramoff that the National Center for Public Policy Research would be willing to finance only programs consistent with the group's tax-exempt purpose, listed in tax records as ``nonpartisan analysis, study, and research."
But dozens of e-mails show that Abramoff and his team considered the national center and other tax-exempt groups a ready resource in their efforts to influence Congress.
In one instance, Abramoff's team wanted to send two lawmakers on a trip to the Mississippi Choctaw reservation in 2001, but one representative's office had concerns about accepting such a trip from a gaming tribe.
``How about getting National Center for Public Policy Research to sponsor the trip?" Abramoff suggested. ``Works for me," replied a lobbying colleague.
E-mails suggest Ridenour was aware that Abramoff viewed her organization as a convenient pass-through.
In September 2002, Abramoff suggested to one of his associates placing $500,000 in client funds with the national center because the group ``can direct money at our discretion, anywhere if you know what I mean."
That morning Abramoff wrote Ridenour: ``I might have $500K for you to run through NCPPR. Is this still something you want to do?" Ridenour was enthusiastic: ``Yes, we would love to do it."
Ridenour did not respond to requests for comment on the Senate committee report or the e-mails released with it.
Tax law specialists said that it is impermissible for a tax-exempt organization to act as a pass-through for money destined for private business purposes.
Norquist's relationship with Abramoff's gambling clients began in 1995 when Congress was considering taxing tribal casinos.
Abramoff, then a newly registered lobbyist with Preston Gates & Ellis, e-mailed a colleague that Norquist was willing to fight a tax opposed by another of his clients -- a beverage company -- if the firm became ``a major player with ATR." Abramoff suggested the firm donate $50,000 to the group.
``What is most important however is that this matter is kept discreet," Abramoff said in an e-mail on Oct. 24, 1995. ``We do not want the opponents to think that we are trying to buy the taxpayer movement."
The following year, according to the Senate committee report, the Choctaw tribe donated $60,000 to ATR to oppose a tax on Indian casinos. By 1999, the organization was getting large sums of Choctaw money.
All told in 1999, the Choctaws gave ATR $1.15 million, most of which the organization passed on to Reed's for-profit political consulting company, Century Strategies, and Christian antigambling groups working to defeat a state lottery in Alabama.
Norquist said in the Post interview that the Choctaw tribe originally wanted ATR to direct the antilottery campaign, but his organization decide that it would be better to assist Christian groups already fighting the lottery.
Choctaw representative Nell Rogers told Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigators that ATR ``was not involved and was not considering getting involved in any efforts the Choctaw ultimately paid Reed and others to oppose," the committee reported. ``Rogers told the committee staff that she understood from Abramoff that ATR was willing to serve as a conduit, provided it received a fee," the report said.
Rogers said the tribe had a long relationship with Americans for Tax Reform and assumed that the fee ``would simply be used to support the overall activity of ATR."
Abramoff, however, grew annoyed at the amount that Norquist took off the top before sending the money on, e-mails show. ``Grover kept another $25 k!" Abramoff wrote in a February 2000 note to himself.
