Twice this year I’ve been astonished to see Ralph Reed’s mug appear in election coverage. After the New Hampshire primaries the man who received over $4 million in Indian casino cash from Jack Abramoff was talking politics on CNN. Viewer reaction was intensely negative and CNN, embarrassed, canned him. While his campaign is not answering questions about it, it looks like John McCain decided that it wasn’t the best idea to appear at a fundraiser with a participant in one of the biggest corruption scandals in history. Or perhaps Reed decided that he didn’t need to be an undue distraction.

Either way, smart move.

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TPMtv has an interview up with Oscar winning director Alex Gibney about his new documentary “Casino Jack and the United States of Money.” The movie documents the exploits of Jack Abramoff and the free flow of money around Capitol Hill. “Casino Jack” won’t be out until 2009:

In other Abramoff-related news, Rep. Henry Waxman held a press call today to discuss new McCain fundraiser Ralph Reed’s involvement in Abramoff’s “Gimme Five” schemes. Despite a trail of e-mail’s showing Reed’s knowledge of the nature of Abramoff’s lobbying game Reed continues to claim ignorance of the illegalities and double-crossing of Indian tribes . Waxman used his press call to remind everyone of the e-mails and of Reed’s culpability. You can read a summary of the call at Majikthise.

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Really? Not to pick on John McCain too much, but couldn’t you find someone in Atlanta to host a fundraiser who didn’t receive $4 million from Jack Abramoff to run a phony religious campaign against an Indian casino that was actually organized by another Indian casino to reduce competition?

McCain headed the Senate investigation that uncovered these payments. I know he has to raise money and patch up relationships in Republican quarters that have opposed him in the past. But Ralph Reed? Really?

Even CNN was embarrassed after they let Ralph Reed appear on television to cover the New Hampshire primaries.

The guy was involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in American history. And it isn’t even history yet, the investigation is ongoing. I hear Bob Ney’s getting out of jail, maybe he can host a fundraiser too.

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Last Friday’s broadcast of the Bill Moyers Journal replayed and updated its Capital Crimes report, which gives a very good overview of the Jack Abramoff scandal.  In conjunction with the rebroadcast, the Journal has posted on its website an interview of Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America and regular columnist for The Wall Street Journal.  Frank has just released his new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, where he documents how politicians and their lobbyist friends are dismantling government through deregulation, budget cuts and by selling off essential services through private-sector bidding and privatization, all of course hidden from public view.

PoliticalWire.com dubbed the bottom line:

It is no coincidence that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule.

The ranks of conservatives running the federal government the past seven-plus years, Frank writes, are filled with men and women like Abramoff who betray their laissez faire philosophy to cut sweet heart deals for private industry. Harper’s Magazine published an abridged version of the book in its August edition. And yesterday, NPR’s Fresh Air broadcasted an interview with Frank about his new book.

Put it on your summer reading list. I am.

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Follow up on Curt Weldon’s Russian ties and the Pentagon contracts he tried to secure, a “dead beat congresswoman,” one Pennsylvania lawmaker gets sick of earmark criticism, and, yes, this is the Summer of Abramoff 4 (I know, more sequels; don’t the investigators at the FBI have any new ideas). This is your congressional news:

Former Rep. Curt Weldon’s dalliances with Putin-linked entities and Russian mobsters are back in the news as the federal investigation into the ex-congressman’s activities heats up. Sharon Weinberger and Nathan Hodges, writing at Wired’s Danger Room, show that Weldon facilitated a contract with Putin-linked IEG and the Pentagon for an “anti-missile project.” That contract was ultimately scuttled by Doug Feith. (more…)

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Today’s news from Capitol Hill includes the never ending Jack Abramoff investigation, congressional staff still running for K Street, and the growing effects of transparency on the lobbying profession:

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff will finally face sentencing this September for his role in bribing members of Congress, executive branch officials, and staffers while bilking Indian tribes for millions of dollars. This doesn’t mean the investigation is slowing down, in fact, expect more indictments and targets to emerge this summer. What’s important: “federal investigators appear to have ‘moved beyond Abramoff … they are into a whole other layer of people who could supply them with more information even than he could.’” (more…)

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More often than not, scandals in Washington run their course: apologies, resignations, jail time, followed by book deals and CNN interviews. But not the Jack Abramoff scandal. The Associated Press gives word that the former deputy chief of staff of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Robert Coughlin, is being charged for accepting gifts from Abramoff and his law firm as they tried to woo him to join their team.

In court papers filed Monday in federal court in Washington, prosecutors accused Coughlin of providing assistance to a lobbyist and the lobbyist’s firm while receiving gifts from the firm and discussing prospective employment there. The lobbyist isn’t named but The Associated Press has previously reported that Coughlin was lobbied during the period in question by Kevin Ring, a member of Abramoff’s lobbying team who also is under investigation.

In the spirit of the season: What makes this scandal different from every other scandal? Jack Abramoff was a central piece of a political power structure that funneled money from Indian tribes and American protectorates into the campaign coffers of high ranking and vulnerable members of Congress. Abramoff wasn’t just some joe selling himself for yachts and prostitutes, he made the money run on time. And apparently he was making the money, and tickets to the MCI Center, run into the Justice Department that eventually snared him.

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Today is Jack Abramoff’s 50th birthday. He’ll be celebrating in a federal prison in Cumberland, MD.

In case you forgot what this was all about, or never followed the massive corruption scandal, the Washington Post has a feature on their coverage, which won the Pulitzer.

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Rep. Don Young has been on the hot seat ever since he sponsored the infamous Bridge to Nowhere earmark. Since then he has come under investigation for more things than any other sitting member of Congress. Young faces an FBI investigation into his participation in fishing and golfing events with VECO oil executives; he is receiving scruting for the hiring of his former aide Mark Zachares, who has pled guilty, by Jack Abramoff; and fellow Republicans are seeking an investigation into his inclusion of an earmark for Coconut Road in Florida - which happens to be a long ways from Alaska. In the face of all these difficulties Young sat down with reporters to discuss his reelection campaign, but reporters wanted to talk about something else. If you want to see what an arrogant stone wall looks like, you should follow the link and watch this interview. It’s a doozy.

Don Young’s KTVA Interview Video. 

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The San Diego Union-Tribune reported recently about a curious case involving four California Indian gambling interests and how they obtained federal approval for a major and lucrative expansion of their operations. The paper described the incident a "major embarrassment" for the U.S. Department of the Interior and a "potential scandal unfolding from within."

Four tribes had been pushing legislation in the California state legislature to ratify a major expansion of their gaming operations. Specifically, they are hoping to gain approval to increase dramatically the number of slot machines at their casinos, constituting "one of the largest gambling expansions in state history," according to The Union-Tribune. It would also make the casinos some of the largest in the country, and the tribes would be looking at huge future profits. A group of gambling opponents, No on the Unfair Gambling Deals, filed an initiative that is forcing a February 5^th statewide vote that if passes will nullify legislation that ratified the agreements. In September, despite the pending referendum, California’s secretary of state, saying that state law requires it, sent the agreements via Federal Express to the Interior Department for approval.

And this is where it gets really interesting.

The secretary sent the package to the wrong office at the department, but an employee at Interior remembers receiving the package and hand delivering it to the correct office, that of Carl Artman, assistant secretary for Indian affairs. But no one in Artman’s office remembers or is willing to say they remember receiving the FedEx package. And then, 80 days after the package was received by Interior, it turns up in the in-box of George Skibine, head of the bureau’s Indian gaming management branch and the person who reviews tribal gambling agreements.

Federal law gives the department 45 days to act on such agreements. If no action is taken over that period they are approved. In early December, the department approved the compacts because of the passed deadline. Skibine said he saw a problem and hoped the department could delay action allowing further review. He was overruled by his superiors, but he won’t say who gave him the directive.

If No on the Unfair Gambling Deals succeeds in passing their referendum on February 5^th the agreements will be blocked. But Interior’s approval likely opens the door to legal action. "If voters reject the compacts, the legal weight of the premature federal approval would become the subject of a long legal fight, several attorneys predicted," the The Union-Leader reported.

A spokesperson for the No on the Unfair Gambling Deals termed the Interior Department’s story "unbelievable," they press on with "the highly controversial deals that sit unseen for six weeks and then miraculously appear in an official’s inbox too late for review." You would think officials at the Department of Interior would show more care regarding such matters in light of the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and the conviction of J. Steven Griles, Interior’s former deputy secretary, for obstruction of justice in conjunction with the Abramoff mega-scandal. The four tribes, Aqua Caliente, Morongo, Pechanga and Sycuan, have diligently built good contacts in Washington through generous campaign contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. According to Center for Responsive Politics compiled data, the tribes have consistently been among the top contributors to federal candidates and parties by casino and gaming interests, contributing collectively almost $3.8 million over the past decade. As our friend Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was quoted as saying, "I don’t think accidents like this happen."

Hat tip: Captain’s Quarters blog.

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