Lobbyist Guilty Plea Widens Influence-Buying Probe

MADELEINE BRAND, host:

This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Madeleine Brand.

In a few minutes, Martha Stewart's former food maven reassures us that when it comes to cooking, nobody's perfect.

But first, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is in court today asking a judge to dismiss the conspiracy and money-laundering charges against him. DeLay's accused of illegally funneling campaign money to Texas candidates. He says he's innocent. But former close associates of his are caught up in another political and criminal scandal. Yesterday, his former press secretary, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in an unrelated case. Scanlon was a partner of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, also a former DeLay associate, who is facing his own criminal investigation. I spoke earlier with Karen Tumulty--she's national political correspondent at Time magazine--for more on this convoluted story.

Tell us more about Michael Scanlon and this plea arrangement. What did he plead guilty to?

Ms. KAREN TUMULTY (Time): He is pleading guilty to defrauding Indian tribal clients that he and lobbyist Jack Abramoff had, you know, on a number of deals, most of which involved helping these Indian tribes get licenses to open casinos.

BRAND: And he agreed to pay back around $19 million that he says he fraudulently charged them. What does that have to do with the bribery charges?

Ms. TUMULTY: Basically, the plea agreement has less to do with the bribery charges than it does with the fact that now Michael Scanlon has agreed to testify in this case. These bribery charges are presumably, you know, a lot less than the feds thought they could throw at him. But what he has now agreed to do is to tell them what he knows, not only about his own dealings with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist, but also about their dealings with a number of public officials. The most interesting line in this indictment is the line that says that beginning at least as early as January of 2000, Scanlon and lobbyist A--that's Jack Abramoff--engaged in a course of conduct through which one or both of them offered and provided a stream of things of value to public officials.

BRAND: And do they name those public officials?

Ms. TUMULTY: There is one congressman mentioned in the indictment, not by name, but everyone knows it is Congressman Bob Ney, who is known on Capitol Hill as the mayor of Capitol Hill because he is the chairman of the House Administration Committee. And what Scanlon and Abramoff had been accused of, or in this case specifically Michael Scanlon, are, you know, providing things of value to this congressman in return for favors, which, by the way, Congressman Ney and his office vehemently deny. They say they were in fact duped by Michael Scanlon.

The decisions in question, by the way, involve things like helping to introduce legislation for some of these Indian tribal clients, putting statements in the congressional record regarding business dealings that Jack Abramoff was involved in, and also helping one of Jack Abramoff's clients secure a wireless contract to provide services within the capital. Now he is saying these were all decisions that were made on their merit.

BRAND: But Ney is perhaps not the only one who Michael Scanlon is about to testify against. Investigators are apparently looking into half a dozen members of Congress, former and current Hill staffers and others.

Ms. TUMULTY: That's right. When someone enters a plea agreement like this, he knows that what he gets sentenced to ultimately is going to be contingent upon how cooperative he is. And, you know, no one thinks that he's just in there to talk about Bob Ney.

BRAND: And so how is this affecting Washington? Is everyone kind of looking over their shoulder?

Ms. TUMULTY: Everyone on Capitol Hill in particular is very, very nervous right now because dozens of members of Congress were the beneficiaries of Jack Abramoff's largesse, whether it was accepting free tickets to sit in the skyboxes that he maintained at all the sports venues in Washington; he financed very lavish junkets for members of Congress, including, by the way, Tom DeLay. One of the things that Congressman Ney is accused of having taken was a junket to play golf at St. Andrews in Scotland. Well, Tom DeLay, at another time, took virtually the same trip, and there were also junkets around the world to the Marianas Islands in the Pacific and a number of other places that I think every congressman right now who took one of those trips is right now going back over those financial disclosure forms.

BRAND: Karen Tumulty is national political correspondent at Time magazine.

Thank you very much.

Ms. TUMULTY: Thanks a lot, Madeleine.

BRAND: Stay with us on DAY TO DAY from NPR News.

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