HEARING SELECTS FROM 9.29.04 Statement of Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Chairman - Committee on Indian Affairs Oversight Hearing In re Tribal Lobbying Matters, et al. September 29, 2004 The committee today is launching the first in a planned series of hearing into allegations of improprieties by Mr. Jack Abramoff and Mr. Michael Scanlon involving lobbying and so-called grassroots political activities on behalf of Indian tribes. To put these allegations into some context, Mr. Abramoff ran the government affairs department for Greenberg Traurig, a Washington, DC law firm where he lobbied on behalf of several Indian tribes. Mr. Scanlon owned Capital Campaign Strategies, a firm that provided grassroots political support in the form of coalition building, letter writing and telephone campaigns. The allegations that touched off this committee investigation came to light earlier this year in a series of newspaper articles. The articles alleged that Mr. Abramoff convinced some of his tribal clients to retain Mr. Scanlon's firm. Mr. Scanlon charged the tribes exorbitant fees, while producing very little work, and Mr. Scanlon split the overcharges with Mr. Abramoff. 00:11:00 Among the specific charges in the original and follow-up articles that were included as late as yesterday, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon received more than $45 million in fees from tribal clients. Mr. Scanlon paid Mr. Abramoff $10 million that was not disclosed to the tribes or to Greenberg Traurig. Mr. Abramoff convinced at least one tribe to make donations to the Capital Athletic Foundation, a local charity which the press reported Mr. Abramoff supports, and Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon may have influenced tribal elections. While our investigation is continuing, we have come to some very disturbing conclusions. 00:11:41 That is, the accusations in the newspapers were not entirely accurate. In fact, the truth is it is much worse than that. The articles vastly understated both the amounts the tribes paid to Mr. Scanlon and the amounts he gave to Mr. Abramoff. In fact, all told, six tribes paid more than $66 million to Mr. Scanlon, and Mr. Abramoff received more than $21 million from Mr. Scanlon for his share of the scheme. These are rather eye-popping sums of money, to be sure. As you might guess, it appears that Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff did not want a lot of people to know how much money they were making. The committee's investigation has revealed that Mr. Abramoff did not inform his partners at the Greenberg firm of this arrangement. Neither did he or Mr. Scanlon disclose this arrangement to their tribal clients. 00:12:25 The allegation that concerns me the most is that Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon may have tried to manipulate the outcomes of tribal elections for their own personal profit. Our investigation has found in at least two instances, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon sought to profit by becoming involved in attempting to manipulate tribal elections. They helped elect tribal council members at no charge, but apparently with the understanding that they would be compensated at a later date. Shortly after successful campaigns by the candidates Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon supported, they solicited and received multimillion dollar contracts aided by the tribal council members that they helped elect. 00:13:03 Clearly, these circumstances raise serious, but unanswered, questions about whether there was an explicit or implicit quid pro quo, ''we get elected and then you will give us big money contracts.'' Today, the committee will hear testimony from individuals on both sides of these allegations. Their testimony will shed considerably more light on the information that I have discussed so far. In recovering the information that I have discussed so far, the committee and its staff has combed through literally thousands of pages of documents. While these documents were available to committee members prior to this hearing, they have not been available to the public. To assist the members as well as the general public, the committee staff has prepared those documents most pertinent to the matters covered by this hearing. I now offer in the form of a motion these documents for the record, and move that they be entered into the record at this hearing. 00:13:40 Senator INOUYE. Second. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Inouye seconds it. Those in favor say aye. [A chorus of ayes.] The CHAIRMAN. Are there any opposed? [No response.] The CHAIRMAN. Hearing none, that will be included. All the documents will be part of the record. [Referenced documents appear in appendix.] The CHAIRMAN. Now, I will relay in brief the story the documents provide on how Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon successfully manipulated tribal elections for their own profit. In the case of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, who we will hear from later today, Mr. Scanlon did everything but actually vote for the tribal candidates that he supported. Just before the 2002 Agua Caliente tribal election, Mr. Scanlon asked Mr. Abramoff in an e-mail: 00:14:12 How much do you want me to spend on the AC race, the Agua Caliente race? I have to get a team out there as soon as possible and to rotate a new team in after that, so travel is going to run about $20,000 and materials about $5K to $10K. Should we go for it? Mr. Abramoff's instructions were, yes, go for it big time, which is just what they did. Mr. Scanlon's own documents now on the record show that he ran the overall strategy, crafted the messages, wrote his candidates' speeches, coordinated a candidates night, ran the get-out-the-vote drive, and even counted the votes, which should really raise some eyebrows. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Scanlon pitched his business to the Agua Caliente and his own successful candidate made the motion to approve his contract over the objections of long-time Chairman Richard Milanovich. The same pattern occurred at the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan. We will hear their story later also. For example, just before the Saginaw Chippewa elections of 2001, Mr. Abramoff told Mr. Scanlon: 00:15:07 I had dinner with Chris Petras of the Sag-Chip. He was salivating at the $4 million to $5 million program described to him. Is that enough? Probably not. They have their primary for tribal council on Tuesday which should determine if they are going to take over. That is, take over the general election in November. He is going to come in after the primary with the guy who will be the chief if they win, a big fan of ours already, and we are going to help him win. If he wins, they will take over in January and we will make millions. The day after the elections -- By the way, we are having some of the e-mails blown up and shown to the public. You may or may not be able to read them, but I have asked staff just to try to keep up with my presentation by rotating those charts. The day after the election in which seven of the eight candidates running as the slate of eight to one, Mr. Scanlon sent out the following e-mail to his employees and Mr. Abramoff: 00:16:00 Well, team, last night was amazing. The slate of eight kicked ass, and I want to thank all of you for helping out and watching the bottom line. We had less than 3 weeks to take 8 guys we never met before and get them elected. It was a great plan and great execution by a great team. Just to recap, we elected 7 out of our slate of 8. We now control 9 of the 12 seats on the Council. I was wondering who ''we'' is as I was reading that e-mail. Maynard Kahgebab, who is the elected chief of the organizational meeting on December 4 and hopefully we will be doing some future work for the tribe in the near future. That makes us two-to-one in tribal elections this year. Earlier this year, the slate of eight were voted out of office, due largely to the allegations at the heart of this investigation. Mr. Abramoff financed a recall effort run by the ousted tribal council. 00:16:49 I will close my opening statement by bringing to light one additional matter that I find perhaps most troubling on the personal record. 00:17:00 It appears from their own words, Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon held their tribal clients in absolute contempt, clients, mind you, that paid them millions of dollars. E-mails obtained by the committee show that they regularly referred to their clients using contemptuous, even racist language. Allow me to give you one example I am talking about. In an email discussing a dinner meeting with a client, which is now part of the record, Mr. Abramoff asked Mr. Scanlon to meet with a client. The reason Mr. Abramoff could not attend: I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw Tribal Council. You need to close the deal with a client. Mind you that these ''monkeys,'' as Mr. Abramoff refers to the tribal council of the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians, had enriched him over a 5-year period with over $7 million in lobbying fees. The story the committee will hear today using Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's own e-mails and documents is not a pretty one. It is a story of greed run amok. It is a story of two already powerful, wealthy men lining their own pockets with the hard-earned money of people whom they held in contempt and disregard. 00:18:02 I will have questions as we move along, but I would like to yield to Vice Chairman, Senator Inouye, for his opening statement, then Senator McCain.
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