So now he did it for the children.
As we noted before, when Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) jaunted off to Scotland with Jack Abramoff, David Safavian, Ralph Reed, and others, he didn’t exactly come clean on the purpose of the trip: golf! golf! golf! He wrote on House disclosure forms that it was to give a “speech to Scottish Parliamentarians” and visit the British Parliament.
The problem with that story was that the Scottish Parliament wasn’t in session while Ney was there. And unfortunately for Ney, it’s obvious from an itinerary that Abramoff sent out prior to the trip what it was all about.
But now we have a new version, courtesy of Ney’s lawyers. As part of their all-out offensive after Ney’s ex-aide’s guilty plea, they’re denying everything up and down. This was no junket. Ney was fooled! And he doesn’t even like golf!
In their most detailed public explanations to date, Tuohey and Lawler also took on some of the long-simmering allegations against Ney.
The trip to Scotland, for instance, was not a golf junket, they said, but was actually supposed to be a fundraising event that would benefit Scottish and American children, at which Ney’s presence would help with the amount raised, they said.
Ney was “not particularly interested in the trip and he’s not really a golfer at all,” Tuohey said. There was a dinner meeting with members of Scottish Parliament and one with U.S. military officials there, as well as a planned meeting with members of the Conservative Party in London that was eventually cancelled.
“They were explicitly told this trip was an official business trip,” Tuohey added.
The itinerary for the trip, sent out weeks prior, says nothing about a fundraiser.
Furthermore, Abramoff wrote in an email that Ney had requested the trip: “‘Our friend’ asked if we could help (as in cover) a Scotland golf trip for him and some staff … the trip will be quite expensive…” The email was to Marc Schwartz, a consultant for the Texas Tigua, the tribe that ultimately helped cover the trip’s costs.
So it looks like Abramoff has been arranging this elaborate framing of Ney for quite some time. What’ll his lawyers deny next?
