Lesson of Abramoff: Charities are being used to funnel money.

[The Backlash Cometh]

"He diverted funds from a youth athletic foundation to bankroll a golf junket for a congressman and to bolster the bank account of his Washington restaurant. He used two nonprofits to line his pockets with millions of dollars defrauded from clients.

Charities advance the public interest, which is why they aren't taxed. But Abramoff used them to evade taxes, enrich himself and cronies, and bribe public officials, according to a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in January."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Abramoffs_charity_schemes_0210.html

[muntrv]

1. Wasn't Chris Matthews

of "Hardball" on one of these golf junkets?

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. There has been talk that he or Russert had been involved with some

of Abramoff's money and that's why they worked so hard to pin this one on the Democrats as well as the Republicans, I guess to hope it would go away.

[havocmom]

3. Think about pols 'returning the $$' by giving it to charity

and what that means:

A) It isn't returning the money if you give it to a whole different group instead of the group that gave it to you!

B) How do we know the charities the pols give it to are not involved in further laundering of the money? Some of them might just be another spin cycle.

That all came to my mind when I read about Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) 'returning' Abramoff connected money to a tribal council in the WY, MT area. Turns out that group has one registered lobbyist. That lobbyist turns out to be a former Burns aide!

Burns gives money away

Sen. Conrad Burns vowed last month to return most of the $146,700 in campaign contributions connected with confessed felon Jack Abramoff to its original donors, but most of the money went to the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, whose lobbyist is a former Burns staffer.

A Burns campaign official said legal questions kept Burns from using his re-election funds to return money to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Michigan Indian tribes, all former clients of Abramoff. The tribes originally contributed the money to a different Burns account, which no longer exists.

But at least one tribe originally wrote its check to Burns' principal re-election account before the contribution ended up in the now-defunct account.

Burns decided to give the $101,000 in question to charity and donated it to the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council. Stan Ullman, who was Burns' legislative assistant and worked in his Washington office for four years, is registered as that group's only lobbyist.

Well, that raised my hackles a bit
havocmom voices concern

The tribal council which employed the former Burns aid discussed possible ramifications of accepting and voted not to take his money. I cannot get a link to that article, as the Billings Gazette site was overhauled and some old links I have no longer work. {insert faux surprised smilie of your choice here}

Since Abramoff has used charities to hide shenanigans in the past, I think all of us should follow the Abramoff money our reps try to give away and see what all might be connected to the places they try to unload their burden of shame.

Follow the money. Support charities... make sure they are not full of 'former aids' of pols who are suddenly moved to give! Follow the money and make damned sure it gets to the REAL charity work!

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. My points exactly. Who is regulating the Charities?

Isn't it funny that the 9/11 terrorist were said to be financed by money funneled through charities? I mean, how stupid can we get as a country? We shouldn't just let foreigners learn how to fly planes on our soil nor should we let our charities go unregulated. There's a lot of bad people living within our borders, and they're not all foreigners.

[ClassWarrior]

4. THIS is the ILLEGAL money that Jackoff gave EXCLUSIVELY to the GOP.

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

6. K&R

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

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[ClassWarrior]

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[ClassWarrior]

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