Posted on 05/12/2005 10:44:21 PM PDT by Pikamax
Records of 2 Democrats Are Subpoenaed By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, May 12 - A federal grand jury has subpoenaed the files of a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and another Democratic political consultant in a criminal investigation of Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist at the center of corruption and influence-peddling inquiries by the Justice Department and Congress, the consultants say.
Brian Lunde, executive director of the committee in the mid-1980's, and his consulting partner, George Burger, said in interviews that they had provided the grand jury with records for a $50,000 contract they received three years ago to help win Democratic support for legislation allowing an Indian tribe to reopen its shuttered casino in West Texas.
Although Mr. Lunde and Mr. Burger said they did not know it at the time, the tribe was working with Mr. Abramoff, one of the best-paid Republican lobbyists in Washington. The consultants said they had been given the contract by Mr. Abramoff's partner, Michael Scanlon, a former House Republican aide who is also under scrutiny by the grand jury.
"I have never met Jack Abramoff," Mr. Lunde said. "I never knew he was involved."
Mr. Lunde and Mr. Burger said the subpoenaed files included documents about a $10,000 subcontract they had given to a third Democratic consultant, Lottie Shackelford, a former mayor of Little Rock, Ark., who is now a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
A committee spokeswoman said that Ms. Shackelford had not received a subpoena and that she too had known nothing of Mr. Abramoff's involvement in the lobbying effort.
The subpoena to Mr. Lunde and Mr. Burger is a reminder that Mr. Abramoff - although best known for his ties to powerful Republicans, especially the House majority leader, Tom DeLay of Texas - also sought help from Democrats on behalf of his lobbying clients. Mr. Abramoff was nicknamed Casino Jack by competitors because of the tens of millions of dollars he was paid by Indian gambling operations.
E-mail traffic between Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon shows that Ms. Shackelford was hired to press Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, to support legislation that would allow the casino to reopen. The lobbying campaign ultimately failed when Mr. Dodd withheld his support, and the casino remains closed.
Other e-mail messages and publicly available documents suggest that Mr. Lunde, Mr. Burger and Ms. Shackelford had no knowledge of a scheme hatched by Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon to pressure the Texas state government to shut down the casino in 2002 and then present themselves to the tribe as lobbyists whose Washington connections could get the casino reopened. The scheme is a focus of the grand jury investigation here.
"The subpoena asked for every piece of paper we've got, and we've given it" to the grand jury, Mr. Lunde said. He said the subpoena was served more than two months ago.
Mr. Burger said there had been no similar subpoena from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is also investigating Mr. Abramoff's lobbying activities. Mr. Burger and Mr. Lunde both said they had not been asked to testify before the grand jury.
Documents and other evidence gathered by the Senate committee last year showed that Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon had been paid $4.2 million to lobby on behalf of the Indian tribe, the Tiguas of El Paso, to reopen the casino, Speaking Rock. It was shut down in February 2002 by the state government, which charged that it was operating illegally.
Mr. Lunde said he was approached about that time by Mr. Scanlon - they had once worked together at a public relations firm - to help build Democratic support for reopening.
The Tiguas already had the backing of prominent Democrats in their home state. In January 2002, the Democratic National Committee approved a resolution sought by some Texas delegates that said the closing of the casino would do "irreparable harm" to the tribe.
"He called me about the Tiguas' wanting to reopen their casino," Mr. Lunde said of Mr. Scanlon. Mr. Lunde said he had felt comfortable in accepting, because "I checked around, and it was the formal position of the D.N.C. to have that reopened."
Mr. Lunde said he had sought help from Ms. Shackelford because she was close to Mr. Dodd, a former general chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "If it ever came to the Senate side, I had Lottie monitoring it," he said.
Ms. Shackelford's involvement in the lobbying effort was disclosed in documents made public by the Senate committee last year and was highlighted by Mr. Scanlon in a written report to the tribe in 2003. That report described her as a "cornerstone" of the project whose "access was critical for our ongoing efforts to influence" Senator Dodd.
In a statement, the senator said his office had been contacted by Ms. Shackelford to inquire whether "provisions for the Tigua tribe could be included" in an unrelated bill that was in the House and making its way to the Senate, where Mr. Dodd was overseeing it.
"The suggestion was summarily rejected," Mr. Dodd's statement said. "Mr. Abramoff and his associates need to be held accountable for their duplicitous, greedy and underhanded actions."
Mr. Lunde noted that the $50,000 contract from Mr. Scanlon amounted to a tiny fraction of the millions of dollars that the tribe had agreed to pay Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff.
"We probably did that below market value," Mr. Lunde said.
The records will turn up two years from now.
In Hillary's possession.
Or in Sandy Berger's pants.
Wow, Lottie Shackelford is still at the DNC? She's got an open line to hell, direct to Clinton.
"Craig Livingstone? Does he work in the White House? Gosh I have no clue who hired him." - Hitlery
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