About two years ago, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee began investigating Jack Abramoff. Finally, the committee will release its report today, a narrative of how Abramoff managed to so thoroughly screw his tribal clients out of so much money.
Now, McCain has already said he won’t be dishing on how his fellow lawmakers helped Abramoff — decorum of the Senate and all that, not to mention the fact that nearly all involved with Abramoff were Republicans, and if McCain wants to run for president, airing other GOPers’ dirty laundry won’t win him any endorsements on the Hill. And most of what’s in the report is expected to be old news. But wait! The committee has 100 pages of unpublished material that might be included — material that might reveal more of Abramoff’s relationship with his buddies Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s in there.
From Roll Call:
A critical question for the committee was whether to publish any or all of the materials that they never released to the public at the five hearings held on the investigation in 2004 and 2005. This pool includes upward of 100 pages of unreleased documents and e-mails that Indian Affairs has forwarded to the Senate Finance Committee as part of its ongoing probe into criminal activities by nonprofits, which was one avenue Abramoff used to evade taxes.
Those unreleased materials also are expected to contain damaging details about Abramoffâs interactions with other key players in the conservative movement who have so far remained clear of the federal criminal investigation, including Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition director whoâs now running for Georgia lieutenant governor, and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
âWait till the report comes out,â McCain said, when asked about its details.
