DeLay, Abramoff, and Gale Norton

Some DeLay staff e-mails are emerging, making for interesting reading. Associated Press:

Rep. Tom DeLay's staff tried to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff win access to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, an effort that succeeded after Abramoff's Indian tribe clients began funneling a quarter-million dollars to an environmental group founded by Norton.

Although I can't find it online now, in mid-March, the Arizona Republic did a piece on Norton's ties to this dodgy gaming PAC. Anyone -- say, a journalist -- with Lexis-Nexis handy might want to go dig it up. (However, see also this, this, and this for starters.) Back to the AP piece:

Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and the lobbyist and one of the tribes he represented won face-to-face time with the secretary during a Sept. 24, 2001, dinner sponsored by the group she had founded.

Abramoff's clients were trying to stop a rival Indian tribe from winning Interior Department approval to build a casino.

The rebuttal claim is that all this is just business as usual, as in the normal function of a Congressional office. But with the DeLay-Abramoff crew, nothing was normal. The article gets a tad more specific on the cash funneling:

The December 2000 e-mails show DeLay's office identified — as an avenue for winning a meeting with the new interior secretary — Norton's former political fundraiser, Italia Federici, and a conservative environmental group called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) [website].

Norton founded the group in 1999 with Federici and conservative activist Grover Norquist, a close ally of President Bush. When Norton was named interior secretary by Bush, Federici took over as president of CREA.

Pyle reported to Rudy that he was trying to reach a contact close to Norton and that Federici might be helpful. "Yes, I spoke to her yesterday and she is scrambling right now to get in touch with Gale. Italia helped co-found CREA with Gale and worked on her Senate campaign," Pyle wrote.

Basically, they were looking for the right buttons to push to gain influence at the office of the Interior Secretary. And -- sharp folks that they were -- they obviously found them. What fun that Grover Norquist is mixed up in the Indian money too, given he was so close to Abramoff.

Abramoff sent an e-mail to one of the tribes, the Coushattas, suggesting Interior officials wanted the donations to go to Norton's group. "I met with the Interior guys today and they were ecstatic that the tribe was going to help. If you can get me a check via federal made out to 'Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy' for $50K that would be great," Abramoff wrote in one e-mail made public by McCain's investigation.

These are just excerpts of an article that essentially lays out a timeline of e-mails, contributions, sitdown meetings, and subsequent public policy changes. Shameful. Resign, Madame Secretary.

Cross-posted to SoapBlox Colorado.

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