A Good Story on Abramoff from Bloomberg

There are three money flows here. First, there is Abramoff's $130,000 of direct campaign contributions. Second, there is the money given as campaign contributions by Abramoff's clients--some of which were expenditures directed by Abramoff, and some of which were expenditures that the clients would have made in any case. For example, the Saginaw Chippewa gave $279,000 to Democrats over 1997-2000, and $277,000 over 2001-2004, after they had gotten into bed with Abramoff. It is a safe bet that *none* of those contributions to Democrats were "directed" by Abramoff. The Saginaw Chippewa gave $158,000 to Republicans in 1997-2000, and $500,000 to Republicans in 2001-2004, after they had gotten into bed with Abramoff. It is a safe bet that $340,000 of those contributions to Republicans were "directed" by Abramoff.

The third money flow is the $80 million or so that was paid to Abramoff and company for access to Republicans leaders--$25,000 for setting up a meeting with George W. Bush, et cetera. Some portion of that money flow (the guesses I am hearing is about a quarter) flowed through to politicians (and overwhelmingly Republican politicians) as "lifestyle enhancements"--luxury vacation trips paid for by Abramoff's credit card, and so forth.

All this is by way leading up to this story from Bloomberg News. This is how a story on Abramoff-connected money should be written. Organizations like the Washington Post now have negative credibility as objective news reporters. But--as there ability to report stories honestly indicates--for organizations like Bloomberg, there is still a presumption that their word is good:

Bloomberg.com:: Abramoff's `Equal Money' Went Mostly to Republicans (Update1) Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush calls indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff ``an equal money dispenser'' who helped politicians of both parties. Campaign donation records show Republicans were a lot more equal than Democrats. Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats.... [H]is Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.... Larry Noble... who directs the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics [says]. ``It is somewhat unusual in that most lobbyists try to work with both Republicans and Democrats, but we're already seeing that Jack Abramoff doesn't seem to be a usual lobbyist,'' Noble said. Abramoff, 46, is under investigation....

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff joined with his former partner, Michael Scanlon, and tribal clients to give money to a third of the members of Congress, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, according to records of the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service. At least 171 lawmakers got $1.4 million in campaign donations from the group. Republicans took in most of the money, with 110 lawmakers getting $942,275, or 66 percent of the total. Of the top 10 political donors among Indian tribes... three are former clients of Abramoff and Scanlon.... All three gave most of their donations to Republicans -- by margins of 30 percentage points or more -- while the rest favored Democrats....

Comments

[Robert Waldmann]

Good to stress that cash flows reported to the FEC are not the huge and illegal ones. I recall Josh Marshall's analogy "if a restaurant is being used to launder money, the list of people who dined there and what they ordered is not the key information." or something like that but written well.

On directed donations from clients, there is some direct information. The justice department has e-mails and memos and such. I hat to say this but Howell's reply to her thousand critics has a useful link.

Only a subset of directed donations can be identified as directed with such evidence, but I think it complements the statistical analysis of the Abramoff hired effect. The evidence quoted by Howell to prove that some money was directed to Democrats shows an immense skew towards Republicans (especially since Daschle's pac seems to have been crossed off and as far as I can tell from FEC records never got the cash).

[Brad DeLong]

And the full analysis of this is at?...

[Alex]

Your argument in the second half of the first paragraph is bizzare. We observe that the Saginaw Chippewa shifted from giving in about a 2:1 Dem:GOP ratio from 1997 to 2000, and about a 2:1 GOP:Dem ration from 2001 to 2004. Evidently they "got into bed" with Abramoff in 01/02. So you conclcude that Abramoff directed the shift.

Can we imagine any other possible reason they might have made this shift, had they not hired Abramoff? Why in the world would people give more to Repulicans from 01-04 than from 97-00? What a mystery! Sheesh.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Brad, I have an analysis of the materials Howell relied upon up at http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/01/deborah-howell-is-still-at-it.html.

I've just edited the post to recapitulate what you've got here re Bloomberg, since I think it's the perfect counterpoint to what Howell and the Post have done. I wish I had better access to the Abramoff materials and the historical political giving by tribes, but what can you do?