Ralph Reed, the South-eastern regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Monday that he had no "direct knowledge" that his former business partners Jack Abramoff, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist, and Mike Scanlon, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, were lobbying Indian casino interests.
Bush-Cheney campaign leader denies ties with Indian casinos
Ralph Reed, a national political organizer and the South-eastern regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Monday he had no "direct knowledge" that Jack Abramoff, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist, and Mike Scanlon, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, were lobbying Indian casino interests, www.macon.com reported.
Reed, who has been given credit in the past for successfully turning Christian conservatives into powerful allies for the Republican Party, is a strong opponent of casino gambling, and called it "a cancer on the American body politic" that is "stealing food from the mouths of children."
Now, an FBI investigation into lobbying abuses connected to gambling on Indian reservations has unearthed evidence that Reed has been surreptitiously working for an Indian tribe with a large casino it sought to protect – and that Reed was paid with funds laundered through two firms to try to keep his lucrative involvement secret.
He has acknowledged that his consulting firm did business with two men now at the centre of a federal gambling investigation.
Reed and his Duluth-based firm, Century Strategies, raised money and support for a coalition group, the Committee Against Gambling Expansion, that was funded by one Louisiana Indian casino group trying to gain competitive advantage over another.
Scanlon and Abramoff are being investigated by a grand jury and are subjects of an inquiry by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Investigators want to know what they did with $45 million raised from four Indian tribes seeking approval of casino operations.
Some $31 million of that total came from the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana, which succeeded in blocking a casino development planned by the rival Jena band of the Choctaw tribe.
Reed said he ended the business relationship with Scanlon and Abramoff about two and a half years ago.
"I have worked for decades to stop the spread of casino gambling, which I believe is deleterious to the health of families and communities," Reed told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "The work that Creative Strategies did in this effort was consistent with that long-standing approach."
The Jena Band had hired former GOP national chairman Haley Barbour to make sure its casino compact was approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So the Coushatta tribe, which already was in the process of paying Abramoff and Scanlon some $32 million over three years, also hired Reed, according to three witnesses and documents obtained by The Nation.
Reed left the Christian Coalition as executive director seven years ago and has served recently as the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
According to www.crnc.org Reed "has been involved in dozens of campaigns throughout the nation, including six presidential campaigns. He has served as an adviser and consultant to members of Congress, the U.S. Senate, members of the Republican leadership in Congress and President George W Bush.
Reed said he knew the Washington lobbying firm that later fired Abramoff was also recruiting coalition members, but "we had no direct knowledge of their clients or their interests."
"Our efforts were designed to stop casino gambling, pure and simple," he said.
The Georgia Democratic Party claimed Monday in a news release that Reed's aid to an industry he publicly opposes suggests that he will use his access to benefit both himself and his clients.
Reed said he did not think that his former activities would affect his current position in the Bush-Cheney campaign.
