Houston Democrats

The Austin-American Statesman reports that Jack Abramoff, directed the tribe, at the request of a DeLay assistant, to cancel its checks to DeLay's political groups and to give the money to more obscure organizations that were helping Republicans to pass Medicare prescription drug legislation and promoting Christian voter outreach. The aide was concerened about donations from tribal casinos appearing on the financial filings of DeLay's conservative political organizations.

TRMPAC has never reported accepting money from the Coushattas to federal or state regulators. However, the tribe has records of the transactions in its memos and ledgers.

Here's an excerpt from a letter Abramoff wrote to the Coushattas in May 2002:

Enclosed please find a check for $10,000 to the Texans for a Republican Majority. This check needs to be reissued to America 21.

America 21 happens to be a Christian group based in Nashville, Tennessee that focuses on voter turnout. It helped several Republican candidates in the 2002 elections that maintained Republican control of the US House.

This from the Austin-American Statesman:

Several months earlier, the tribe was asked to cancel a $25,000 check to Americans for a Republican Majority and to send that money instead to a group called Sixty Plus that helped Republicans in their two-year effort to get a Medicare prescription drug benefit through Congress.

Kent Cooper, a former federal election regulator, believes the practice of rerouting significant contributions to more obscure groups is an effort to conceal donations. He states:

This shows how easy it is for interest groups, lobbyists or politicians to manipulate or redirect money into whatever avenue is dark and free of roadblocks, and the average person never sees any of it.

Tribal leaders now question why their contributions intended to help DeLay's causes and totaled $32 million ended up disguised and directed elsewhere.

David Sickey, a Coushatta council member said:

There's a pattern of trying to keep high-profile entities out of the picture. To me, it tells me there's some effort at concealment.

There is evidence that Abramoff, lobbyist and fundraiser for Bush, "specifically advised" the Indian tribes when and to whom to send political contributions. A tribal official said that "requests" for political donations were actually "demands" by Abramoff. The tribes hired Abramoff with the goal to promote their interests in the writing of the Indian Gaming Act, and labor provisions that would make it harder to approve new casinos.

DeLay also directly benefited from Abramoff:

Invoices show that among the charges was a $185,000 payment for use of a Washington arena skybox Abramoff had leased. The AP reported earlier this year that DeLay treated some of his donors to a May 2000 performance of the Three Tenors in Abramoff's skybox.

A few weeks later, DeLay took a trip to Europe arranged by Abramoff. The House leader reported that the trip was paid for by an interest group, when in fact it was underwritten in part by Indian tribes.

Of course DeLay still maintains that he was never told that Indian tribes had funded his trip, even though Abramoff was a close friend.

Check out the actual tribal documents at: http://wid.ap.org/inv/050621tribaldonations.html (Documents are in PDF format.)

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