Cornyn denies ties to lobbyist-Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Scanlon

[LiviaOlivia]

Sun, Apr. 17, 2005
Cornyn denies ties to lobbyist

By Maria Recio
Star-Telegram Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The closing of the Speaking Rock Casino near El Paso in February 2002 was one of John Cornyn's proudest moments as Texas attorney general.

His determination to shut down the Tigua Indian tribe's casino because it was opened in violation of state law earned the Texas Republican kudos and pledges of support from Christian political organizers -- backing that proved helpful as Cornyn made his successful run for the U.S. Senate that year.

~snip~

But Cornyn's role in the casino controversy is only beginning to draw attention. The shuttering of the Speaking Rock Casino is being explored by investigators for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, as well as a federal multi-agency task force and grand jury that are examining the actions of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations associate Mike Scanlon. Abramoff and Scanlon had many Indian gaming clients, including the Tigua Ysleta de Sur Pueblo, as the Tigua are known. The lobbyists are at the center of a fraud and fundraising scandal that has embroiled DeLay.

Cornyn, elected senator in 2002, was supported in his anti-Speaking Rock effort by a grassroots campaign led by conservative Christian lobbyist Ralph Reed, who organized pastors around the state to oppose gaming and back the attorney general. Senate investigators discovered that Abramoff hired Reed to block gaming expansion in Texas and Louisiana -- and that the $4 million that Reed was paid actually came from Abramoff's Indian gaming clients.

~snip~

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/11418027.htm
reg req'd

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. As Lyndon Johnson once said:

Get them having to answer the question: "When did you stop having carnal knowledge with barnyard animals".

[movonne]

2. I really hope this is going to be a house of cards....

[msongs]

3. republican family values religion strikes again....eom

Msongs

[hedda_foil]

4. Suh-weet!

Mr anti-gambling is on the take from LV gaming interests!

espite Cornyn's image as a gaming foe, he received $6,250 in contributions for his 2002 race from Las Vegas casino interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which compiled data from the Federal Election Commission. Some of the contributions were made at the same time Cornyn was pushing to close the Tigua casino.

Asked whether he opposes gambling, Cornyn replied: "No, not if it's in compliance with the law. It's legal to gamble in Nevada, and it's not legal to gamble in Texas."

During the 2002 campaign, Cornyn attended a fundraiser May 29, 2002, at the home of Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton in an event organized by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. The contributions are a small part of the $9.8 million that Cornyn received in the 2002 race.

[roguevalley]

5. incest. they are all going to fall. tom delay is just the first knot in

a long and twisted rope. This is going to only get better. Ralph Reed in prison ... now THAT is a long time fantasy of mine. :evilgrin:

[young_at_heart]

6. Ralph Reed won't fall

I've been following his misdeeds for some time now....he keeps getting more power and money. Most people have never heard of him let alone know all the bad strings he has pulled.

[UpInArms]

11. more fron the link in post #8

Abramoff and Scanlon did not want to see Cornyn discouraged or slowed down. Their biggest paying client was the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana, which considered any casino in Texas a threat to its Interstate 10 gambling market. Cornyn’s lawsuit was the quickest way to put the Tiguas out of business. If they could help Cornyn kill the Tigua casino, they would have a federal court order declaring Indian gaming in Texas illegal. The ruling would also shut down the casino the Alabama Coushatta Tribe was trying to get up and going in Livingston, Texas, 75 miles north of Houston. (The Alabama Coushattas never made it back to Alabama because Sam Houston offered them land in appreciation for their help in the Texas war of independence. They belong to the same tribal family that includes the Coushattas in Louisiana, share the same blood and customs, and sometimes intermarry with their cousins on the other side of the Sabine River. But to the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, preserving their regional Indian gaming monopoly was more important than the family ties that bind them to their Texas relatives.)

<snip>

Ralph Reed was the perfect cover.

Abramoff hired the former director of the Christian Coalition to keep the pressure on Cornyn and watch for Tigua gambling bills in the Texas Legislature. While with the Coalition, Reed had worked with a network of pastors in Texas. Under contract to Abramoff, he returned to his Texas network as the leader of a Christian anti-gambling crusade. He told no one he was working for lobbyists who were paid by gambling interests in Louisiana. For the $4.2 million Abramoff paid him, Reed led and organized a group of Texas pastors into the fight to close the Tigua’s casino and watched over Abramoff’s interests in the Texas Legislature. He promised Cornyn broad support and pressed him to act quickly to close the casino, according to e-mails released by Senate Indian Affairs. Reed was also soliciting phone calls from pastors and congregations across the state and patching the calls into the AG’s office. He knew which pastors to call to keep the public pressure on Cornyn.

...more...

[LiviaOlivia]

21. I disagree

Reed's time will come and the sooner the better. His nine lives have been used up. I plan to dance a jig in the street on news of his send down.

[Roland99]

7. Historical pattern: Investigate, deny, deny, deny, indicted

[UpInArms]

8. more background (and it's damning)

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1830

excerpt:

The 1,250-member tribe living on the easternmost edge of El Paso wasn’t the victim of the largest fraud Abramoff and Scanlon are alleged to have perpetrated. The Tiguas lost only $4.2 million ($4.5 million if political contributions the lobbyists demanded they make are included.) The Coushatta Tribe in Louisiana lost $33.5 million. (See “K Street Croupiers,” November 19, 2004). But the Coushattas still have their casino, which brings in $300 million a year. The Tiguas have no casino. Median income in the tribe is $8,000 a year.

There’s a qualitative difference in what Abramoff and Scanlon did to the Tiguas, and it involves conflicts of interest, and, according to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, fraud. The other tribes hired the two lobbyists to defend or expand existing gambling operations. Abramoff and Scanlon offered their services to members of Tigua tribe after John Cornyn shut down their Speaking Rock Casino. Yet before making their sales pitch to the Tiguas, both men had spent a year secretly directing the campaign that pressured John Cornyn to close the Tigua casino.

“It was the most cynical deal I’ve ever seen in this business,” said an Austin political consultant who had represented Indian interests in Texas.

“While they were on the payroll of other tribes, they worked to destroy the only real economic development program that tribe ever had. Then they went out there and told them they could pass a secret provision in the House and Senate and open the casino up. There was never any way they could do what they promised. Both senators from Texas were opposed to gambling. Phil Gramm was opposed to gambling. Kay Bailey Hutchison was opposed to gambling. How were they going to get an Indian casino bill past them?”

As Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn wasn’t the first public official in Texas to oppose Indian gaming. Ann Richards declared it illegal when she was the state’s governor. As did Dan Morales, when he was attorney general. But Cornyn relentlessly pursued the tribe, which had become a big contributor to Democrats after the casino opened in 1993. Shortly after taking office in 1999, he filed suit in federal court, seeking to shut the tribe’s casino down. The Tiguas fought back. They claimed that once the state created a lottery, the federal Restoration Act of 1987 no longer prohibited them from gambling. Gambling had been illegal in Texas at the time they were certified as a tribe under the terms of that act. Once the state got into the gambling business, they argued, reservation gaming was legal, as it is in other states where gambling is not prohibited. It was a novel legal defense, but it failed. Yet they were determined to fight on. The tribe began a public relations campaign, focusing on the $60 million a year generated by a casino that had lifted the tribe out of the mud-hut poverty in which it had lived for generations.

...more...

[Roland99]

13. Greed...Jesus would have been SO proud of these people!

I'm tearing up...

[Pithy Cherub]

9. To have all the power and then ethically set themselves on fire

takes more blazing HELL-bent talent than I gave mepublicans credit for. Has all that moralizing and time in church gone for naught?

:popcorn:

[AlCzervik]

10. accoding to Time magazine Cornyn worked with Abamoff and scanlon

in secret to shut down the Tigua tribe gambling only to have Abramoff and Scanlon turn around and offer their services to the same tribe to lobby to get them reopened to the tune of $125,000 a month. Unreal, what a web of deceit.

[LiviaOlivia]

12. More on Cornyn and Reed

~snip~

In a series of e-mails released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Cornyn's name appears numerous times in communications among Reed, Abramoff and Scanlon. As a result, he has drawn some criticism. "Cornyn is getting a pass that he doesn't deserve," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, referring to the lack of attention to the senator's involvement. "My concern is that he's working with Ralph Reed, who's being paid by Indian gaming interests," Sloan said.

On Nov. 12, 2001, Abramoff and Reed discussed strategy for supporting Cornyn. Reed writes Abramoff: "Great work. Get me details so I can alert Cornyn and let him know what we are doing to help him."

Cornyn said he had no contact with Reed.

Reed denies knowing that he was being paid by Indian tribes. "Jack hired Ralph to organize a grassroots coalition to close one casino and prevent another casino from opening," said Lisa Baron, Reed's spokeswoman, "which was in line with Ralph's philosophical views and grassroots business." However, in an e-mail sent Jan. 7, 2002, there is the suggestion that Reed knew who he was working for. Reed wrote Abramoff: "Hope these developments help with client.

~snip~

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/11418027.htm
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[0007]

14. bttft

[young_at_heart]

18. How much money did Reed get from Enron?

I've heard that Reed was recommended as a consultant by Karl Rove. Rove says he's a big fan of Reed's, nothing more.

[0007]

15. Cornyn is lying though his teeth!

These are the types of politicians that will go the way of Il Duce.

Jack Abramoff is pissed and will turn the table on DeLay & Cornyn.

[rodeodance]

16. its almost funny--nobody knows nobody te he

[0007]

20. The best one yet, is when junior claimed he didn't know Ken Lay, 'eh?

[Judi Lynn]

17. E-mails from Scanlon,Reed,Abramov reviewed in November, last year

in front a Senate committee. Truly obnoxious. I really hope ALL their clients get a chance to take a long, hard glare at this material. These people are completely diseased. They lost their "moral compasses" as soon as they were handed out:



Scanlon in the middle.

http://www.sagchip.org/council/events/2004/senatehearings/11-17-04-2ndHearing/11-17-04-hearing-exhibits.htm#

Taken from this site:

http://www.sagchip.org/council/events/2004/senatehearings/11-17-04-hearing.htm

[6000eliot]

19. No wonder he has a problem with judges.

He might wind up as a defendant in front of one!

[LiviaOlivia]

22. kick