WaPo: Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff

[Subdivisions]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html

By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 13, 2006; 1:32 AM

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.

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The Senate report released yesterday states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff's clients."

The report bolstered earlier revelations that Abramoff laundered money through the nonprofits to pay for congressional trips and paid Norquist to arrange meetings for Abramoff's clients with government officials including White House senior adviser Karl Rove.

The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

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Repugs are just plain religion-hawking criminals.

[acmejack]

1. Grover an ordinary con man?

In fact the whole group of those unctuous College Republiclowns appear to be exactly that. It is so much more important that they fight the war of ideas here than the real war there. They produce little bastards like Patrick Henry who run around and dare to flap their lips to real patriots. These little piss ants are good at one thing-exploiting the laws to their advantage and getting over on regular folks because they are Oh, just so much smarter than everybody else!

It is time that Norquist, Rove, Reed, Abramhoff, the entire stinking gang goes down!

[KharmaTrain]

2. Another Tree Falls In The Abramoff Forest...Does Anyone Hear It?

These are new emails that really show how deep Trader Jack's tenticles went into the White House and why Susan Ralston took such a quick powder last week.

Add to this David Kuo's mention of how "Faith Based funds" were used by Rove for campaign purposes and we're finally starting to get a peek inside what Rove was really doing while not "f*cking" this Democrat or that one.

The interesting part of this story lays ahead...as Abramoff and others continue to cooperate for lesser prison terms and this scandal will snowball uphill through more and more investigations and indictments. Add a rocket to that snowball should the Democrats gain a firm majority in the House.

I've long heard about Norton's office being a major Abramoff cesspool and now I hope we find out where that slime leads. It'll be such a delight to see Grover disgraced and, hopefully, indicted.