2002 was a big election cycle for the Republican Party. They were pulling out the stops to win big everywhere and by any means necessary. New Hampshire was a target and GOP dirty tricks cover the State like snow in January. Some, like the Phone Jamming Scandal are well documented. In the week leading up to the election, Todd Boulanger gave checks from two of Abramoff’s clients to a staffer in Gregg’s office. A donation in the same amount was made from Gregg’s office to the NH GOP. Some say that the two events are unrelated. Back in 2006 Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker reported that the money from Abramoff did not appear to be for the phone jamming scam, but that was based on a quote of one NH Democrat to a local NH paper. Another report in Raw Story connects the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal dots to Abramoff and to Senator Gregg’s office (emphasis added):
Gregg's former chief of staff, Joel Maioli, was reported to have been involved in another Abramoff-related shenanigan.
New Hampshire author and journalist Jack McEnany reported that "former Republican State Committee executive director, and convicted phone jammer, Chuck McGee, has claimed under oath that Sen. Judd Gregg’s chief of staff, Joel Maiola, personally delivered checks totaling $15,000 from the Mississippi Choctaw and Agua Calienti tribes to the NH Republican State Committee office a week before the 2002 election."
McEnany notes that "this was the exact amount paid by the NH GOP to the now-defunct Republican Marketplace to affect the phone jamming scheme. The tribes were clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff." [snip]
After 27 years of working with Gregg, Maiola left a year ago to start his own consulting firm.
In January of 2006, the Associated Press reported, "A spokesman for Sen. Judd Gregg said Wednesday the senator has never had any contact with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud, corruption and tax-evasion charges and has agreed to tell the FBI about alleged bribes to lawmakers."
"But Gregg spokesman Joel Maiola said records show donations came from two Indian tribes represented by Abramoff's firm in 2002 and 2004, totaling $12,000, which will be given to a New Hampshire-based charity," the AP reported.
So mark Judd Gregg down as another well-known Republican who claims that "I don’t know Jack". In the case of Judd Gregg, this is a little had to believe. After all, Abramoff and Gregg golfed together in Scotland. The Washington Post mentioned the trip in their great profile of Jack Abramoff from December 2005:
In the Senate, Abramoff befriended Republicans and their staffers, along with some Democrats on the appropriations committees. In August 1999, he signed up for the National Republican Senatorial Committee's "Tartan Invitational," in which a half-dozen Republican senators and their aides spent a few days with about 50 lobbyists golfing at the exclusive St. Andrews Links in Scotland.
The following year, Abramoff figured out how to use his clients to fund his own trips to St. Andrews with lawmakers. The first guests were DeLay and his aides.
The National Journal reported on that "Tartan Invitational" fundraiser back on September 9, 1999 and guess which Senators were golfing with Jack (emphasis added):
Among the GOP senators joining the lobbyists were Majority Whip Nickles, NRSC Chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Murkowski and Sens. John Ashcroft of Missouri and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
Somehow, I have a hard time believing that Judd Gregg "never had any contact with lobbyist Jack Abramoff"—there are just too many links.
Here is another one: John Mashburn. He was on Gregg’s staff from February 2003 though the end of 2006. Before that he was a consultant for the Senate and on Trent Lott’s Staff. Before that he was a lobbyist working with Jack Abramoff on Team Abramoff at Preston Gates. Before that he was on Senator John Ashcroft’s staff.
He started working with Jack in 1997 when he went he went through the revolving door between being a Senate staffer and being a lobbyist. It was Mashburn who helped Team Abramoff line up dozens of staffers to travel to the Mariana Islands to protect sweatshops. He came to Gregg’s office with deep ties to Team Abramoff and left to (once again) become a lobbyist—this time for Womble Carlyle, where he worked with another Abramoff crony, Edward Miller (a former Deputy Governor for Maryland who seems to have gone into hiding as the Abramoff investigation heats up—but that is a story for another day).
Koonce, Boulanger, Mashburn and Abramoff himself are just a few of the links between Gregg and the scandal. I am certain that there are more. These links are being investigated, probed and tested. More guilty pleas are in the wings and they will reveal more scandal details. Judd Gregg was in a position to help Abramoff and many other lobbyists. From where I sit, it looks like he did just that.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
