Houston Democrats

Both Chairman Charles Grassley and Senator Max Baucus, the committee’s ranking democrat have faxed a letter to Abramoff’s attorney. In the letter they request financial records and receipts for travel from the Capital Athletic Foundation, which is a charity that Abramoff created. Most of the money donated to the athletic foundation ended up paying for personal projects, political causes, a short-lived religious school, and an overseas golfing trip.

In addition, the letter asks for information about contributions from various Indian tribes and how the money was used.

“Explain why [the foundation] solicited contributions from various Tribal governments, and why they should not be deemed payments for attempts to influence federal and state laws and regulations regarding gaming.”

The Finance Committee is also looking into another charity that Abramoff served on until October 2004. The National Center for Public Policy Research is the organization that sponsored DeLay’s trip to Britain in 2002.

According to tax records for the two groups, about $2.5 million passed through the National Center for Public Policy Research to another company that Abramoff controlled and the Capital Athletic Foundation. Part of the investigation is also looking at the law firm, Greenberg Traurig LLC, which employed Abramoff to see if the money going to the charities followed tax laws that cover self-dealing among board members. According to the Washington Post, the national center took $50,000 from an Indian tribe and a gambling services company to pay for a trip it sponsored for DeLay in mid-2000. In addition, a Choctaw tribe of Abramoff’s supposedly donated $1 million to the national center and in 2003 Greenberg Traurig gave $1.5 million in “grants” that came from an Abramoff client. The national center paid $1.275 million for consulting services to Kaygold, another corporation Abramoff controlled.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct remains deadlocked. Representative Doc Hastings (R-Washington) who is the new chairman of the committee, claims to want to “create a more ethical climate or culture in the House” beginning with increasing his committee’s staff from 13 to 19.

Hastings’ statement does not give me much confidence since Speaker Dennis Hastert chose him to replace the previous chairman, Representative Joel Hefley (R-Colorado), who supported the three formal admonishments of DeLay and who was seen as being more independent-minded. His chairmanship was set to expire due to Republican imposed term limits, but the decision was made to remove him completely from the committee. Hastings has been the leader of other sensitive committees in the past and is a favorite of Hastert’s.

Commenting on his removal from the ethics committee earlier this year, Hefley said there is a “bad perception out there that there was a purge in the committee and that people were put in that would protect our side of the aisle better than I did.”

Republicans also changed the ethic’s committee’s rules. A vote is now needed from at least one member of each party before an ethics committee can begin an inquiry, meaning one Republican would have to cross to the Democratic side. Previously, an inquiry began if the committee became deadlocked. A leadership aide said, “It was necessary to depoliticize the ethics committee and force investigations to move on a bipartisan basis, not on a partisan one.”

Two replacements to the ethics committee were Representatives Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma). The watchdog group, Public Citizen, reported that Smith gave DeLay $10,000 that makes him among the seven largest donors to DeLay’s legal fund. Cole gave DeLay $5,000. Public Citizen also reports that DeLay’s legal fund has collected $1 million since its beginning in 2000 up to the end of last year. $352,000 of that amount came from members of Congress and their political action committees, and another $646,721 came from corporate money, other donations from individuals, and ideological organizations.

Democrats and even some Republicans compare these tactics to how the Democrats lost their 40-year hold on the House in 1994 when many Republicans campaigned against Democrats as being autocratic and corrupt.

Maybe history will repeat itself.