Saturday, February 11, 2006

Abramoff's 'Charities' were vehicles for power and money


The DoJ should learn a lot from this indictment to go after other 'charities' setup by DeLay and other GOP groups.
Abramoff's use and misuse of nonprofits played a key role in each of the three counts of his indictment: conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion. He admitted evading $1.7 million in income taxes over three years, in part by using nonprofits to conceal personal income from the IRS.

Rudy, [yet another] top aide to DeLay before going to work for Abramoff, figured in an earlier chapter of the lobbyist's saga.

It involved another node in Abramoff's network of nonprofits: Toward Tradition, the Judeo Christian group that supports "a moral public culture," according to its website.

In 2000, Abramoff got lobbying clients to give Toward Tradition $50,000 and he set the condition that it be used to hire Rudy's wife, when Rudy was on DeLay's staff. She was hired to organize a Washington political conference the nonprofit was planning.


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