Report Calls Abramoff Misconduct 'Astonishing'

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The report is out from the first official investigation of the fraud and bribery scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee reports at 373 pages plus more than that in supporting documents, but it will not be the last word in the case. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

PETER OVERBY reporting:

The investigation went public with a bang in September 2004. Republican Jack Abramoff - an all-star among lobbyists - taking the Fifth Amendment.

JACK ABRAMOFF (Republican Lobbyist): Mr. Chairman, I have no choice but to assert my various constitutional privileges.

OVERBY: Leading the investigation, Arizona Republican John McCain pressed ahead. So did the Washington Post - which had already broken the story - the rest of the media and the Justice Department. Now Abramoff is a confessed felon. So are his old business partner Michael Scanlon, two lobbyists and a businessman.

This week federal prosecutors won their first courtroom battle when a jury convicted former Bush administration appointee David Safavian. The original offense here, the thing the Senators were investigating, was a fraud scheme perpetrated by Abramoff and Scanlon on their Indian tribe clients.

The two men netted roughly $20 million apiece. In January 2002, Abramoff emailed Scanlon about one tribe: we need that moolah. We have to hit $50 million this year, our cut.

Despite the billing fraud, the report says the tribes generally didn't complain about the Washington lobbying.

So the Committee decided, don't go there. That makes the report seem truncated in places. One chapter describes how Abramoff and Scanlon influenced a tribal election among the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan, so that new tribal leaders would hire them. And then...

Ms. MELANIE SLOAN (Director, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington): Nothing about what Mr. Abramoff did for them after he was retained.

OVERBY: Melanie Sloan, a former prosecutor, now head of the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Ms. SLOAN: Somebody who figures very prominently in that whole scandal is Senator Conrad Burns from Montana, and it looks like this report was written to avoid having to talk about Senator Burns' role with the Saginaw Chippewa.

OVERBY: Burns' involvement is well documented. He earmarked $3 million for a tribal school, under a program that the tribe didn't seem to qualify for. Now Burns is in a tough fight for reelection. But he's not the only member of Congress to be blessed by silence in the report.

Just one lawmaker got roughed up by the Committee, Congressman Bob Ney, a Republican from Ohio. Abramoff had his clients pay when he took Ney golfing in Scotland. At the same time, he wanted Ney to sneak a provision into a bill to help the Tigua tribe of El Paso, Texas, whom Abramoff represented. This was all laid out at hearings. Tribal leaders vividly described a big 90 minute meeting with Abramoff and Ney in 2002.

But the report says Ney told Senate investigators in 2004 that he was not familiar with the Tigua and couldn't recall ever meeting with any member of the tribe. Ney has not been charged by prosecutors. His office issued a statement last night. It says the Committee report shows only the lengths Abramoff and Scanlon would go to through to further their own greed.

So the Committee report elaborates more than it extends the Abramoff story. The new storytellers are the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the federal judges and juries. And that's something Abramoff tried to avoid. According to the report, he asked Nell Rogers, an advisor to Mississippi band of Choctaw, if their chief could talk McCain out of an investigation. After all, Abramoff said, the tribes have their own police and courts and they could handle the matter themselves. Peter Overby, NPR News Washington.

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