Abramoff Update: Ney Released, Reed to Hold McCain Fundraiser
Senator John McCain may have helped investigate the Jack Abramoff affair, but the stench of the scandal continues to engulf McCain's campaign and his Republican Party. On Friday, convicted friend-of-Jack and former Ohio congressman Bob Ney was released from a Cincinnati halfway house. And on Monday, McCain will attend an Atlanta fundraiser hosted by former Christian Coalition wunderkind Ralph Reed, who partnered with Abramoff in extracting millions of dollars from tribal Indian clients.
In Ohio, Bob Ney was released after serving 18 months of his two and a half year term for public corruption. (Ney's time was trimmed by a year after he pulled a "full Foley" and entered an alcohol rehabilitation program.) In November 2006, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements after receiving gifts and golf trips in exchange for favors for Abramoff clients. In February of this year, Ney was moved to the halfway house to serve out the rest of his time.
But while John McCain certainly had no role in Ney's wrongdoing, his attendance at the Reed fundraiser on August 18th is a self-inflicted wound. In June 2006, Indian Affairs Committee then chaired by Senator McCain issued a report detailing $5.3 million in payments Reed garnered from Abramoff's Indian casino clients. Amazingly, McCain never called Reed to testify, despite the Committee's conclusions that Reed had in essence laundered money for Abramoff while working both sides of the casino issue. As the New York Times noted:
In many cases, the report found, payments to Mr. Reed were handled through third parties in what appeared to be an effort to disguise the fact that the money was from tribes with large casino operations.
The report quoted a tribe leader from Louisiana as saying he was told to keep quiet about Mr. Reed because "he's Christian Coalition - it wouldn't look good if they're receiving money from a casino-operating tribe to oppose gambling."
Ultimately, that appearance of impropriety doomed Ralph Reed's political career among the very Christian conservatives he once championed. Reed's defeat in the 2006 race for Georgia's Lt. Governor can be explained by Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member and former Reed backer:
"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God. We are righteously casting him out."
Far from casting him out, John McCain is joining Ralph Reed and the moneychangers in Atlanta on Monday. But while McCain has boasted of leading the Abramoff investigation, on the 18th he'll stand with Reed, a man who once asked Jack Abramoff to help him start "humping in corporate accounts."
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