[Mb-civic] How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck
Abramoff Used DeLay Aide, Attacks On Allies to Defeat Anti-Gambling Bill

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 16, 2005; Page A01

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his team were beginning to panic.

An anti-gambling bill had cleared the Senate and appeared on its way to 
passage by an overwhelming margin in the House of Representatives. If 
that happened, Abramoff's client, a company that wanted to sell state 
lottery tickets online, would be out of business.

But on July 17, 2000, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act went down to 
defeat, to the astonishment of supporters who included many 
anti-gambling groups and Christian conservatives.

A senior aide to then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) helped scuttle 
the bill in the House. The aide, Tony C. Rudy, 39, e-mailed Abramoff 
internal congressional communications and advice, according to documents 
and the lobbyist's former associates.

Rudy received favors from Abramoff. He went on two luxury trips with the 
lobbyist that summer, including one partly paid for by Abramoff's 
client, eLottery Inc. Abramoff also arranged for eLottery to pay $25,000 
to a Jewish foundation that hired Rudy's wife as a consultant, according 
to documents and interviews. Months later, Rudy himself was hired as a 
lobbyist by Abramoff.

The vote that day in July was just one part of an extraordinary yearlong 
effort by Abramoff on behalf of eLottery, a small gambling services 
company based in Connecticut. Details of that campaign, reconstructed 
from dozens of interviews as well as from e-mails and financial records 
obtained by The Washington Post, provide the most complete account yet 
of how one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists leveraged his 
client's money to influence Congress.

The work Abramoff did for eLottery is one focus of a wide-ranging 
federal corruption investigation into his dealings with members of 
Congress and government agencies. Abramoff is under indictment in 
another case in connection with an allegedly fraudulent Florida business 
deal.

Abramoff had deep roots in the conservative movement and rose to 
prominence by helping Republicans tap traditionally Democratic K Street 
lobbyists for campaign dollars. But in the eLottery fight, he employed a 
win-at-any-cost strategy that went so far as to launch direct-mail 
attacks on vulnerable House conservatives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/15/AR2005101501539.html
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