Abramoff Allies Keeping Distance Scrutiny for Dealings With Indian Tribes

[seemslikeadream]

Abramoff Allies Keeping Distance
Lobbyist Under Scrutiny for Dealings With Indian Tribes

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A23

Shortly after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, tribal leaders of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians approached lobbyist Jack Abramoff with a problem. The tribe's Silver Star Hotel & Casino had barely opened and already legislation was moving forward in Congress calling for Indian casinos to be taxed in the same manner as Las Vegas gambling facilities.

Abramoff knew how to take care of the Choctaws. He convinced the House Republican leadership that it had violated a core principle of the new conservative majority: It had raised taxes. The legislation was scuttled.

Jack Abramoff appeared before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in September but declined to answer questions. (Dennis Cook -- AP)

With Indian gambling revenue now exceeding $16 billion annually, Abramoff's success saved the tribes hundreds of millions of dollars. Soon, he was representing half a dozen other Indian tribes, some paying his firm $2 million or more a year.

In less than a decade, Abramoff's ties to Republican congressional leaders and powerbrokers in the conservative movement catapulted him into the highest ranks of Washington lobbyists. By 2003, Abramoff's clients -- including the Business Roundtable, Atofina Chemicals, Humana, Primedia Inc. and tribal clients -- paid his law firm $11.57 million in fees, one of the highest such sums in Washington.

Paving the way for Abramoff's rise were his ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32633-2004Nov7.html

[NVMojo]

1. remove them from power permanently

While at the College Republicans, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed quickly earned reputations as zealots. Abramoff wrote in the 1983 annual report: "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left. Our job is to remove them from power permanently." The group's recruits were required to memorize a speech that included the lines: "Democrats are the enemy. Wade into them! Spill their blood!"

and this was the same group that gave birth to Rove.