Burns On the Take from Abramoff

[Mark S.]

This is from the Billings, MT Gazette.

It looks like GOP stalwart Sen. Conrad Burns was in Jack Abramoff's hip pocket!



Published on Tuesday, October 31, 2006.
Last modified on 10/31/2006 at 12:34 am
Abramoff friend describes Burns staff's ties to lobbyist
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau
HELENA - A Republican media consultant and friend of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently wrote a letter to a Montana newspaper saying Burns' staff ate so many free meals at Abramoff's restaurant, people joked they would have "starved to death" without the lobbyist.

"Frankly, it was widely viewed in D.C. that Mr. Abramoff effectively exerted implicit control over Mr. Burns whenever he and his team needed to get something accomplished," reads the letter, which was sent to the Whitefish Pilot last week.

The letter is expected to run in the Pilot's Thursday edition.

The author, Monty Warner, a GOP media consultant, told the Gazette State Bureau last week that he came across an article in the Pilot recently in which Burns is quoted as saying he only got $5,000 from Abramoff. That, combined with Burns' other statements in which he says he hardly knew Abramoff and, at one point, he wished Abramoff had never been born, compelled him to write the letter, Warner said.

Abramoff, a former Republican lobbyist, pleaded guilty in January to charges relating to fraud, public corruption and conspiring to bribe public officials. He is at the center of a U.S. Justice Department investigation involving lobbying and its abuses, a scandal that has already claimed an Ohio congressman.

"The Abramoff staff had certain targets and certain people that they worked with and Burns' staff was one that was readily available," Warner said. "I understand (Burns) is in a campaign and I am a Republican, but the nastiness and the manner in which he's gone about trashing my friend is repugnant. I could care less if (Burns) gets elected or not."

Erik Iverson, a Burns spokesman, questioned why Montanans should believe the word of "some East Coast Jack Abramoff apologist."

"I've got five letters to the editor on my desk written by (Democratic challenger) Jon Tester's neighbors in Big Sandy, people who know Jon Tester, who live near Jon Tester and who are supporting Conrad Burns," Iverson said.

In his letter, Warner said Abramoff "went out of his way to be accommodating and supportive of Mr. Burns.

"Mr. Burns gladly and readily welcomed Mr. Abramoff's support in this regard and it was clear he often encouraged it," Warner's letter reads.

Burns has consistently maintained there is nothing to insinuations that the senator is part of the Justice investigation into Abramoff and his lobbying abuses. He has said he didn't know Abramoff well.

Several national papers have reported that Burns is part of the investigation, citing anonymous sources. Burns has hired a criminal defense attorney and has paid him $90,000 since April, the political journal Roll Call reported last week.

Burns received $150,000 from Abramoff, his tribal clients and associates - more than any other lawmaker, records show. Burns gave away the money after the Abramoff scandal broke.

Warner said he is a friend of Abramoff's, but said the former lobbyist did do wrong. He said he is disturbed by Burns' consistent portrayal that Abramoff and his staff were far removed from Burns and his Senate employees.

"To sit there and rewrite the entire context of what occurred," Warren said. "How is it that you received the money you received and the favors you received? He's just not being honest."

Warner's letter said he wasn't personally close to Burns' staff.

"I just know who they were and that they were constantly in his restaurant," he said.

Warner's letter isn't the first time the man has written on Abramoff's behalf. Warner was one of the 260 people who wrote letters to a federal judge this spring on Abramoff's behalf urging the judge to be lenient in his punishment for Abramoff.

Iverson said he thought most Montanans would discount Warner's letter.

"When it comes to character references, most Montanans are going to take the word of folks from (Tester's hometown) Big Sandy," he said, referring to the letters written on behalf of Burns from Big Sandy residents.

Matt McKenna, a Tester spokesman, countered that "the people who know Jack Abramoff best know that Senator Burns was a wholly owned subsidiary of Abramoff's lobbying firm."

[hacker15]

Who cares? If it's not the Republicans on the take, it's some Democrat with his/her hand in the till. The public allows this to happen with excessive "perks" to elected officials. It's been this way since the days of the "Founding Fathers". Do you really believe most people go into politics to "better the human condition"? If you do, you never heard the old saying that you never will see a politician come out of office poorer than when they went in.

[Son of Norway]

Originally Posted by hacker15

Who cares?

I do. And I vote.

You are right, nobody's perfect. But we should expect gub'mint people to follow the rules.

[IdahoEv]

Originally Posted by hacker15

Who cares? If it's not the Republicans on the take, it's some Democrat with his/her hand in the till.

Except it's not. It's cheap and easy to say "well Democrats are corrupt too". Yes, politics has an awful lot of ethical gray area and sleazy dealing, and yes the Democrats have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar at times, as well.

But there are differences in degree, and they are large.

The Abramoff scandal deals with sums of money previously unheard-of in politics. This bribery scandal goes way beyond anything we've seen in the last two decades, and is literally a hundred times as large as anything the Democrats have been even accused of, let alone convicted of.

It's a direct result of the K Street Project, an 11-year old explicit project to increase the ties between the GOP and Washington lobbying firms. The result has been putting far more lawmakers under the thumb of lobbyists and contributors than ever before, and the near complete ownership of regulatory agencies (DOE, EPA, USDA, FDA) by the very industries that they are suppossed to be regulating. The revolving door politics that have resulted have put certain businesses in bed with the government more than almost ever in history.

It's not just more of the same ... the whole Abramoff scandal and the K Street Project that ultimately set the stage for it are a dramatic shift from the way things had been done for the previous 80 years or so.

A simple apathetic statement like "the Dems do it too" is, in this case, both unfounded and dangerous. The corruption situation was in fact so bad that the entire GOP is running away from it now at full speed; trying to disassemble the Project, passing the "Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act" 90-8 back in March, etc.

This is really not one of those cases where "both parties are the same". It was so bad that if the GOP loses control of one or both houses next week, this will be a big part of why.

[hacker15]

Originally Posted by IdahoEv

Except it's not. It's cheap and easy to say "well Democrats are corrupt too". Yes, politics has an awful lot of ethical gray area and sleazy dealing, and yes the Democrats have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar at times, as well.

But there are differences in degree, and they are large.

The Abramoff scandal deals with sums of money previously unheard-of in politics. This bribery scandal goes way beyond anything we've seen in the last two decades, and is literally a hundred times as large as anything the Democrats have been even accused of, let alone convicted of.

It's a direct result of the K Street Project, an 11-year old explicit project to increase the ties between the GOP and Washington lobbying firms. The result has been putting far more lawmakers under the thumb of lobbyists and contributors than ever before, and the near complete ownership of regulatory agencies (DOE, EPA, USDA, FDA) by the very industries that they are suppossed to be regulating. The revolving door politics that have resulted have put certain businesses in bed with the government more than almost ever in history.

It's not just more of the same ... the whole Abramoff scandal and the K Street Project that ultimately set the stage for it are a dramatic shift from the way things had been done for the previous 80 years or so.

A simple apathetic statement like "the Dems do it too" is, in this case, both unfounded and dangerous. The corruption situation was in fact so bad that the entire GOP is running away from it now at full speed; trying to disassemble the Project, passing the "Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act" 90-8 back in March, etc.

This is really not one of those cases where "both parties are the same". It was so bad that if the GOP loses control of one or both houses next week, this will be a big part of why.

This has/had nothing to do with "Dems do it to" and is/was not an apology for the Republicans who got caught with their hand in the public till. This is a simple statement that ALL politicens are exposed to massive amounts of money and some of it has a tendency to stick to their hands (most of them are LAWYERS, after all!). Are you guys blind or what? You think these people spend HUGE sums of money (some of it their own - as Bloomberg in NY and others throughout the country have done) in order to get elected are in it for "public service"? Maybe they are, if you define them, their family, their friends, and their business associates as "the public"!

Wake up, people - these folks are making out like bandits (as most of them are) at our expense. I stick by my question - when have you seen one of them come out of office POORER than when they went in?