Bob Ney, Getting his Abramoff Due
posted on: Monday, November 21, 2005
Welcome to the world of questionable philanthropy as practiced by one Jack Abramoff. NCRP has been on the Abramoff case since we published “Abramoff: Well-Connected to the Well-Heeled of the Right” in the Fall 2004 issue of Responsive Philanthropy. That piece and others were submitted to the Senate Finance Committee to help spur investigators to look into the Abramoff’s Capital Athletic Foundation.
There wasn’t much athletic about Abramoff’s philanthropy, as the foundation tended a bit more to funding activities ranging from the religious elementary school whose board Abramoff chaired and where his kids went to school to a school in Israel where the foundation gave $140,000 for sniper scopes, night-vision goggles, camouflage suits, and other “security” equipment and the training to use them, especially sniper training. Senator McCain’s Indian Affairs committee hearing on November 2nd addressing the various kinds of Abramoff philanthropy is a bit of a hoot to read, especially for the nonchalance of Abramoff’s tax advisor and the frustration of senators who belatedly learned that you can do almost anything legally through foundations, even sniper training.
If sniping isn’t an athletic activity, golf certainly is. NCRP’s 2004 pointed out that the Capitol Athletic Foundation paid for a golf trip attended by lobbyists, federal bureaucrats, and one Congressman Bob Ney. Although Ney’s memory of the trip is a bit foggy, following the trip, Ney’s congressional committee helped arrange a Capitol Hill wi-fi contract for an Israeli high tech company that just happened to be represented by Abramoff in his lobbying guise for a $280,000 lobbying contract and contributed $50,000 to Abramoff’s foundation that paid for Ney’s trip. One of the government bureaucrats on the foundation-paid trip was David H. Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, since indicted for having lied that Abramoff had no business before the GSA when he went on Abramoff’s junket.
The Bob Ney part of the Abramoff story seemed to get short shrift in much of the mainstream press until Ney found himself accepting a subpoena from a federal grand jury to explain his connection to these events (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110401197.html). Apparently, Ney’s official explanation to Congress that he had gone on the golf junket to give a “speech to Scottish parliamentarians” didn’t wash, since there’s no record of his speech in Scotland and the Scottish parliament was not in session at the time.
Ney has since had second and third thoughts about the trip, started a legal defense fund, hired top flight criminal defense representation, and changed his opinion about his good friend Jack Abramoff: "I am absolutely outraged by the dishonest and duplicitous words and actions of Jack Abramoff," Ney contends (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701918_pf.html). Clean-cut, well-spoken, foul-emailing Jack Abramoff and his associates will hopefully get their due, especially now that lobbyist pal Michael Scanlon has pledged to work with authorities investigating whether Abramoff (and Scanlon) conspired to bribe Congressman Ney (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900937_2.html). Scanlon’s most intriguing recent activity might have constituted one of the Capital Athletic Foundation’s athletic ventures—with Abramoff’s help, Scanlon founded and directed a think tank, the American International Center, which he staffed with his yoga instructor and a local lifeguard.
The inquiries into Bob Ney’s connections to Jack Abramoff might not qualify as exactly athletic exertion, but it does look like Congressman Ney will get to break a sweat.
There wasn’t much athletic about Abramoff’s philanthropy, as the foundation tended a bit more to funding activities ranging from the religious elementary school whose board Abramoff chaired and where his kids went to school to a school in Israel where the foundation gave $140,000 for sniper scopes, night-vision goggles, camouflage suits, and other “security” equipment and the training to use them, especially sniper training. Senator McCain’s Indian Affairs committee hearing on November 2nd addressing the various kinds of Abramoff philanthropy is a bit of a hoot to read, especially for the nonchalance of Abramoff’s tax advisor and the frustration of senators who belatedly learned that you can do almost anything legally through foundations, even sniper training.
If sniping isn’t an athletic activity, golf certainly is. NCRP’s 2004 pointed out that the Capitol Athletic Foundation paid for a golf trip attended by lobbyists, federal bureaucrats, and one Congressman Bob Ney. Although Ney’s memory of the trip is a bit foggy, following the trip, Ney’s congressional committee helped arrange a Capitol Hill wi-fi contract for an Israeli high tech company that just happened to be represented by Abramoff in his lobbying guise for a $280,000 lobbying contract and contributed $50,000 to Abramoff’s foundation that paid for Ney’s trip. One of the government bureaucrats on the foundation-paid trip was David H. Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, since indicted for having lied that Abramoff had no business before the GSA when he went on Abramoff’s junket.
The Bob Ney part of the Abramoff story seemed to get short shrift in much of the mainstream press until Ney found himself accepting a subpoena from a federal grand jury to explain his connection to these events (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110401197.html). Apparently, Ney’s official explanation to Congress that he had gone on the golf junket to give a “speech to Scottish parliamentarians” didn’t wash, since there’s no record of his speech in Scotland and the Scottish parliament was not in session at the time.
Ney has since had second and third thoughts about the trip, started a legal defense fund, hired top flight criminal defense representation, and changed his opinion about his good friend Jack Abramoff: "I am absolutely outraged by the dishonest and duplicitous words and actions of Jack Abramoff," Ney contends (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701918_pf.html). Clean-cut, well-spoken, foul-emailing Jack Abramoff and his associates will hopefully get their due, especially now that lobbyist pal Michael Scanlon has pledged to work with authorities investigating whether Abramoff (and Scanlon) conspired to bribe Congressman Ney (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900937_2.html). Scanlon’s most intriguing recent activity might have constituted one of the Capital Athletic Foundation’s athletic ventures—with Abramoff’s help, Scanlon founded and directed a think tank, the American International Center, which he staffed with his yoga instructor and a local lifeguard.
The inquiries into Bob Ney’s connections to Jack Abramoff might not qualify as exactly athletic exertion, but it does look like Congressman Ney will get to break a sweat.
posted by NCRP at
4:46 PM
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