Abramoff’s Payments to Rep’s Wife Coincided with Favors

One of our favorite aspects of the Jack Abramoff investigation is “the Wives Club,” as investigators call them — the klatsch of wives who picked up checks for their powerful lobbyist and lawmaker husbands so they never appeared to be holding the bag.

Julie Doolittle, whose husband Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) was a go-to lawmaker for Abramoff, was a member of the club.

Among other plum positions, Julie was on Abramoff’s payroll for almost two years, netting $67,000. Ever since this was made public, the Doolittles and her lawyer have been telling everyone that she’d worked mainly on organizing a fundraiser for Abramoff’s charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation (which was ultimately cancelled).

But as reported by Paul Kane in today’s Roll Call (subs. req.), the bulk of Julie Doolittle’s fees came after the fundraiser. And guess what? The timing of those payments just happen to coincide with John Doolittle (avowedly anti-gambling) providing a couple favors for Abramoff’s tribal clients. It’s the starkest evidence yet of a quid pro quo between Abramoff and Doolittle.

The more facts that come out, the more it looks like the Doolittles are going to have to fight felony charges. Former DeLay aide Tony Rudy has already pled guilty to accepting a bribe through one member of the Wives Club, his wife Lisa.

Below I’ve made a timeline of events so you can see how bad this looks. But let’s take it step by step, because it’s just amazing how brazen this was.

We’ll start with the quid and then we’ll roll to the quo.

The fundraiser for Abramoff’s “charity” was supposed to come off in March 2003, but was reportedly cancelled because it coincided with the launching of the Iraq War. As you might expect, Julie Doolittle appeared on Abramoff’s payroll the prior summer. She was paid $27,000 through February of ’03. Then the payments stopped.

But wait! More than three months after the fundraiser was cancelled, Julie suddenly appeared again on Abramoff’s payroll. Through February 2004, Julie received $5,000 a month from Abramoff, for a total of $40,000.

And here’s a funny coincidence. Her last payment came Feb. 19, 2004. Three days later, The Washington Post‘s Susan Schmidt broke the Abramoff scandal. No more payments after that.

Now, her lawyer has previously stated that her work for Abramoff was “primarily” occupied with the fundraiser. And yet $40,000 of the $67,000 came after that event. And the payments came not from Abramoff’s charity, but straight from his lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig.

You might be curious about what the Julie Doolittle’s attorney has to say about this. And yes, the story has changed:

In a statement given to Roll Call last week, [Julie Doolittle’s attorney William] Stauffer put equal emphasis on the work she performed for the charity event and other unrelated event planning she did for two of Abramoff’s now-shuttered restaurants.

“Sierra Dominion, a small business owned by Julie Doolittle, provided marketing, event planning, and related services to the Greenberg Traurig law firm, and its partner, Jack Abramoff, from August 2002 through March 2004,” William Stauffer said in the statement. “Sierra Dominion had a retainer arrangement with Greenberg Traurig under which it provided services concerning the Spy Museum event and also the Signatures and Stacks restaurants.”

Now for the quo.

Let’s zoom back to July of 2003, when Julie Doolittle suddenly appears on the payroll again. Why then? She hadn’t received any payments from Abramoff for four months.

The timing happens to nearly coincide with a favor. Two weeks earlier, Doolittle had written a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of an Abramoff client, the Sac & Fox in Iowa. For some reason, Doolittle, a California Republican and an anti-gambling Mormon, took a vital interest in this Iowan tribe’s casino. It had been shuttered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Doolittle wanted it reopened.

Oh, and a couple months later, in October, while his wife was still on Abramoff’s payroll, Doolittle again went to bat for one of Abramoff’s clients, this one in Massachusetts. Doolittle’s former staffer Kevin Ring, who worked for Abramoff and was his liaison with Doolittle, worked on both of these accounts.

And in the meantime, Doolittle was periodically hosting events at Signatures, which apparently only cost him about $100 a pop.

This guy’s in trouble.

Here’s the timeline (all events from Kane’s Roll Call piece unless otherwise noted):

— Aug 22, 2002 – Julie Doolittle appears on Abramoff’s payroll.

— Jan 13, 2003 – Julie Doolittle is paid $10,000 as a retainer for the months of January and February.

— Mar, 2003, the Spy Game Gala fundraiser is cancelled.

— May 27, 2003, Abramoff’s lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig lands the Sac & Fox tribe of Iowa with Kevin Ring as the most senior lobbyist on the account.

— Early June, 2003 – Kevin Ring brings members of the Iowan Sac & Fox tribe to meet with Doolittle in his office. (Sac Bee, 2/12/06)

— June 12, 2003 – Doolittle sends a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of the Sac & Fox.

— June 17, 2003 – Doolittle’s political committee, Superior California, spends $126 on a “meeting” at Abramoff’s restaurant Signatures.

— July 2, 2003 – Abramoff starts paying Julie Doolittle’s $5,000 retainer again through Greenberg Traurig.

— July 3, 2003 – Doolittle’s PAC, Superior California collects a $5,000 check from the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan, an Abramoff client.

— Oct, 2003 – Doolittlee writes a letter to Secretary Norton asking for to help for a Massachusetts tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag, that was seeking federal recognition. The tribe was an Abramoff client. (AP)

— Feb 19, 2004 – Julie Doolittle gets her last retainer from Greenberg Traurig.

— Feb 23, 2004 – The Abramoff scandal breaks in The Washington Post.