Cast of Characters:
Karl Rove
Jack Abramoff
Susan Ralston
Ralph Reed
Todd Boulanger
Matt Kirk
James Morhard
Tracy Henke
Kevin Ring
Shawn Vassell
Tony Rudy
According to the documents, Abramoff and his team lobbied the White House on multiple occasions as part of an effort to secure $16.3 million in funding from the Department of Justice for the construction of a jail by the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw. In total, the billing records reflect 73 instances of lobbying between the Abramoff team and White House officials that were billed to the Choctaw in the six months between June 2001 and January 2002. Sixteen of those lobbying contacts were billed as specifically addressing the jail issue, and another 18 were on the topic of appropriations, which could also have involved the issue of jail funding.
In one e-mail to Ralph Reed, Abramoff explained the Choctaw issue and the importance of securing the jail funding, writing:
They were supposed to get funds to build a jail facility. Justice has screwed them around for years during Clinton (they didn’t want jails I guess) and there are people at Justice (holdovers) who have made it very tough on them to get the funding. …
I need to push to get this done because it is the main thing we are doing for them this year in DC. If we fail, while I don’t think I’d lose the client, it would be a huge blow and make our efforts harder, if you know what I mean.225
According to the documents, some of the lobbying by the Abramoff team with the White House were part of an effort to obtain an earmark for the jail in the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriation for Fiscal Year 2002. On November 6, 2001, for example, Abramoff associate Todd Boulanger expressed concern to a Senate contact that the House was trying to strip out “all Senate earmarks from the conferenced bill” and informed him that Matt Kirk from the White House Office of Legislative Affairs “is weighing in” with James Morhard, the staff director of the Senate Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee.226
In the final bill, the funding for the jail facility was included as a discretionary grant under the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice. Specifically, the legislation provided that the Office of Justice Programs was to evaluate the proposal and
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make the grant “if warranted.”227 According to the documents, the Abramoff team then focused their efforts on ensuring that the Department of Justice made the full grant to the Choctaw.
The documents indicate that the Abramoff team learned that the senior Justice Department official responsible for the decision, Tracy Henke, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Justice Programs, opposed providing full funding to the tribe. In an e-mail, Kevin Ring told his colleagues:
Just got off the phone with Tracy Henke at DOJ. Geez! We are not there. She has seen letters and clearly is not impressed enough. … OJP is going to offer Choctaw $9 million again with understanding that Congress may push for remainder. Frustrating.228
Similarly, Todd Boulanger reported:
Tracy Hanke was at [a Senate] staff retreat today. My friends over there weighed in with her pretty hard and told her [the Senator] was aware and supportive of the project – which wasn’t true because he doesn’t know what is going on, really – but he wanted to feel her out how adamant her position was. … They also played the political angle up with her … she didn’t seem overly impressed.
Trevor said that she is 100 percent not going to budge with what we’ve hit her with thus far. Her excuse was that they are already taking 1/3 of the budget – which isn’t totally true because of the unobligated FY01 funds – and because “they’re one the richest tribes in the country” yadda yadda yadda. …
She knows that we’re gonna go above her and Trevor didn’t think that would bother her, but as long as the decision is hers and hers alone to make, you can be certain that $9 mill is all we’re getting.229
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According to a report on Indian jails released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in July 2000, the existing jail on the Choctaw reservation was one of the few Indian jails that was neither overcrowded nor understaffed.230 A Justice Department spokesman commenting on the report after its release said that the jail was renovated as recently as 1996 and operated efficiently.231
As soon as it became clear that the earmark would be included in the bill as a “soft” earmark conditioned on the Department of Justice releasing the funds, Abramoff and his associates began to reach out to the White House and others to ensure the release of the funds. On November 8, Tony Rudy e-mailed Abramoff that he would be meeting with Ken Mehlman about the issue and would inform Mehlman about the tribe’s Republican political contributions. According to FEC records, the Choctaw tribe had contributed $100,000 to Republicans by that time in the 2001-2002 election cycle.232 Rudy wrote:The ask is to have the people who administer the tribal justice account release the money. That is what I am asking mehlman tomorrow with the list of dollars they give.233
After this meeting, Rudy reported to Abramoff:
“Mehlman said he would ‘take care of this.’ He was a rock star.”234 Abramoff’s reply: “He’s great.”235
In a subsequent memorandum, Rudy elaborated, writing:
Late yesterday afternoon we had a great meeting with Karl Rove’s office that will hopefully bear fruit shortly. Ken Mehlman, the Deputy Political Director at the Bush White House, promised to begin a campaign immediately to get Justice to release some of the Fiscal Year 2001 money that still remains unspent from the Tribal Justice Fund at the State Department.236
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In the same memorandum, Rudy suggested five steps that Abramoff’s team should take in order to “turn the screws even further,” including “Another Round of Donations.”237 Several days later, Rudy wrote to Abramoff suggesting $100,000 in end-of-the-year donations for the Choctaw to make to the Republican National Committee, various Republican candidates, and conservative causes. Of that $100,000, he recommended to “give to Mehlman” two checks totaling $20,000, including one to the RNC.238
While Tony Rudy was approaching Ken Mehlman, other members of the Abramoff team approached the White House from other angles. In a November 15, 2001, e-mail, Shawn Vassell tasked Abramoff lobbyists with coordinating calls and letters to the White House, including to the Office of Legislative Affairs and Ken Mehlman, from various congressional officials, Republican and Democrat.239
On January 17, 2002, Abramoff asked Karl Rove’s executive assistant, Susan Ralston, if he could have five minutes of Rove’s time regarding the Choctaw, stating that “they are getting screwed by a liberal R at Justice about funding for their jail project.”240 Abramoff wrote that the Choctaw have “been one of the party’s best helpers, and this is totally incredible.”241 Ralston told Abramoff that Rove was unavailable due to preparation for the State of the Union address, but recommended that Abramoff meet with Ruben Barrales, the Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, who “works directly under karl.”242
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When Abramoff learned on January 18, 2002, that Reed was at a luncheon with Rove, he asked Reed to bring up the “urgent matter” of the Choctaw jail funding with Rove.243 Abramoff wrote that he needed “some serious swat from Karl” on the jail and that he had “asked Susan to get me in to see him on this, but if you could mention it, perhaps I could get him the materials and save the need to meet?”244 Reed responded that he could not raise the issue at the luncheon due to the format, but was “following up.”245
By early February 2002, the Department of Justice released the full $16.3 million earmark for the Choctaw jail.246