Michigan Indian Tribes Paid Millions To DeLay's Aides

The FBI and a U.S. Senate committee are investigating the possible misuse of $14 million paid by a wealthy Michigan Indian tribe to two Washington firms to try to influence legislation in Lansing and Washington.

Investigators are trying to determine whether anyone benefited personally from the lobbying and public relations contracts or whether the money was squandered with little benefit to the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe.

"No one seems to know what our money was being spent on," Bernie Sprague, the sub-chief of the tribe, said last week. Sprague said he spent more than a year trying to find out where and why the money was spent.

McCain, vice chairman of the Senate's Indian Affairs committee, said the fees were outrageous. The $4.1 million the Saginaw Chippewa tribe paid for lobbying over the two years was more than Wal-Mart ($2.6 million), the world's largest corporation, or General Motors ($4 million), spent on outside lobbyists during the same period, according to federal lobbying records.

The lobbying alone cost the tribe a rate of 17 times what it had paid its previous Washington lobbyist -- $120,000 annually.

The Senate investigation already has shown that Scanlon made a recent $10-million payment to Abramoff, McCain said. Abramoff had recommended to each of the four tribes that they hire Scanlon for public relations work, which they did.

Scanlon was the former spokesman for U.S. House majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Abramoff, a Republican fund-raiser, has touted his ties to DeLay to help get business, according to published reports.

Members of other tribes also have raised questions about their contracts with Abramoff and Scanlon. Members of the Coushatta tribe in Louisiana told several newspapers that a tribal comptroller discovered the tribe had paid at least $13.7 million to Scanlon. Members of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians told the Washington Post they paid Scanlon $7.4 million for a database and letter-writing campaign that generated 2,000 letters at an average cost of $3,700 per letter.

Lobbying records show those two tribes and the Mississippi Choctaw paid Abramoff nearly $14 million from 2001 through 2003. In all four tribes, Abramoff encouraged the tribes to hire Scanlon.

"I never saw or heard anything from them, or heard about a poll they did," said Steve Mitchell, a pollster and spokesman for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The Sault Chippewas have been active on the racino issue.

Pollster Ed Sarpolus said he'd have a hard time thinking up enough things to do for a client to charge even $100,000 in a year, much less millions. Polls cost $15,000 to $40,000, he said.

"Those fees are exorbitant, ungodly," he said of Scanlon's fees. Sarpolus has done work for the tribe in the past.

In October, the tribe paid Scanlon $2 million for work on a campaign to ban smoking in Michigan restaurants and bars in hopes of driving smokers into the Mt. Pleasant casino. It never got off the ground.

Sprague said it's not clear what Scanlon's firm did for the $2 million, before the new tribal council cut the $10 million contract.