Truth - Al Franken [71]
Of course, the Tigua would need a good PR firm. Luckily for them, Abramoff knew the best guy in the business. A guy named Michael Scanlon. Scanlon was expensive, sure, but Abramoff had heard that he was worth every penny of the $4.2 million it would cost to retain him.
To the Tigua’s delight, Scanlon was indeed interested in taking on their case. It didn’t take long for him to come up with a plan for a PR blitz with the catchy name “Operation: Open Doors.”
On February 19, as the Tigua tribal council prepared to vote on O.O.D., the El Paso Times ran a story headlined “450 Casino Employees Officially Terminated.” Scanlon sent Abramoff the story, with the note:
This is on the front page of todays paper while they will be voting on our plan!
Abramoff wrote back:
Is life great or what!!!
I know this will shock you, but even though Abramoff said he was working pro bono, Scanlon sent him $2.1 million, coincidentally exactly half the take.
The Tigua weren’t done paying yet. There were members of Congress to impress. Abramoff had promised the Tigua that Bob Ney, the Republican chairman of the House Administration Committee, would sneak an amendment that would reopen Speaking Rock into a completely unrelated bill. But first, the Tigua would have to contribute $32,000 to Ney’s political action committee.
Oh, and Ney wanted to play golf. In Scotland. You know, at Saint Andrews, just like DeLay got to. Another fact-finding tour. That would cost $100,000-plus, because Ney wouldn’t want to play golf all alone.
When Ney asked for the trip in June, he had every intention of helping the Tigua get their casino reopened. Why wouldn’t he? He was going to get his golf trip, and his PAC would be $32,000 richer. Abramoff had assured Ney that Senator Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, would handle the Senate side of the equation by sneaking the Tigua provision into the Help America Vote Act. Perfect. The only problem was that when Ney met with Dodd on July 25, he discovered that the Connecticut senator had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. Abramoff and Scanlon, it seemed, hadn’t been straight with, well, anybody. There was no way the Speaking Rock Casino was going to be reopened.
Nevertheless, Ney took the golf trip to Scotland. In his defense, at the time of the trip it was clear to Ney that the bill would never go through, so he wasn’t really taking a bribe from the Tigua. He was just ripping them off.
The fact-finding trip was fun. Ney brought his chief of staff, plus two good friends: Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.6
Needless to say, the Speaking Rock Casino’s doors stayed shuttered. But the story has a happy ending. Sort of. Once it became clear that they’d been screwed, the Tigua reached a settlement with Abramoff’s law firm and got half their $4.2 million back.
Although we know a great deal about the lying, cheating, and scamming that Abramoff engineered in the back rooms of that El Paso casino, there are no doubt tales of his skullduggery that will never see the light of day. If only Speaking Rock could talk.
But enough about American Indians. It’s kind of depressing. No one in America has it worse than they do. Unless they’re locked in labor barracks and/or brothels in Saipan. It turns out that neither the beaches of Saipan nor the blackjack tables of El Paso are really the perfect place for our vacation from Terri Schiavo.
You know, sometimes the best vacations are the ones you take right in your own backyard. Let’s head back to the Big Apple. Maybe catch a Broadway show. Or attend a star-studded media event for the Reporters Committee for Freedom