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Abramoff Scandal Expands Email Print

By S M Dixon
11/14/2005 03:38:39 PM EST

New e-mails reveal American Talibaner Ralph Reed bragged about choreographing the closing of the Tigua indian tribe's casino in Texas. How is this connected to the Abramoff Scandal?
In the Nov. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed told Abramoff that 50 pastors led by Ed Young, of Second Baptist Church in Houston, would meet with Cornyn to urge him to shut down the Alabama-Coushatta tribe's casino near Livingston, Texas. He said Young would back up the request in writing.

...The previously released e-mails... showed in 2002 Abramoff and [his partner Michael] Scanlon secretly funneled millions to Reed to help fund the campaign to get the Tigua casino shut down. The lobbyists then persuaded the Tiguas to hire them to reopoen it.

And the kicker? Texas senator John Cornyn is implicated in the dirty dealing -- a fact that John McCain tried to cover up:
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blocked out references to Texas senator John Cornyn in the e-mails it released last week. But, in previous Reed e-mails released by the committee, Cornyn's name was not removed.
Cornyn denies any wrongdoing on his part, claiming that he was only acting as he believed the law called upon him, as the state's attorney general at the time, to act.


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Abramoff Scandal Expands | 2 comments (2 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Ah, The Lovely Moral Mr. McCain! (none / 0)
I just love it when the old Keating Five John McCain reappears to remind folks who this guy really is.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/15/2005 04:09:34 AM EST

I found such emails in the (none / 0)
exhibits at pages 132-133.  

McCain may have blacked out Cornyn's name, but a Houston Chron. article follows on pp 134-35, which discusses the Tiguas, the Ala. Coushattas and Cornyn.

In an email on p. 136, Reed brags that he "blast" faxed 100 pastors, "urging them to contact the AG [Cornyn] and Governor and tell them to stop the Livingston Casino before it opens."

Those pages could have been omitted, which makes me wonder whether McCain was really trying to shield Cornyn or making a show of professional courtesy.  Then again, I too remember the Keating-5.

by D Cupples on 11/15/2005 11:17:00 AM EST

Abramoff Scandal Expands | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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