Top McCain Fundraiser has Abramoff Ties

[tekisui]

As a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, John McCain began the hearings that brought down Jack Abramoff, the former K-Street lobbyist, and key figure in a political scandal that landed Abramoff in jail.

But in Senator McCain's list of his 'bundlers' - or top money collectors - his campaign released this week, among the names was Juan Carlos Benitez, a fellow lawyer and lobbyist whom Abramoff had supported for a Bush administration post in 2001.

Questions have previously been raised about Benitez apart from his possible relationship with Abramoff. According to the blog Fired Up America, Benitez was lobbying for the island of Guam in 2003, at the same time that his wife was a special adviser on economic policy at the Department of the Interior, responsible for helping improve economic conditions on that island. "Mr. Benitez received a fee of $125,000 per month from the taxpayers of Guam, to arrange meetings that the taxpayers of the United States and Guam were already paying his wife to undertake."

The four-person lobbying team Benitez put together for the Guam account also included two men, David DiStefano and Roy Coffee, who were closely involved at the same time with the now-disgraced Rep. Bob Ney. Ney pleaded guilty in 2006 to corruption charges related to his dealings both with Jack Abramoff and with a shadowy European firm called FN Aviation. DiStefano, a former Ney chief of staff, and Coffee, who had been part of George W. Bush's staff when he was governor of Texas, both worked for FN Aviation in 2003 and also donated generously to Ney's campaign.

link: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Top_McCain_fundraiser_has_Abramoff_ties_0717.html