Hmmm. Rep. Don Young (R-AK) keeps telling the press up in Alaska that he “never had any personal or professional relationship with [Jack] Abramoff.” 
Now, as regular readers of TPM know, we have a cache of unpublished Team Abramoff emails from back in the day.
So this evening, after we heard about the Bermuda shorts dispute, I started leafing through the emails to see if Rep. Young’s name came up.
It didn’t take long.
The first one that caught my attention was an internal Team Abramoff email from Jennifer Calvert, a lobbyist who worked for Jack Abramoff, to Abramoff and Susan Ralston, Abramoff’s then-executive assistant.
It’s dated February 2nd, 2000 and the subject line reads “Suites – Don Young”.
The text of the email reads …
Don Young has asked for the use of our suites for some upcoming fundraisers. At this time, could we reserve the following events for Don Young?
Thursday, March 30, Caps vs. Pittsburgh game 7:00 p.m.
Monday, July 24, Orioles vs. NY Yankees game 7:35 p.m. (assuming we have the box)
So Young asked Abramoff’s deputy to ask Abramoff if he could use Jack’s skyboxes to hold his fundraisers. But Young doesn’t know Jack Abramoff from Adam.
Go figure.
(ed.note: For a breakdown of who footed the bill for the Abramoff skyboxes, see this July 2000 email from Ralston to Abramoff.)
