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Nonprofits may be ensnared in lobbyist scandal
POSTED: 10:33 a.m. EDT, October 13, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Five nonprofit groups, including one of President Bush's biggest supporters, may have broken tax laws and put their tax-exempt status at risk by helping convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Senate Finance Committee report concludes.
The 600-page report issued Thursday was prepared by the committee's Democratic staff. Majority Republicans, however, had agreed to its release and joined with Democrats in issuing subpoenas for documents and e-mails cited in the report.
Among the groups named as possibly taking money from Abramoff clients and funneling it into his lobbying efforts on their behalf were Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. (Read the Senate Finance Committee's report -- PDF)
Tax-exempt groups are barred by law from being paid to lobby or do public relations.
Americans for Tax Reform is headed by Grover Norquist, a key ally of Bush and a longtime associate of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser.
The report said Norquist's group accepted $1.5 million from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, one of Abramoff's clients. More than two-thirds of that money was then passed to Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed as part of Abramoff's lobbying efforts to block a rival tribe's proposed casino in Alabama.
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The report also questioned the tax-exempt status of other groups, based on their association with Abramoff. It found that:
# The Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, co-founded by Italia Federici, Norquist and former interior secretary Gale Norton, received at least $250,000 from Abramoff clients to lobby the Interior Department.
# The National Center for Public Policy Research used money from Abramoff's clients to sponsor golf trips in 2000 and 2003 to Scotland for members of Congress.
# Toward Tradition, a religion-centered group once chaired by Abramoff, took money for help with generating news articles for Abramoff and his clients.
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ink to story :
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/13/abramoff.nonprofits.ap/index.html
This just gets better and better
POSTED: 10:33 a.m. EDT, October 13, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Five nonprofit groups, including one of President Bush's biggest supporters, may have broken tax laws and put their tax-exempt status at risk by helping convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Senate Finance Committee report concludes.
The 600-page report issued Thursday was prepared by the committee's Democratic staff. Majority Republicans, however, had agreed to its release and joined with Democrats in issuing subpoenas for documents and e-mails cited in the report.
Among the groups named as possibly taking money from Abramoff clients and funneling it into his lobbying efforts on their behalf were Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. (Read the Senate Finance Committee's report -- PDF)
Tax-exempt groups are barred by law from being paid to lobby or do public relations.
Americans for Tax Reform is headed by Grover Norquist, a key ally of Bush and a longtime associate of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser.
The report said Norquist's group accepted $1.5 million from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, one of Abramoff's clients. More than two-thirds of that money was then passed to Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed as part of Abramoff's lobbying efforts to block a rival tribe's proposed casino in Alabama.
***
The report also questioned the tax-exempt status of other groups, based on their association with Abramoff. It found that:
# The Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, co-founded by Italia Federici, Norquist and former interior secretary Gale Norton, received at least $250,000 from Abramoff clients to lobby the Interior Department.
# The National Center for Public Policy Research used money from Abramoff's clients to sponsor golf trips in 2000 and 2003 to Scotland for members of Congress.
# Toward Tradition, a religion-centered group once chaired by Abramoff, took money for help with generating news articles for Abramoff and his clients.
l
ink to story :
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/13/abramoff.nonprofits.ap/index.html
This just gets better and better
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