April 25, 2005
Abramoff Paid for DeLay Trip to London
By Byron LaMasters
It is against House rules for a registered lobbyist to pay for the travel expenses of a congressman. Jack Abramoff is a Washington lobbyist, and friend of Tom DeLay. Edwin A. Buckham is also a Washington lobbyist. Abramoff and Buckham paid for a 2000 trip to London and Scotland for Tom DeLay. The Washington Post reports:
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.
DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.
House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists. DeLay, who is now House majority leader, has said that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization and that the financial arrangements for it were proper. He has also said he had no way of knowing that any lobbyist might have financially supported the trip, either directly or through reimbursements to the nonprofit organization.
The Houston Chronicle has a handy breakdown of the expenses for Tom DeLay's London trip:
Details of a trip to Britain taken by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in May 2000, based on travel and other documents:
- Business Class tickets for DeLay and his wife to London on Continental Airlines and British Airways: $6,938.70
- Golfing fees at St. Andrews: $5,000 per golfer, including DeLay.
- Deluxe room at the London Four Seasons Hotel: $790 a night for four nights.
- Private car from Heathrow airport to the hotel: $302.
- Six theater tickets: $434. (DeLay's attorney said the lawmaker did not recall attending the theater but the tickets were charged to his room)
More at the Daily DeLay.
Posted by Byron LaMasters at April 25, 2005 11:25 AM
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People are missing much of this story. Of course, the CHRISTIAN COALITION was used to carry out Ralph Reed's lobbying campaign on behalf of existing Native American tribes, while taking $4 million in tribal money to oppose new resorts by a third tribe, the Jenas. Ralph Reed turned to his existing network of contacts, including Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition to implement this strategy. The new head of the Christian Coalition loves money and nothing else and would do almost anything for money.
The CHRISTIAN COALITION'S lobbyist, Jim Backlin, is a member of Ed Buckham's church in Frederick, Maryland, and has been in the same church with Ed Buckham for around 20 years (previously they were both in a church together in D.C., now in Frederick, Maryland.) I don't believe Ed Buckham is "the" pastor of the Frederick church, but has been a deacon / elder for years and is now an ordained minister. He is a non-professional minister who does not work at it full-time.
Ed Buckham hired Jim Backln at the Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives, which was a sort of official conservative think tank within the Congress itself. Jim Backlin has worked directly for Ed Buckham for
about half of the last 20 years, and worked closely with him the rest of the time.
These events were in Louisiana and Alabama. One of the leading religious right figures in Louisiana is the CHRISTAN COALITION'S founding Board member, the Rev. Billy McCormack. It is hard to imagine that Ralph Reed's campaign IN LOUISIANA against the Jena tribe's new resorts did not heavily involve the Jimmy Swaggart of Louisiana, Christian Coalition founding Board member Rev. Billy McCormack.
