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Committee: Nonprofit Head Lied

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TPMm Reader DK writes in to say “other than Abramoff and Scanlon, no one comes out of [the McCain report] looking worse and more likely to be indicted than [Italia] Federici.”

Agreed. It’s pretty ugly. The committee, very clearly, thinks she lied to them (as the report states, they are “concerned about the veracity of Federici’s testimony on several important areas”), which is, of course, a felony.

Let’s remind ourselves of who Ms. Federici is. She heads up a group called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a rightwing front group that, as Michael Scherer put it, “argues it is healthy for forests to clear-cut trees, good for the air to weaken air-quality controls, and “environmentally responsible” to drill for oil in the Alaskan wilderness.”

More importantly, Federici had “juice” (as Abramoff put it in an email) at Interior, because she’d worked closely with Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who’d founded CREA. So Abramoff directed his clients to pump money into CREA and asked for a steady stream of favors from Federici. Abramoff’s clients gave $500,000 — a substantial portion of CREA’s funds came from Abramoff.

But Federici just won’t admit that Abramoff was buying access. She testified — and I’m not making this up — that she was helpful to Abramoff in order “to be nice.” The committee, unsurprisingly, doesn’t believe her.

Just look at this weasely answer she gave to the committee during a deposition (page 328):

“FEDERICI: Who writes $50,000 checks to people they don’t know if it wasn’t what Jack—Jack said these people have a lot of money, they want to give to Republicans, they’re taking my advice, and they really just don’t want to be bothered with executive directors [like me]. Fine, and then they sent their checks in. And then what did these disappointed people think they were going to get, and you tell me who’s committing fraud … I mean it all fit ….

STAFF: [Mr. Abramoff] told you that?

FEDERICI: Yes ….”

It’s pretty plain that Federici is in trouble. And a guilty plea from Federici would be very bad news for J. Steven Griles, the former number two at Interior, and possibly Gale Norton.

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