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General News    H2'ed 9/13/10

Lawsuit Shines Light on Abramoff and the Christian Coalition

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That's where Abramoff and Ralph Reed, then chairman of the Christian Coalition of America, come in. Brinson states:


In 1999, the Mississippi Choctaw tribe hired Abramoff, who then enlisted Ralph Reed Jr. and the then Christian Coalition of Alabama to help defeat a bill in the Alabama Legislature (that) would allow certain kinds of skill-dependent games at dog racing tracks, as well as defeating a proposed state lottery, both of which would have resulted in competition for the Mississippi casinos.


The lottery, of course, was supported by Siegelman, then Alabama's governor. The lawsuit continues:


Reed was fully cognizant that he had been hired to further the wishes of the Mississippi Choctaws. . . . Reed told Abramoff he could access "3,000 pastors and 90,000 religious conservative households in Alabama. . . . Because Reed was uncomfortable being paid directly by gambling interests to oppose gambling, Abramoff structured payments to Reed via the lobbying firm of Preston Gates. Later Abramoff suggested that the tribe use Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax nonprofit organization headed by conservative activist Grover Norquist, to launder the money to Reed, which the tribe did. By May 10, 1999, the Choctaw had paid Reed $1.3 million through the Preston Gates firm.


A report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs provided more specifics, Brinson states:


The Senate report indicates that by 2000 at least $575,000 was laundered from the Choctaw casinos through Americans for Tax Reform to the Alabama Christian Coalition.


Giles has denied connections to the Abramoff scandal. But the facts do not appear to support his story. States Brinson:


Giles has emphatically denied on the Coalition's Web site that the Coalition accepted any money from Indian casinos to combat gambling and refers to the multitudinous suggestions of impropriety leveled at the Christian Coalition as mere "sloppy and undocumented journalism. . . . " Nevertheless, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Boston Globe newspaper in May of 2005 that his organization gave $850,000 to the Alabama Christian Coalition and that the money came from an Indian casino in Mississippi.


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I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are (more...)
 
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