Abramoff Clients Increased Donations to Democrats

by RonK, Seattle

In the howl over a flat-out false assertion (that Jack Abramoff donated to both parties), WaPo ombudsman Deborah Howell amended her position, granting that Abramoff was a GOP player, that his scandal is a GOP scandal, and that he contributed exclusively to Republicans.

She then asserts that donations were "were directed to lawmakers of both parties". The left blogosphere went beserk -- insisting that Abramoff directed his clients to reduce their established levels of donation to Democrats.

In this instance, Howell is correct. Her critics are flat-out wrong, and calling for Howell's head on this account may reflect badly on the blogs. (The MSM has both "ink by the barrel" and "the facts".)

It's true (in aggregate, and just barely [1]) that tribes under Abramoff's influence allocated a larger percentage of their dollars to Republicans. It's NOT TRUE that they reduced their donations to Democrats. Total dollars to Democrats from "Abramoff tribes" INVARIABLY INCREASED in the "Abramoff years".

How can this be? Dollars to D's increased. Dollars to R's increased even more, swinging the contribution ratio in the R's favor -- at least in some cases. Details (below) vary from tribe to tribe.

[This summary draws on subscriber-only detail data from FECinfo. Source data is public, but compilation of raw FEC is challenging -- especially where tribal donations are concerned. See this explainer.

Discussion below covers federally regulated contributions only. Some tribes also conducted extensive campaigns in state-level influence markets.]

Consider first the Coushatta of Louisiana -- who made NO contributions in the immediate pre-Abramoff (1999-2000) election cycle.

In the 2001-2002 cycle, they gave $10K to the New Democrat Network, $10K to DSCC (and related accounts), 2.5 to DCCC accounts, 4 to Mary Landrieu, 3 to Tim Johnson (and 3 to the SD Democratic Party), 1 to Harkin, 2 to Breaux, 5 to Harry Reid's Searchlight fund, 5 to Daschle's DashPAC, 5 to Dorgan's Great Plains Leadership fund, and 5 to the Blue Dog PAC .. all net increases in dollars to Democrats.

The famous Tiguas (Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas) recorded a total of $2,500 in the 2000 cycle: $1K to Jeff Bingaman (D), and $1.5K to Henry Bonilla and Dave Camp (R's).

In 2002, the Tigua show 72 federally-reported political donations, for a total of $217K. They leaned heavily to the Republican side, but gave Patrick Kenned $2K, Blue Dogs 5, Mikulski 2, DashPAC 5, and DSCC 3.

The Agua Caliente gave $18.5K in the 2000 cycle (17.5 to Dem's).

2002 shows 224 donations, for $585K. $30K to DSCC accounts, 22 to DCCC accounts, 15 to DNC, 1 or 2 to Democarts Rangel, Stark, Gephardt, Kleczka and Jim Maloney. [Here I found my first decrease: Maloney got only $500 in 2002, vs $1,000 in 2000.]

2004? DNC 25, DSCC 49, DCCC 25.

The Choctaw of Mississippi made 14 contributions totalling $168K in the 2002 cycle -- only $20K to Dem's (RIPAC).

In 2002 we have 164 contributions for $658K. RIPAC got $80K, DCCC accounts 100, DSCC 35, DGA 40, DashPAC 5, Great Plains 4, Searchlight 2 and so on ... both a net increase and a percentage increase.

The Saginaw Chippewa totalled $39K -- both parties -- for the 2000 cycle.

2002 cycle contributions included $22K to DSCC accounts, DCCC 10, NDN 5, SD Dem's 5, Great Plains 5, DashPAC 5, Searchlight 5, Harkin 10, and lesser amounts to Baucus, Lieberman, Lowey, Carl Levin, John Dingell, Patty Murray, Patrick Kennedy, Pat Leahy.

The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana gave DSCC $25K in the 2000 cycle (plus $720 to Bob Borski) out of a $37K total.

In 2002, DCCC accounts got $30K, GUMBO PAC 5, Landrieu 4 and Tim Johnson 1 -- out of a $150K contribution program. Our percentage fell off a cliff, but our net dollars increased.

The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma were small players. No dollars in 2000 or 2002, but $50K in 2004 (heavily D, made lopsided by enrolled tribal member Brad Carson's Senate candidacy.)

The Pueblo of Sandia? Pikers. $4K to Dem's in 2000, $9K in 2002, $10K in 2004.

The Pueblo of Santa Clara had no activity in 2000, $2K to Dem's (out of 4.5) in 2002, and 2.5 (out of 3.5) in 2004.

Those are the Nine Lost Tribes of Abramoff. Every tribe INCREASED donations to Democrats in the cycles when Jack Abramoff was engaged on their behalf. [There are many details to sort out, and historical patterns to compare across unlike regulatory regimes, and Abramoff's engagements did not begin and end on election cycle boundaries, and casino tribes may change giving patterns abruptly depending on legal and political circumstances, and so on and so forth.]

Does all this mean Abramoff "directed" them to give more dollars to Democrats? In a word, "yes" -- but that's a more complex discussion for a later post.

[1] Per Center for Responsive Politics summaries, "Abramoff tribes" already gave over 61.4% of their contributions to Republicans in the pre-Abramoff 2000 election cycle, versus 64.4% in the 2002 and 2004 cycles combined. Prior period comparisons are distorted by the effect of a large delta in the numerator (Saginaw's $220K to DCCC accounts in the 1998 cycle) on a narrow pre-Abramoff denominator.

Comments

[emptypockets]

There seems to be a mudpit here about whether Abramoff, Abramoff's clients, Abramoff's seocnd cousin's college roommate, gave money to Democrats and whether it was comparable to what was given to Republicans.

Isn't the issue here illegal contributions?

Abramoff's dollars, if I'm not mistaken, are the same color as mine. I don't understand campaign finance law, but it seems like whether donations were made is not the question.

(Your excellent post is well-taken, I am making a side-point.)

[RonK, Seattle]

emptypockets -- No, to my knowledge there are no significant allegations of illegal political contributions. There are allegations of outright personal bribery, fraud, diversion of funds, charity (tax and other) fraud, etc., but that's pertains almost exclusively to nearly $100M in non-campaign money, not the 3 or 4 million directed to campaign committees.

[Semblance]

Does all this mean Abramoff "directed" them to give more dollars to Democrats? In a word, "yes" -- but that's a more complex discussion for a later post.

What the hell? That's one of the central points under debate here. You should have included that information here before criticizing the blogs.

And THE central point is that Howell took GOP lies and presented them as truth. Your little entry here is tangential.

[John Casper]

RonK, your post has gathered significant attention over at FDL. Jane Hamsher is going to blog at 1:00EST Wednesday in a WaPo moderated chat with Debbie Howell?, Jim Brady?, and others? about Debbie's "ombdusmanning" Abramoff. I would certainly invite you over to FDL, if you are so inclined, to help Jane understand your data and also to predict how Debbie and others may use it. I very much doubt that Debbie had any clue about your data, but if your rendering of the data is accurate, and I have no reason to think it isn't, it's imo very serious.

[John]

Why don't you join Wizbang. What part of illegal money don't you understand?

[John Casper]

John, the same part the Justice Department doesn't understand. If you have evidence that these tribes conspired with Abramoff to bribe Democrats, please, post it.

[RonK, Seattle]

JC -- I expect Howell will have much better data than mine. They have time, money, interns, data sources (probably their own copies of FEC archives), etc. ... and other MSM would undoubtedly have similar compilations in the works.

I'm disheartened that folks on our side didn't exercise more critical thinking, and that math-smart cookies like Brad DeLong didn't look closer at amounts vs percents.

[greyhair]

If I'm reading this correctly, it's nonsense.

Aside from the already made points about illegality, the only thing identified here is that the tribes "increased their donations". Overall.

So? This could actually be said to be a further indictment of the GOP because tribes figured that in a Republican dominated Congress, money talks louder than in a Democratically controlled Congress.

Or it could simply be inflation adjusted? Or it could be because of increased profits in gaming allowing for more contributions? Or...or...or.

[siun]

Ron - please explain precisely how Indian donations to democrats were "directed" by Abramoff - we have always noted that the tribes may have given money to the democrats separately from their activities with Abramoff - that is not the issue.

If you have evidence of this direction, I think you need to lay it out before making snide comments about "howling" "beserk" etc.

[John Casper]

RonK, thanks for your response. I assume emptywheel is or will very soon become aware of your work. It is pretty evident to me that you have scooped everybody. As I posted above, my greatest concern is that Jane and emptywheel know about your data as far in advance of the Wednesday chat as possible.

[greyhair]

I re-read and see where RonK said about the liberal blogosphere:

"insisting that Abramoff directed his clients to reduce their established levels of donation to Democrats."

In addition to my above comment, I'll say that of the 30 or so blogs I read, I didn't see this point given much emphasis at all (links?). Looks like that's a cherry-picked point made by "some on the left" and disputed.

[RonK, Seattle]

JC -- I've been hollering about this "scoop" for about 60 hours now, online and off, to people who should have immediately known better. Best to avoid getting blindsided, I figure. I can little afford the time I've put into it. Hope the FDL'ers will go transcend their prejudices and sort out signal from noise.

[Dave Latchaw]

Ron - thanks for doing the grunt work on this. But, although the statistical evidence is suggestive, in the absence of electronic or written correspondence that indicates Abramoff was in substantial control of these payments, I think it's a stretch to say he "directed" them.

I'm sure your going to catch some flak for this. (Oh look. You already did.) But this is good stuff; hope you'll continue with this.

[emptypockets]

I'm the class dunce & I still need the bottom line spelled out for me. The conclusion is -- to lay off Howell? to withdraw the "this is a Republican scandal" line? to ask Democrats to return contributions?

And while I'm asking stupid questions, John Casper, what's FDL?

[p.lukasiak]

Ron...

good job. Facts, regardless of how uncomfortable, are much better than spin.

[nobody]

Okay, look. Exactly what would "directed payments" mean? To me it should mean that Abramoff explicitly said "I want you to send so-and-so $X" where $X is more than they would have otherwise given.

Is there evidence of that or not?

Anyway, this whole debate is over a red herring. It's about the GOP machine, stupid.

[p.lukasiak]

I'm the class dunce & I still need the bottom line spelled out for me. The conclusion is -- to lay off Howell? to withdraw the "this is a Republican scandal" line? to ask Democrats to return contributions?

1) buy Howell off... she has a contract

2) no, its still a Republican scandal

3) A number of tribal councils owed their election to the fact that Scanlon and Abramoff provided huge amounts of money to install their candidates -- who won, and then sent big bucks contracts to Scanlon/Abramoff. Democrats need to determine which tribes elections were corrupted, and return any money donated from those tribes IF those tribes are no longer being controlled by the "Abramoff councils". If they are, the money should be placed in escrow, or to a charity that specifically benefits the tribe in question -- but that is not controlled by the Abramoff corrupted officials

next question?

[Alvord]

"Does all this mean Abramoff "directed" them to give more dollars to Democrats? In a word, "yes" -- but that's a more complex discussion for a later post."

Who was directing the Tribes to give their money to Democrats before Abramoff? Has it crossed your mind that they might be making decisions independent of Abramoff? If you have statements from Tribes saying they gave money to Democrats because Abramoff told them to, produce them. If you know of a quid pro quo between Democrats and Tribes that were arranged by Abramoff, what is it?

First you say unequivocally that Abramoff "directed" them to give more money to Democrats but then add that it is a more complex discussion for a later post. Since you characterize it as a "more complex discussion" makes me wonder how convincing that later post will be.

[Siun]

emptypockets - FDL = Firedoglake - http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

Ron - please explain how these numbers prove Abramoff's "direction" - so far it's not clear.

There have always been mentions of tribal donations to democrats but they were not Abramoff related so this is the critical question.

[p.lukasiak]

re: previous comment...

Scanlon & Abramoff did not provide "cash" so much as "in kind services" to elected corrupt Native Americans to tribal councils....

[John Casper]

RonK, thanks a lot for all your work. I am very relieved to see plukasiak involved. I know he has contact with Jane and I think everyone at FDL has tremendous respect for his comments, I know I do. I will do what I can over at FDL to stop commenters from taking pot shots "at the messenger." I look forward to your next post at nexthurrah.

[RonK, Seattle]

p.l. -- thx for your good work on this

pockets -- Take Howell to task where she's wrong, not where we're wrong. It's still a very Republican scandal (and receipt of campaign donation does NOT establish corrupt influence - for R's or D's). Anybody can return contributions, or keep 'em -- good arguments for both -- and some tribes have refused to accept refunds.

D.L., others -- As I said, I'll deal with "directed" in next post, which flakcatching only delays. But note that Howell only said "were directed" in the anonymous passive voice, not "Abramoff directed". (But he did, beyond reasonable doubt.)

several, re "illegal" -- No suggestion has been made that any campaign contributions were illegal (over limit, or by nonqualified contributors, etc). And as far as I know, campaign contributions played no part in bribery, fraud or other wrongdoing. Why are you reading this if you haven't followed the scandal story at all?

greyhair -- Inflation? Priceless.

[p.lukasiak]

Since you characterize it as a "more complex discussion" makes me wonder how convincing that later post will be.

The numbers don't lie.... donations to democrats generally increased while Abramoff was running things.

The "complex" part comes from the fact that most tribes recognize that the Democrats have traditionally represented their interests far better than Republicans. One result of this is that there likely would have been a "push back" within the tribes once they realized that tribal funds were being spent on supporting GOP candidates....

(the DATES of the Coushatta contributions are critical... and it appears that money first went exclusively to GOP candidates...)

[Fr33d0m]

No time to read all the comments but from what I did read it seems some are not understanding the issues here.

It doesn't really matter if Abramoff directed money or not; if Dems got money or not. That isn't the real issue here, nor it seems is if Repugnicons got some money from him. You have to know the money you took is tainted before there is an issue here.

At the root of this is the attempt to make this look like it blemishes both sides and to that extent this is bad news. Dean's assertion that Abranoff didn't give money may come back to bite us. If we were Repugnicons we would just repeat what he said until nobody could think otherwise though.

The Abramoff gang may have gotten a little sloppy here but they were bright enough to try to hide their tracks by spreading the donations around a little. That complicates our attempts to use this to highlight Repugnicon corruption, but it only kills that attempt if we don't see the light and adjust to meet the new facts.

Perhaps a rehash of what this scandle entails would help us all.

[p.lukasiak]

One more point....

In 2002 the Democrats controlled the Senate .... Abramoff (not to mention his bosses at Greenberg Taurig) would have been insane to be completely partisan in recommending where campaign contributions should go under those circumstances. Abramoff was throwing enormous and unprecedented sums at the GOP for the 2002 elections -- Abramoff was "generous" enough with the Dems to keep them from wondering what the hell was going on....

[p.lukasiak]

Dean's assertion that Abranoff didn't give money may come back to bite us.

no it won't. Abramoff gave money to advance his own interests. He "recommended" contributions to his clients for Democrats that made sure that the clients interests were not interfered with, while directing massive amounts of money to GOP candidates and PACs to advance his own partisan interests.

Dean said Abramoff gave repubs tones of HIS OWN money, and gave dems NONE of his own money. Its true -- and its what is significant.

[DHinMI]

Abramoff didn't need to direct donations to cover his tracks; he But on the bigger could have just let the tribes do what they were inclined to do. Besides, these donations were made by the tribes, not by Abramoff. If he recommended donations to some of these Dem members, it may have been one of the rare cases where he was responsible in attending to his clients.

But Fr33d0m and p.lukasiak are correct in putting this information in the proper context. The actual amounts of money from the tribes were greater to Dems than before Abramoff's representation. However, the increase to Repubs was greater after his involvement. Taking money from the tribes doesn't imply wrongdoing or unethical behavior. It's important to get our facts and figures correct, and conceding one small point in making our bigger point shows that we may know the details better than the WaPo, even to correct the occassional small detail that may make Dems feel worse, in the process of sticking with the bigger issues that continue to show that this is a Republican scandal, and the donations directly from Abramoff are still believed, to everyone's knowledge, to have been made only to Republicans.

Maybe an analogy would help. Think of what it would be like if Abramoff had somehow suckered a labor union into signing him up as a lobbyist/consultant. (Especially if he had somehow influenced the election of the union's leadership.) The union, which gave 90% of their contributions to Dems before Abramoff. Afterwords, they gave only 70%, but the increase of donations was such that the 70% post-Abramoff was greater in absolute terms than in percentage. That meant that Abramoff had altered the net amounts to Repubs. But it's still a side-show to the real illegalities he had committed, and remains about the only place where his clients gave to Dems, but the net gain was to the advantage of the Republicans. It's, in the end, a detail that it makes sense to get straight. But it doesn't make the scandal bipartisan in the least, because none of it shows illegalities committed with the connivance or to the advantage of a single Democrat.

[emptywheel]

Thanks to Ron for checking these numbers and p luk for helping explain them.

There's one more important point about the Howell stuff--to prove her point, Howell directed people to a short excerpt of a list with no explanation of what it meant. It's POSSIBLE that that list included soft money in addition to hard (thus the discrepancies). Or, it's possible that the list is inaccurate.

But don't you think someone ought to have clarified that? Your average citizen doesn't have access to all the data Howell does. Readily available fact-checking said she was wrong (the numbers didn't add up). But Howell said simply, "trust us, we're right." Maybe. But given the background of the todo, it'd be better to say, "when you add soft with hard" than to just say "trust us."

[p.lukasiak]

But don't you think someone ought to have clarified that?

um...yeah.

The more I learn about this whole issue, the less I know. For instance, it appears that this list resulted in a check for $2000 being generated for Tim Johnson that was dated 3.6.02. Except that the account the check was drawn on had a negative balance of a couple of hundred thousand dollars if you included all the checks that were written on the account at that point. (in other words, checks were written, or at least scheduled in a bookkeeping system, but that doesn't mean they were handed out.)

Now, Johnson's check was reported to the FEC on March 26 -- so he did get it. But when you look at the FEC report, you notice that $1250 was returned to the Coushatta Indians because $1250 had been contributed to the Johnson campaign in 2001, and that money was applied to the hard money limits for the 2002 campaign.

Confused yet? If you aren't, please take over this research, because its driving me nuts! :)

[RonK, Seattle]

p.l. -- yes, the register isn't gospel ... and doesn't have to be.

And it won't all be "political" money: look at the "Breaux Library" entry. (Recall that bit about paying DeLay's wife $115K to find out MoC's favorite chatities? Overpaid, yes, but not necessarily idle work in the influence game.)

[Mark Schmitt]

Just to reiterate an e-mail exchange w/ RonK: I don't dispute that the tribes contributed to Dems and Republicans, and both increased as these tribes became more politically engaged.

However, the question of whether Abramoff directed tribal money to Dems has, at the moment, one key piece of evidence: the fragment of a document Howell cited in which Abramoff seems to recommend thaat one tribe, the Louisiana Coushatta, make contributions to Daschle's federally registered DASHPAC, and to Senators Carnahan and Cleland.

FEC data as well as the Center for Responsive Politics data shows no actual contribution to DASHPAC from the Coushatta, nothing from any similarly named entity, and nothing from anyone in that region of Louisiana. Similarly, no contribution to Carnahan appears on FEC or CRP from Coushatta or the Elton, LA area. And only a $500 contribution to Max Cleland, not $2,000.

The data that FECInfo (also known as PoliticalMoneyLine) uses for its totals is proprietary, although based on public data, so we cannot see or evaluate the work or see what source they are working from. (For example, in the page RonK linked to, they say that name confusion results in many tribal contributions being lost -- o.k., that makes sense, but show us the actual $5,000 Daschle contribution. What name was it recorded under, if not "Coushatta"? In my view, when this non-public information conflicts with the FEC and CRP -- which is very skilled at resolving name confusion -- I'm going to put my faith in the public, testable data. If FECInfo would like to show its work, we can have an informed debate about this.

It's possible that FECInfo took data from the Coushatta "check register," which it posted here: http://www.tray.com/docs/CoushattaPortrait.pdf
If so, it should not call itself FECInfo, since this document has nothing to do with FEC data. This document does show contributions to Daschle's PAC, to Carnahan and to Cleland, and it also shows contributions to Republicans, such as Rep. James Walsh, that show up NOWHERE in actual FEC data.

The point is not that Abramoff-linked tribes didn't give money to tribe-friendly Democrats -- they did. The point is that neither the Howell fragment nor the untestable FECInfo data establishes that Abramoff directed actual contributions.

[Rayne]

p. lukasiak - 23:36 -- hell yeah, I'm confused, and I've been looking at these and other numbers for months. We're missing substantial quantities of the puzzle, as you've pointed out in Tim Johnson example. Some money was laundered, checks dated and sent but not cashed until other funds moved elsewhere, out of another account and into the one upon the check was drawn. There are also folks who had "excess funds", moved tens of thousands of dollars to RNC/NRCC in sync with other funds being moved around. Until we put a matrix of dates, amounts, sources and targets together, I don't see how we'll get gist of what DeLay-Abramoff were doing. Not to mention other vehicles that were in play (Tom Noe's missing collectible coins, turnpike revenues, you name it).

What is disconcerting about WaPo's reporting is that what truth they have, they are either misreporting or failing to report. We can't tell because they've obstructed our view of the truth. Were any monies received by Dems from any Native American tribes for quid pro quo votes (and therefore illegal)? We don't know because WaPo will not release any evidence that confirms this, saying only that Dems received money directed to them -- hardly enough information. And what of simple campaign donations? As in the case of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe, both of their Senators are Dems and are quite good about voting to support Native Americans; show me how any campaign donation they received from the tribe is illegal, please.

[Sandals]

RonK- this is technically accurate but semantic bullshit.

it is important to be accurate about the numbers. but as several have noted, the numbers are not the point of contention here.

whether D contributions have risen or dropped is irrelevant to the main points in this argument.

i mean..

Does all this mean Abramoff "directed" them to give more dollars to Democrats? In a word, "yes" -- but that's a more complex discussion for a later post.

What the hell does that mean? You're shooting us all in the foot here. It is not a more complex discussion for a later post. It is the main point of contention. You presented no evidence that has any bearing on this point, unless you take "engaged on their behalf" to mean "running the whole show!"

[RonK, Seattle]

mark -- I find the following record at Center for Public Integrity's 527 database search/download:

460450996-8872-0008 2002 20020630 Q2 113918 460450996 DASHPAC - Nonfederal Account COUSHATTA TRIBE OF LOUISIANA . PO BOX 818 ELTON LA 70532 TRIBAL 5000 5000

As indicated in email - not sure you had it at post time - I've not been able to access relevant IRS filings (site upgrade = dead links?)

No indication fecinfo ever took anything from the check register (which didn't have all the data elements in fecinfo reports anyway).

The "directed" case does not depend on so slim a reed anyway.

[Alvord]

"The "directed" case does not depend on so slim a reed anyway."

You are really building up a lot of expectations. I hope you have the goods.

[Anonymous Liberal]

RonK,
I've been looking into this same issue and I was about to write a similar post till I saw that you beat me to it (and did a better job than I would have done). Excellent post. Nothing hurts the liberal cause more than trying to beat the media over the head with bad or questionable facts. The power of liberal blogs to influence the traditional media depends heavily on our collective credibility. We have to pick our battles wisely and not degenerate into the fact-averse partisanship that characterizes so much of the Rightwing blogosphere. Howell deserves the flak she got for her first column, but her correction (while late in coming), would seem to be accurate (or at least not obviously inaccurate). It's time to move on.

[John Casper]

Anonymous Liberal: I haven't seen anyone state it better than you did here: "Nothing hurts the liberal cause more than trying to beat the media over the head with bad or questionable facts. The power of liberal blogs to influence the traditional media depends heavily on our collective credibility. We have to pick our battles wisely and not degenerate into the fact-averse partisanship that characterizes so much of the Rightwing blogosphere."

IMO, however, RonK's reserach helps liberals get at the paper thin and really slanderous quality of Debbie's articles and especially her "correction": "But there is no doubt about the campaign contributions that were directed to lawmakers of both parties."
Thanks to RonK's work, we can all ask Debbie how she knows that specificly Jack Abramoff "directed" the "Coushatta of Louisiana" to bribe specific Democrats. We can ask Debbie the same about
The Tiguas (Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas), The Agua Caliente, The Choctaw of Mississippi, The Saginaw Chippewa, The Chitimacha, Tribe of Louisiana, The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
The Pueblo of Sandia, and The Pueblo of Santa Clara.
Debbie's "correction" imo is simply her foudationless extrapolating from the fact that there were contributions to her baseless assumption that all these tribes knew they were Abramoff's agents in a criminal conspiracy to bribe Congress. Where I come from, Debbie's "correction" is slander, but I'm not a lawyer.
From the WaPo's defense, it is obvious the WaPo has not even done the research that RonK has. Jim Brady?(head of the WaPo's interactive unit) was on Air America tonite and he didn't even bring up RonK's research. He's still using the Howie Kurtz line that Debbie was "inartful."
Another issue is the reliability of the Federal Election Commission numbers. Both the WaPo articles about Bush's recess appointments to the FEC in December failed to even mention that one of his nominees was Vivika Novak's husband. McCain is screaming that the FEC is "corrupt," and a greater threat to the Republic than the K Street Project. IMO any figures we get from the FEC should be cross checked with the Tribe's records. Finally Debbie's article has unfairly and needlessly tarred all Native American tribes. If she had done a little work, such as RonK has done, she too could have named the actual tribes in her "correction."

[marky]

It's good to get these numbers right, but I don't see much discussion here of how the media is restricting discussion to the Indian tribes, rather than all of Jack's clients.
What are the standards for deciding whether or not to tally up the donations of his clients? Surely if we're going to look at these numbers, we should know how his other clients donated as well.

I'm not one who has followed the specifics of Jack's pleas, but they don't involve only the work with Indians, do they? That was not my impression.

[Mike S]

Boy does this thread bring back memories. RonK has always been a factual trouble maker.

[Ron Brynaert]

Nice work, Ron.

[MarkC]

I think Dave Latchaw's right -- the "directed" language is not yet demonstrated. A general increase in giving to both parties is not evidence that Abramoff directed giving to Democrats. If I turn up the volume, it increases both the bass and treble, but it would still be misleading to say I "turned up the bass."

[RonK, Seattle]

Thanks, Ron. Kudos to both you and Paul.

MarkC (and others) -- Now I understand the news reports about college grads who fail the most routine literacy tasks ... but the first "directed" post is now up.

marky -- Tribes were maybe 2/3 of a $100M rake ... or maybe there's more.

John C -- I don't think you can hang Howell on this evidence. It's not her job to know every detail about every story. They WILL bring people to the table who know more than you do, though, and more than I do.

For everyone who says "OK, it's true, but it's irrelevant" -- Was it irrelevant a day ago, when you thought the opposite was true?

[Ron Brynaert]

I think you may have left these out:

10/18/2001 $1,250.00
Elton, LA 70532
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana/Native
MAINSTREAM AMERICA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
4/4/2002 $5,000.00
Elton, LA 70532
M-PAC

[RonK, Seattle]

Thx xagain, Ron. Note -- I did NOT attempt to be comprehensive in spotting all Dem-related receipts from Abramoff-related tribes ... only to establish that Dem receipts went up (whichis one reason I didn't try to establish D/R ratios per tribe.

[ejf]

This is still unclear to me. Is it the case that (1)Abramoff's tribal clients had traditionally given to both parties, as do many business interests, but favored the Democrats; (2) Abramoff directed the clients to increase overall contributions, including giving money to new Democratic names; but (3) the new contributions went predominantly to Republicans, resulting in the GOP getting an increased share of the now higher contribution total? If so, isn't it fair to say that, on balance, Abramoff "directed" the tribes political efforts toward Republicans?

[Sandals]

Speaking for myself, I was aware of one tribes numbers that put its 2004 contributions to Ds at roughly equal to what they were in 2002. So no, not news to me.

[Kenneth Fair]

If I'm understanding your analysis correctly, you're saying that "Abramoff tribes" (which is a problematic definition in and of itself) gave more money to Democrats in 2004 than in 2002, but increased their Republican donations by a much larger degree over the same period.

Well, of course. 2004 was a presidential election year, and 2002 wasn't. All political giving rose during the same time period, as one would expect (and you haven't even taken inflation into account).

The relevant question is not the nominal dollar amounts from 2002 to 2004. It's the percentage of contributions to Republicans v. Democrats. And in this, the answer is clear: These tribes shifted their donations away from Democrats and towards Republicans. That they gave more money overall is totally irrelevant.

Moreover, these federal contributions are chump change in comparison to the real activities of Abramoff (and others): funnelling money through PACs, 527s, and 501(c) organizations.

What the tribes gave or didn't give is ultimately beside the point. Jack Abramoff is a Republican crook. He bilked money out of his clients and he used it to engage in numerous corrupt activities, including bribery. All of the officials involved are Republicans. Let's not get sidetracked on this, shall we?

[RonK, Seattle]

K Fair -- You aren't understanding any of this correctly.

"Abramoff tribes" are well understood and listed for clarity.

The comparisons here are between 1999-2000 (a non-Abramoff, presidential cycle), and 2002 (an Abramoff, non-presidential cycle).

Inflation in two years is 3-4%. We're looking at increases of 300-400%.

These contributions include PAC's and 527's. (Pre-Shays-Meehan.)

Different issues can be "relevant", "irrelevant" or "ultimately beside the point" from different perspectives ... but if we've made a big stink about certain issues (as we did w.r.t. WaPo's Howell) when we thought the facts lined up one way, we can't very well declare them irrelevant when it turns out the facts line up the opposite way.

You've lost this point. Move on.

[Boing!!!!]

you can't say that 1999-2000 was a non-Abramoff cycle precisely because he was on the Presidential Transition Team for Department of the Interior, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

[MarkB]

It should be noted that the "Abramoff years" were years in which the Republicans were the majority party - with control of the Speaker's office and chairmanships. People who make big donations to influence policy tend to give to those with more influence regardless of which party it is at the time. Democrats got less only because they were the party out of power, not because they are morally superior. And don't think for a minute that they weren't hustling just as hard as Republicans for dollars until the scandal broke.

[Gelford]

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