CHA-CHING!!!You can always count on Jack Abramoff’s crew for subtlety.
As part of the guilty plea of Robert Coughlin, the former Justice Department official, prosecutors filed a document that lays out the mutually profitable relationship between Kevin Ring, Abramoff’s associate, and Coughlin. You can read that here.
Coughlin got $6,180 worth of meals, drinks and sports tickets, prosecutors say, and Ring got a constant inside stream of information from DoJ. The filing lays out a laundry list of Coughlin’s favors. If Abramoff’s team needed information about his tribal clients, a corporate transaction, or something to do with speeding along permits for Abramoff’s Jewish prep school, Coughlin was there.
Coughlin was particularly helpful with getting the Mississippi Choctaw the full $16 million for a jail-construction grant that that had been promised via an earmark. The jail was one of the main priorities for Abramoff’s team between 2001-2002, as they fought the Justice Department’s determination that the Choctaw, a very wealthy tribe, didn’t need the funds.
Coughlin was there to warn Ring that a DoJ official handling the matter had “Democratic political leanings” and so couldn’t be trusted to be helpful, according to the filing, and to otherwise advise Ring who the “friendlies” were at DoJ. He also showed up at a DoJ meeting along with Ring, because, as Ring wrote in an email, “it would be good if you were there so some of the clowns there know that I have friends, if you get my drift.”
Finally, possibly with the intervention of a “high-ranking DoJ official” (it’s not clear), the full $16 million was released. Ring was elated, writing “CHA-CHING!!!” in an email.
The filing makes clear that Coughlin understood how valuable he was to Ring. At one point, emailing in response to Ring’s thanks for Coughlin’s good work, he responded “Hey man. I have a favor to ask. Any way I can hit you up for Wizards tickets (4) on the 15th and 18th of March?”
“In appreciation for the assistance that Coughlin had provided,” the filing states, “[Ring] gave him eight third-row tickets for the Wizards.”
As I said below, Coughlin has agreed to fully cooperate with prosecutors, raising the question of what sort of help he might be. Well, for one thing, Ring himself has not yet been charged as part of the investigation. He was a key member of Abramoff’s team, not only for his ties to John Ashcroft (for whom he used to work along with Coughlin), but also because he had been a top aide to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), who became one of Abramoff’s key allies in Congress. The FBI raided Doolittle’s Virginia home last year as part of the investigation.
Coughlin worked in the DoJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs in 2001 and 2002, then moving over to be the Deputy Director at the Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison. He left for a detail with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Eastern Virginia in late 2003 before returning to be the deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department’s criminal division. So it appears that the Abramoff investigation would have already launched by the time he got that job (it began in February, 2004). The DoJ has said that Coughlin recused himself from the investigation, though it appears that the revealing emails came as something of a surprise. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that “Mr. Coughlin resigned as deputy chief of staff in the Justice Department’s criminal division a year ago when prosecutors discovered his email correspondence with former Abramoff lobby team member Kevin A. Ring.”
Update: Here is the plea agreement struck by Coughlin and prosecutors.
