Former Aide to GOP Rep To Plead GuiltyYet another shoe drops in the Jack Abramoff investigation. A former aide to Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Mark Zachares, looks set to plead guilty to corruption charges.
The Justice Department filed a criminal information today on Zachares, laying out the facts to which he’ll be pleading guilty. You can read it here. A plea hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow.
According to the document, Zachares and Abramoff had what they called their “two year plan”: Zacheres would work for Abramoff on the inside, taking advantage of his congressional position to throw business Abramoff’s way, and eventually, when Zachares left Congress, Abramoff would reward him. As the information reads: Abramoff “would ‘credit’ Zachares with the ‘business’ Zachares… referred or developed for Abramoff’s firm, and would ultimately employ Zachares as a lobbyist credited ‘with business,’ warranting a high annual salary.”
In addition to the usual stream of junkets, meals, and sports tickets, Abramoff also funneled $10,000 to Zachares through one of his phony charities. In return, Zachares referred clients and provided a number of favors for Abramoff’s various clients.
The document does not implicate Rep. Young, but it does mention that in 2002, Abramoff “assisted Zachares in obtaining his position as a staffer on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,” which Young chaired. And Young has come up often in the course of the Abramoff scandal.
My call to Young’s office was not immediately returned.
Update: Some background on Zachares, courtesy of The Washington Post last year below.
From The Post:
At that time of his [March 2001] visit with Rove, according to former associates and e-mails released in the course of a Senate investigation, Abramoff was attempting to leverage his role as a major Bush fundraiser to place a close ally, Mark Zachares, into the position of head of the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs.
Another source, who is close to Rove, said he recalled that Abramoff pushed Zachares’s name in the early days of the administration but that Rove did not take action.
Abramoff and Zachares had been allies when Zachares served as labor secretary for the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, a U.S. territory overseen by Insular Affairs. The lobbyist helped the island territory, a client of his, fight off U.S. efforts to impose minimum-wage laws on its textile plants.
Zachares received $10,000 from Abramoff’s charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation, in two payments — one before and one just after he left the Marianas job — according to a ledger for the group released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last year. Abramoff has since admitted he used the Maryland charity to launder lobbying money.
Zachares did not get the Interior position, but in 2002 he landed a job with a congressman important to Abramoff — Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who served on the House Resources Committee, which oversees Indian and insular affairs. Zachares joined Abramoff on his annual Scotland golf trip the next year.
