Anti-gay, anti-recycling rabbi Lapin perped fraud,say senate investigators

[Ian David]

October 12, 2006
Rabbi Lapin "perpetrated a fraud" according to senate investigators

Rabbi Daniel Lapin and his Mercer Island nonprofit Toward Tradition has been named by Senate investigators as among five groups that "perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

According to today's Washington Post:

The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff routed money from his clients to the groups. In exchange the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or press releases that favored the clients' positions.
Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee after a one-year investigation.

Lapin (KSFO Sundays,1-4p) is in good conservative company: Grover Norquist, the anti-tax guru who famously said government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub, is deeply implicated too.

The WaPo reports that Lapin, "whose group was at the center of some of the most infamous lobbying schemes with Abramoff" told the committee that he was shutting down the Seattle-based nonprofit because of negative news coverage related to Abramoff."

But Lapin responded to an e-mail from the Seattle Times' David Postman, "I can assure you that Toward Tradition is alive and healthy with a brand new Web site only one week old and a vibrant program for 2007."

The "vibrance" is none too apparent- the Web site's calendar of events is as empty as the rabbi's ethical credibility.

More:
http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2006/10/rabbi_lapin_per.html

[MADem]

1. Rabbi Lapin.....isn't lapin 'rabbit' in French? So he's Rabbi Rabbit? NT