So much was made of Tom DeLay’s travels and who paid for them how. It was alleged that Jack Abramoff’s use of a credit card (later reimbursed by his client) to pay for some expenses was a violation of House rules. But guess what – it appears that Abramoff and his firm were told by the House Ethics Committee staff that such arrangements were permitted!

Internal memorandums and e-mail messages from the Seattle firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, say that the firm contacted two lawyers on the House ethics committee in 1996, when it began organizing large numbers of trips, and was told House rules probably allowed lobbyists to pay for a lawmaker's travel, as long as a client reimbursed the firm.

The memorandums and e-mail messages report that the ethics committee specifically addressed trips that the firm's chief lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, arranged for Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers to the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific that was among Mr. Abramoff's clients.
In 1997, a year after the firm's contact with the ethics committee, Mr. Abramoff arranged trips for Mr. DeLay to the Marianas and to Russia.

Mr. Abramoff also paid expenses for at least one other overseas trip for Mr. DeLay, a $70,000 visit in May 2000 to England and Scotland by Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, his wife and aides that may have been in violation of House rules. A House ethics manual issued a month earlier explicitly barred lobbyists from covering the travel costs of lawmakers, even if they were reimbursed.
Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, has faced a flurry of ethics accusations involving foreign travel and his ties to Mr. Abramoff. Mr. DeLay's spokesman had no immediate comment on the Preston Gates documents.

The lawmaker has said he was unaware of the logistics of payment for the trips, including Mr. Abramoff's use of his personal credit card for airfare and other expenses, but always believed that his travels conformed to House rules. His staff has said that it understood the Northern Marianas trip was paid for by the islands' government, while other trips were paid for by a conservative research group associated with Mr. Abramoff.

Now yes, there was a change shortly before the 2000 trip, but in the context of the earlier advice it reduces the violation to one of negligible importance, on the level of an oversight, not corruption.

I guess this mud wonÂ’t stick, either.

Posted by: Greg at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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