AP left out key facts in report linking Reid, Abramoff
SUMMARY: A February 9 Associated Press story left out important details of two incidents that purportedly link Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
In a February 9 article by staff writers John Solomon and Sharon Theimer, the Associated Press left out important details of two incidents that purportedly link Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The AP noted that Reid opposed legislation to approve a Michigan casino for a Native American tribe that would have rivaled a casino owned by a tribe represented by Abramoff. But the article omitted the fact that Reid said at the time that he opposed the legislation because it would create a "very dangerous precedent" for the spread of off-reservation gambling -- something Reid had opposed for nearly a decade. The article also suggested that Reid coordinated with Abramoff to sabotage proposed legislation that would have raised the minimum wage in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory represented by Abramoff, without noting that, in fact, Reid was a co-sponsor of that legislation and spoke on the Senate floor in favor of its passage.
The AP noted that Reid "went to the Senate floor" to thwart legislation that would have harmed the Saginaw Chippewa, a tribe represented by Abramoff, because he deemed the bill "fundamentally flawed," but neglected to mention why Reid said he reached that conclusion:
Reid went to the Senate floor to oppose fellow Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow's effort to win congressional approval for a Michigan casino for the Bay Mills Indians, which would have rivaled one already operating by the Saginaw Chippewa represented by Abramoff.
"The legislation is fundamentally flawed," Reid argued, successfully leading the opposition to Stabenow's proposal.
In fact, Reid said the legislation was flawed because it would allow the Bay Mills tribe to build an off-reservation casino "under the guise of settling a land claim." From the November 19, 2002, Congressional Record:
REID: [A]llowing a tribe to settle a land claim and receive trust land hundreds of miles from their reservation for the express purpose of establishing a gaming facility sets a very dangerous precedent.
This pursuit of off-reservation gaming operations should continue to follow the procedures outlined in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Public Law 100-497, which authorizes tribal gaming operations on off-reservation ''after-acquired lands'' where the land to be acquired has no relationship to the land upon which the claim was based.
Let me say that the first gaming compact ever approved with an Indian tribe in the history of the country was done in Nevada. So it is not as if Nevada is here opposing this request. The first compact ever approved in the country was in Nevada. That is still an ongoing operation and a very successful one.
The proposed casino would be located just north of Detroit on a major link to Ontario that is in the lower corner of the lower peninsula. Bay Mills is located in the upper peninsula. The legislation is fundamentally flawed because it allows Bay Mills to establish gaming facilities under the guise of settling a land claim.
The land claim is simply -- and everybody knows this -- an excuse to take land into trust for off-reservation gaming. I object.
This position was entirely consistent with Reid's longtime opposition to off-reservation gambling. As early as 1988, Reid supported the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which generally prohibited Indian gaming on non-tribal lands. He proposed separate legislation in 1993 "prohibit[ing] states from opening gaming operations on off-reservation land" [AP, 5/28/93].
The AP also suggested that Reid coordinated with Abramoff regarding legislation to raise the minimum wage that would also have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, which Abramoff opposed. But the article never mentioned that Reid was a co-sponsor of the bill. The AP also failed to note what subsequent action Reid took on the legislation; in fact, Reid supported the bill's passage in a May 6, 2002, speech on the Senate floor:
REID: The Fair Minimum Wage Act would increase the Federal minimum wage by $1.50 over 2 years. We are not asking it be kept up with inflation from when it was first established. About 80,000 Nevadans and about 9 million Americans would get a raise up to $6.65 during the next 2 years. This modest proposal would bring the real value of the minimum wage within a penny of the value it had in the 1980s.
Moreover, the Abramoff aide that Reid met with to discuss the minimum wage bill in 2001, Ronald Platt, contends that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss Reid's position on the legislation. In response to the AP article, blogger Joshua Micah Marshall contacted Platt about whether Reid had taken any action against the minimum wage bill following their meeting, to which Platt responded, "I'm sure he didn't":
According to Platt, the purpose of his contacts was to see what information he could get about the timing and status of the legislation. Reid's position on the minimum wage issue was well known and there would have been no point trying to get his help blocking it. That's what Platt says. "I didn't ask Reid to intervene," said Platt. "I wouldn't have asked him to intervene. I don't think anyone else would have asked. And I'm sure he didn't."
From the February 9 AP article:
Reid, D-Nev., has led the Democratic Party's attacks portraying Abramoff's lobbying and fundraising as a Republican scandal.
But Abramoff's records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone.
Most were to discuss Democratic legislation that would have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory and Abramoff client, but would have given the islands a temporary break on the wage rate, the billing records show.
[...]
Reid himself, along his Senate counsel Jim Ryan, met with Abramoff deputy Ronald Platt on June 5, 2001, "to discuss timing on minimum wage bill" that affected the Marianas, according to a bill that Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's firm, sent the Marianas.
Three weeks before the meeting, Greenberg Traurig's political action committee donated $1,000 to Reid's Senate re-election committee. Three weeks after the meeting, Platt himself donated $1,000 to Reid.
Manley said Reid's official calendar doesn't list a meeting on June 5, 2001, with Platt, but he also said he couldn't say for sure the contact didn't occur. Manley confirmed Platt had regular contacts with Reid's office, calling them part of the "routine checking in" by lobbyists who work Capitol Hill.
As for the timing of donations, Manley said, "There is no connection. This is just a typical part of lawful fundraising."
The Marianas, U.S. territorial islands in the Pacific Ocean, were one of Abramoff's highest-paying clients and were trying to keep their textile industry exempt from most U.S. laws on immigration, labor and pay, including the minimum wage. Many Democrats have long accused the islands of running garment sweatshops.
The islands in 2001 had their own minimum wage of $3.05 an hour, and were exempt from the U.S. minimum of $5.15.
Republicans were intent on protecting the Marianas' exemption. Democrats, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California, wanted the Marianas to be covered by the U.S. minimum and crafted a compromise.
In February 2001, Kennedy introduced a bill that would have raised the U.S. hourly minimum to $6.65 and would have covered the Marianas. The legislation, which eventually failed, would have given the islands an initial break by setting its minimum at just $3.55 -- nearly $3 lower than any other territory or state -- and then gradually increasing it.
Within a month, Platt began billing for routine contacts and meetings with Reid's staff, starting with a March 26, 2001, contact with Reid chief of staff Susan McCue to "discuss timing and status of minimum wage legislation," the billing records say.
In all, Platt and a fellow lobbyist reported 21 contacts in 2001 with Reid's office, mostly with McCue and Ryan.
One of the Marianas contacts, listed for May 30, 2001, was with Edward Ayoob, Reid's legislative counsel. Within a year, Ayoob had left Reid's office to work for Abramoff's firm, registering specifically to lobby for the islands as well as several tribes. Manley confirmed Ayoob had subsequent lobbying contacts with Reid's office.
Dear Mr. Solomon and Ms. Theimer,
I got your story this afternoon, sent by an old friend who is always anxious to rationalize right wing extremism and corruption.
Reading the story, "news pyramid fashion," the way you've written it, one is quickly led to believe that Reid did something wrong, that he's a crook. The implications persist throughout the story.
I have problems with gambling. I'm fighting a casino here in Kansas at the moment.
I have problems with campaign finance that have caused me, in years past, to get into a lot of trouble with my union, with which I have held office continuously for 15 years, seven years into retirement. I also know a lot about lobbying, however. No one has ever paid me for it: I'm an impecunious, citizen activist and the only registered "independent" lobbyist in Kansas (As of last year. I don't have to file this year until I hit a reportable $100 and I'm a long way from it.) I was a big supporter of McCain-Feingold and watched the Senate debate from the galleries a few years ago when a long-time acquaintance, Barbara Boxer, and one of my heroes, the late Paul Wellstone, were busily hustling votes on the floor. I ran into McCain by chance last year in a D.C. hotel, the first time I'd ever seen him up close. I almost told him, "I thought you were seven feet tall."
I don't like these contributions you list. I'm a great advocate of disclosure and have been fighting a KS sate senator I think is on the pad of for-profit prison corporations (big players in the DeLay story) who feels he can keep correspondence private. I'm a great advocate of ending the "revolving door." I just testified on a 3-person panel in St. Louis in November, along with the recently retired Bureau of Prisons Deputy Director, Rick Seiter, now working for the Corrections Corporation of America as Vice President for Corrections. I pointed out that CCA was paying Kentucky guards $7.61 an hour, and Seiter was making $270,000 a year and had gotten a 2/3rds of a million dollar stock bonus in February, a month after hire. A Commissioner asked him if my statement was true. He said he didn't know which Kentucky prison I had referred to. (All three were paying $7.61 an hour.)
I'm also working here in Kansas to raise our horrendous $2.65 an hour minimum wage.
But I don't see that Reid and his staff were doing anything wrong.
I spoke to a Bingaman staffer yesterday. I make all sorts of contacts with federal and state legislators and state executives. They return my calls, even the ones I've made nuts. I've never given one a dime in gifts, and my total lifetime campaign contributions to elected officials are in the very low four figures. Most are of the $25 variety to someone I know.
If I was billing someone for those contacts, however, you could have almost have made as persuasive a case that I'd done something wrong as you have for the Abramoff-Reid connection. You could say, "Frank's union, after he raised this issue, contributed X dollars to Congresswoman Y, after his calls on the Z bill." But the connection would be extremely tenuous. I don't know if my International has ever given a dime to any politician I recommended, other than doing it sua sponte and they've been mad when I've supported other than union-chosen candidates.
The right wing noise machine has tried to make it appear that Jack Abramoff is not a Tom Delay, Bob Ney, K-Street Project, Republican problem. They want it to appear that it's really bipartisan. Given any legitimate perspective, it isn't, but your story makes it appear that it is. Is that what you wanted?
Isn't there something wrong with this kind of writing? Isn't this what tabloids do?
I've been writing a regular column for years for a tiny, non-profit monthly, here in Kansas, so my connection to the Fourth Estate is a bit tenuous, though I've been a free lancer for decades. Should I feel embarrassed by your "guilt by association" story, guilty via my own "association?"
I'm not just trying to be a pain in the ass. These are legitimate and honest questions.
to deflect from abramoff's gop ties. just like bush had his good pal ken lay supposedly supporting his opponent, ann richards.
...an acquaintance really. He's rabidly conservative. He likes to talk real big about how "mark my words, when the dust settles, Reid's going down" and blah blah blah.
Nothing can be said to convince this guy otherwise. He's a foolish right-wing partisan, albeit a well-read foolish right-wing partisan. He's just reading all the wrong sources (the ones that lie and distort).
The Abramoff scandal belongs to the Republicans. Period.
DeLay isn't coming back after his case is concluded.
The smear machine is going after Reid tooth and nail trying paint him as dirty. With articles like this AP story they will succeed if we don't do something about it. I just called the AP and here is my email to them yesterday:
You guys owe Harry Reid an apology
That's some terribly shabby and dishonest reporting by John Solomon and Sharon Theimer. Since when does the AP help run the Republican's smear campaigns for them? This is hatchet job plain and simple. It took Josh Marshall about half an hour to debunk half your story. The rest is of it is just as bad.
Abramoff didn't own Greenberg Traurig, he worked there. That's why the firm would send someone like Platt to Reid's office, a jerk like Abramoff wouldn't get in the door. As Reid's spokesman said "All of his actions with his long-held beliefs, such as not letting tribal casinos expand beyond reservations, and were taken to defend the interests of Nevada constituents". Quit doing Karl Rove's work for him. Here's part of Marshall's column:
"Okay, in the post below I linked to this new AP article tying Sen. Harry Reid to Jack Abramoff. The article references a number of contacts and contributions relating to the Marianas, Indian tribes, even Malaysia. The one about the Marianas Islands and their wage practices is just one. But it's the one that stood out to me. Here below are the passages about the Marianas ...
Now, do you notice what gets left unsaid in all this?
Right.
What did Reid do in response? That's really the key issue.
Did he intervene on behalf of Abramoff's Marianas clients? The gist of the whole narrative is that Reid was Team Abramoff's go-to guy to kill the bill that would have hurt the Marianas sweatshop owners.
But did he actually rise to the bait?
I rung up Reid spokesman Jim Manley. He said Reid was a "cosponsor of Sen. Kennedy's bill; he spoke in favor of the bill on the Senate; he was a strong supporter of the bill." When I pressed Manley on whether Sen. Reid took any action adverse to the bill or made changes in timing that lead to the bill's demise, he said, "No."
Then I got hold of Ron Platt, the lobbyist referenced in the passage above, on his cell phone while he was down at a conference in Florida. I asked him whether, to the best of his recollection, Reid had taken any action against the Kennedy bill. "I'm sure he didn't," Platt told me.
According to Platt, the purpose of his contacts was to see what information he could get about the timing and status of the legislation. Reid's position on the minimum wage issue was well known and there would have been no point trying to get his help blocking it. That's what Platt says.
"I didn't ask Reid to intervene," said Platt. "I wouldn't have asked him to intervene. I don't think anyone else would have asked. And I'm sure he didn't."
Now, obviously, both Reid's office and Platt are interested parties on this question. If there were evidence to the contrary you wouldn't necessarily want to take their statements at face value. But as far as I can tell there is no evidence to the contrary. And that's after speaking with supporters of the legislation who would probably know. They don't seem to think Reid had anything to do with tanking the minimum wage bill. Nothing.
In this case, despite the AP story's narrative of lobbyist contacts, there doesn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever that Reid ever took any action on behalf of Abramoff's Marianas clients.
Wasn't that worth a mention? -- Josh Marshall"
Lame satire alert!