HEARINGS ENTER LOBBYING-WORLD RABBIT HOLE
Ethics Story Thickens Over Abramoff-Interior Relationships
By Todd Wilkinson, 2-16-07
In yet another twist in the murky relationship between convicted Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the U.S. Interior Department, it is now being reported that alleged ethical violations may extend into the U.S. Justice Department—the very cabinet branch charged with preventing and prosecuting corruption in government.
In a story in Thursday’s Washington Post, it was noted that another Administration political appointee, with romantic ties to former deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, has resigned amid new revelations.
Spurred on by House oversight hearings, investigations now are underway into the conduct of Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who was intially put in charge of investigating Mr. Griles’ alleged ethical abuses while not disclosing that she had been Mr. Griles’ girlfriend.
Griles served as a hand-picked deputy to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton and specialized in energy-related natural resource issues for the Bush Administration. Before joining Interior, he previously worked as an energy industry lobbyist. Norton recently took a job as a senior legal counsel for oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.
After the story in the Post written by Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi appeared this week, the web site Bush Greenwatch, operated by the environmental group, Friends of the Earth, had this to say: “Last fall, Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney testified before Congress that ‘simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.’ New revelations about the relationship between two high-ranking administration officials add new meaning to Devaney’s charge.”
It would seem to appear the professional (and sometimes personal) relationships between Norton, Wooldridge, Griles and Abramoff were all entangled by a thin layer of separation, though no one, except for Abramoff, has yet been charged with any crime. Wooldridge’s failure to disclose her ties to Griles has been the subject of several reports from Legal Times staffer Jason McLure.
Bush Greenwatch observes: “According to the Legal Times, while serving as deputy chief of staff to Secretary Gale Norton, Wooldridge was tasked with screening Griles’ compliance with his recusal agreements [in response to an ethics investigation over his continued ties to his former lobbying aquaintances]. She [Wooldridge] subsequently oversaw the operation of the department’s ethics office—which was monitoring Griles’ conduct—while serving as solicitor, the department’s top lawyer. At one point she [Wooldridge] even weighed in on his behalf, writing a letter that disputed a draft Inspector General report that concluded Griles may have committed an ethical violation.”
At no time during the Inspector General’s 18-month investigation into Griles, Bush Greenwatch writes, “did Wooldridge disclose her relationship with him, which, according to the Legal Times, dated at least to February of 2004. Nor did she disclose the relationship during her Senate confirmation hearing for the Interior solicitor job, or mention it when questioned about potential conflicts of interest during her later Justice Department confirmation hearing.”
While this information in itself seems compelling, the drama, it turns out, thickens even more: In the front page story in the Post that ran Thursday, reporters Schmidt and Grimaldi write:
“A senior Justice Department official who recently resigned her post bought a nearly $1 million vacation home with a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips months before approving consent decrees that would give the oil company more time to pay millions of dollars in fines and meet pollution-cleanup rules at some of its refineries,” Schmidt and Grimaldi write.
“Sue Ellen Wooldridge, former assistant attorney general in charge of environment and natural resources, bought a $980,000 home on Kiawah Island, S.C., last March with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Don R. Duncan. A third owner of the house is J. Steven Griles, a former deputy interior secretary, who has been informed he is a target in the federal investigation of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying activities.”
In another insightful story written by the Legal Times’ Jason McLure, the reporter notes, based upon recently filed disclosure forms, that Mr. Griles lavished Wooldridge with expensive gifts, including jewelry and a trip to Paris. How blurry did Wooldridge and Griles make the lines of conflict of interest?
McLure writes: “Stephen Grafman, a lawyer for Wooldridge, says she was not aware until late last year that gifts ‘given in the context of a personal relationship were reportable events.’ Barry Hartman, a lawyer for Griles, says the gift rules are ‘complicated and convoluted’ and says Griles amended his disclosure forms as soon as he learned the gifts should have been reported.”
Abramoff’s relationship with Griles and, in turn, Griles’ relationship with Norton, Wooldridge, and others, are the subject of ongoing public scrutiny being applied by the House Natural Resoures Committee, now controlled by Democrats. Among the witnesses being called to testify are Interior Department Inspector General Devaney.
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Questions... questions... Do you think they do threeways out there in their island bungalow? Do you think that this kind of stuff is what the Christian community thought they were supporting when they backed this current slate of GOP filth? Finally, why, oh why, aren't Craig and Marion and the rest of the usual rightwing spam purveyors eager to jump in here "to discourage and demoralize the liberal discussion" on this topic? I guess some things truly can get so rotten that even they can't choke them down.
MESKWAKI COUNCIL
Did Abramoff dollars influence tribal fight?
By Orlan Love The Gazette
$1.2 million they paid to Abramoff’s Greenberg Traurig firm during and after the tribe’s 2003 leadership crisis.
Des Moines attorney Fred Dorr, who represents members of the deposed council, said events in 2003, coupled with revelations about Abramoff’s illegal practices, raise serious questions about the legality of the process that yielded recognition of his clients’ opponents, the Tribal
MESKWAKI SETTLEMENT — Members of a Meskwaki Tribal Council deposed in 2003 and their supporters say the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal sheds new and possibly incriminating light on federal decisions that led to their ouster.
Members of the triumphant Tribal Council led by Homer Bear Jr. and their supporters say there was nothing illegal or improper about the Council led by Bear. Dorr said the Homer Bear group’s May 16, 2003, withd r a w a l o f $400,000 in $100 bills from the Home Federal Savings Bank i n T o l e d o could have provided unacc o u n t e d - f o r cash to lubricate the kind of shady deals Abramoff later became famous for.
‘‘They got this money at a time they were not recognized as the Meskwakis’ legitimate Tribal Council,’’ Dorr said.
Meskwaki lobbyist Tom Jochum said the cash withdrawal was a routine transaction to provide operating money for the casino, which had not yet been closed by regulators.
Abramoff e-mails
Dorr said a pair of Abramoff e-mails subpoenaed as part of a Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation demonstrate the fallen lobbyist’s involvement in the Meskwaki power struggle.
Abramoff, in a June 2, 2003,
e-mail to Italia Federici, an Abramoff ally with connections in the Interior Department, said he wanted ‘‘to see if we can get a sense as to where we are on the following:
‘‘1. Sac and Fox (very important and urgent — they are now in town . . .’’
Federici admitted during questioning in November before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that Abramoff raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her organization — the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton — and asked Federici to use her influence to intervene on behalf of his tribal clients with her friends at the Department of Interior.
Though she denied ever doing so, the Meskwakis, under the Bear council, later gave $50,000 to her group.
Dorr said a second Abramoff e-mail, dated Sept. 13, 2003, reveals the depth of the convicted lobbyist’s involvement in the Meskwaki power struggle. In it, Abramoff informed several cronies that Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles was on the verge of quitting to join Greenberg Traurig.
‘‘This will restrict what he can do for us in the meantime, but he did give me some suggestions on how to get Meskwati through,’’ Abramoff wrote, misspelling the tribe’s name.
The only explanation for that e-mail, said Dorr, was that Abramoff was working from inside the Interior Department to gain recognition of his clients, the Homer Bear group.
Norton’s resignation Friday, ostensibly to pursue private sector opportunities, revitalized hopes among
members of the deposed council of Alex Walker Jr. that Abramoff will soon be naming names, as his plea agreement requires him to do.
Dorr said he began to suspect the ‘‘fix’’ w a s m a d e when Aurene Martin, the Bureau of Indian Affairs official who upheld the Bear council’s election in the fall of 2003, cut off the appeal process before he could even respond on his clients’ behalf.
He became more convinced, he said, when he noticed that Greenberg Traurig attorneys — who were not parties to the legal appeal — were being copied on documents from Martin.
‘‘It was clear Greenberg Traurig was trying to influence the outcome, even though they were not officially in the legal proceedings,’’ Dorr said.
While the deposed council considers itself the victim of a coup d’etat, the Bear council regards its ascendancy to power as the fulfillment of a Meskwaki majority’s wishes.
Tribal troubles
The trouble boiled over in early 2003 when Walker, the leader of a duly elected Tribal Council, refused to honor recall petitions seeking his removal from office.
The tribe’s hereditary chief, Charlie Old Bear, summoned for guidance by Bear adherents, then appointed the Bear faction as Tribal Council — a move the Walker council again rejected.
Undaunted, the Bear council seized control of the casino and tribal offices, as well as tribal accounts containing millions of dollars.
Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognized the Walker council as the tribe’s legitimate leader, the Bear council operated the casino from March 26 until a temporary closure order by the National Indian Gaming Commission was enforced by a federal judge May 23, 2003.
The order closed the casino, which generated $3 million a week and employed 1,300 people, for seven months.
A Bear-led tribal vote on May 22 yielded an electoral victory for Bear, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not recognize the results of that vote.
By that time, the Bear faction had hired Abramoff’s Greenberg Traurig firm to advance its cause with federal regulators.
Jochum, a former Democratic state legislator who has lobbied for the Meskwakis since 1998, switched sides during the power struggle, turning his back on Walker, whom he called ‘‘a crook and a liar,’’ and backing the eventually triumphant Bear council.
‘‘When I decided to help Homer Bear and his council, I didn’t know who was going to win, but I felt more comfortable with the Bear group because it clearly had the support of the people,’’ Jochum said.
The Bear group recognized its need for lobbying representation in Washington ‘‘if we were going to influence the Bureau of Indian Affairs to support new elections,’’ Jochum said.
Jochum said Abramoff associate Mike Smith contacted him about representing the Meskwakis.
‘‘Mike Smith handled the account. Jack Abramoff never came to Iowa, and (his partner Michael) Scanlon was never involved,’’ Jochum said.
Jochum said a Meskwaki delegation that included himself, attorney Steven Olson, Homer Bear and Meskwaki executive director Larry Lasley met Abramoff briefly during a meeting in Washington in early June 2003.
Doolittle support
Also in early June 2003, Abramoff associate Kevin Ring brought the Meskwaki delegation to the Washington office of Rep. John Doolittle, a California Republican.
Later that month, Doolittle wrote Norton, criticizing the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ response to the Meskwaki crisis.
Doolittle said the Meskwaki casino had been shut down because the Bureau of Indian Affairs had refused to recognize a newly elected Tribal Council — the Homer Bearled council that only a month earlier had hired Abramoff’s firm.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Sen. Conrad Burns, RMont., also joined to write a June 25 letter to Norton, urging the Interior Department ‘‘to take a leading role to bring this dispute to a prompt and peaceful conclusion.’’
Dorr said he finds the Bear council’s relationship with Doolittle especially suspicious.
‘‘They got Doolittle, who has no ties to the Meskwaki in Iowa, to send a letter, and then they gave him $5,000 that would appear to be in return for that help,’’ Dorr said.
Jochum emphatically disagrees.
The Bear group, he said, wanted the Interior Department to help end the dispute by scheduling elections that would determine which faction would govern the tribe.
‘‘Doolittle is just one of the people we got in to see. We could have gotten 50 letters from 50 congressmen if we could have seen that many. Everybody is for fair elections.’’
The $1.2 million the Bear council paid Greenberg Traurig in 2003 and 2004 yielded benefits, Jochum said.
Stuart, you ask a pertinent question, but I'd expand on it: Why has the comment section of AMERICA been so quiet? Where the hell is the outrage?
By the way, I liked your Greed Over People, Greed Over Pronghorn, all GOP line. In that context, where is the outrage over those oil/gas operations? Did no one project a risk associated with punching tractionless gravel roads deep into pronghorn winter range, when they would be most stressed, snow-blind, and wind-spooked to begin with, and then running massive trucks, trucks that have a hard time stopping even on clean dry pavement, down those roads at top speed to ensure maximum profits regardless of the conditions? I see Marion quickly jumped in with a comment to make herself look compassionate despite her infamous "let the industry do as it pleases" viewpoint.
I think we are going to find more Abramhoff dirt on both sides of the isle for a long time.
I seem to remember the Indian Casinos getting Bruce Babbitt in trouble some years ago.
Many of your neighbours have lost our previous respect for the
US under Bushy's administration.
I use my Focus most of the time, but camp in my truck/camper when I am on bad roads, or a long trip, or in cold weather.
What I had said before, which was an except from my website on pollution, a mixed metaphor, was
"It's easy to distinguish loving parents from those driving SUV's"
I only have one side Mike. It's clean up or die! No fanaticism, or alarmism, just facts.
I am also smart enough to know where that fuel has to come from. It is the height of hypocrisy to cuss the oil companies for drilling when we are the ones that need the fuel, and that is what you guys do. Your hypocrisy is what I object to.
Let's face it you guys would insist that you were entitled to the last 20 gallons of gas in the country so you could go protest the drilling of a well.
Pronhorn says: "Stuart, you ask a pertinent question, but I'd expand on it: Why has the comment section of AMERICA been so quiet? Where the hell is the outrage? "
I think there is no outrage for a very good reason. A reason that we would all rather ignore. It's the way the brain works. Most of us can only respond to our immediate environment. We are hard wired to do this. Just like you react when your hand touches the stove element or the wood stove. You don't need to think about it. You just move your hand fast. Don't think it's hard wired? Try leaving it on the stove and watch it sizzle. Although I am not engaged in the studies, I do follow the science because it has a lot to do with why we cannot respond to global warming. Man will not do anything to curb global warming, but he may do something due to local social pressure, his immediate ernvironment, because he needs to survive within this environment. Global warming or government corruption, or a pending earthquake on the San Andreas fault, are not things that our brains are able to cope with.
My own wesite, .stueysplace.ca, deals with this phenomenon and provides links to more. Another example of the inability to reason on this level is a recent news story in which our own Dr. David Suzuki took the premier of Alberta to task over the expansion of our largest polluter, the Alberta Oil Sands. The premier was quite angry that he should be asked to risk jobs ( immediate environment) by stopping the expansion of the sands, even though it means the death of future generations (not immediate environment). Of course what he needs to do is to shut them down totally yesterday. Strange little varmints are we, very proud of our abilities that we don't have.