Abramoff used DeLay to fund anti-intifada militia

Abramoff used DeLay to fund anti-intifada militia

Abramoff, in the late 1990s, set up a pro-Israel charity front called the Capital Athletic Foundation. Sounds jovial enough. "The pitch . . . was hard to resist," Michael Isikoff reported for Newsweek last summer, "a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients . . . was to contribute to [his] worthy charity . . . [which] was supposed to provide sports programs and teach 'leadership skills' to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay."

So Abramoff dangled a carrot in front of his clients, advising them to donate to his philanthropic venture. Why not, it was for a good cause. Plus, he boasted, it would buy them access to Rep. Tom DeLay. It may indeed have bought them access, but what Abramoff's customers didn't realize was that a large portion of their money would never be spent on gearing up inner city kids to shoot some b-ball -- rather, their dollars were shipped overseas to help arm Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.

More than $140,000 of the foundation's funds, reports Newsweek, was used to purchase sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, camouflage suits, thermal imagers and other materiel which Abramoff's foundation called "security" equipment.

Newsweek also reports "these payments are part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients." Not surprisingly Abramoff's ex-clients are fuming.

Tags: Abramoff, DeLay, charity, Israel, liars