Bloomberg on Abramoff

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`Six Degrees of Abramoff' Snares a Boy Scout: Margaret Carlson
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- In Washington scandals, when the frenzy intensifies, there often comes a moment when a loyal retainer will say, ``Remember, no one died here.''

We now have the Washington scandal where someone did die. In one of the deals that went especially bad for notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a partner, Adam Kidan, the owner of a gambling cruise ship fleet, Gus Boulis, was shot and killed in his car at point-blank range in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Two of those arrested on first-degree murder charges had received payments from Kidan for catering and surveillance services.

This is the most grisly of the charges that have swamped Abramoff and his various associates over the last year. Now a pack of congressmen is playing ``Six Degrees of Jack Abramoff.'' Anyone separated by less than two degrees will retain counsel. Anyone with checks from Abramoff will never take another, and there's been a rush to send back previous ones.

Anyone who took a trip paid for by Abramoff wishes there were a way to return it. Those on two infamous excursions to St. Andrew's in Scotland may never swing a nine iron easily again.

Ney Leads Pack

Leading the pack is Representative Robert Ney, a Republican from Ohio, for whom ``Six Degrees'' is no mere parlor game but a struggle to clear his name with the Justice Department and keep the seat he has held since 1995. He had the terrible misfortune of attacking Boulis in the Congressional Record when Abramoff and Kidan were trying to buy Boulis's SunCruz fleet. For that, Ney has found himself memorialized in Justice Department documents as ``Representative #1.'' Prosecutors are investigating him as part of their indictment of Abramoff and Kidan for fraud in the SunCruz purchase.

What's important to know about Ney is that if he's bad, Capitol Hill is just hopeless. A nicer guy you'd never want to meet. Until he fell in with bad company, Ney was just going about his business of mutual back-scratching, log-rolling and favor-swapping.

One day, he realizes that one of those favors was for a bunch of fixers who used to work on the Hill, but now are mixed up with characters so unsavory they could star in their own made-for-TV movie. Abramoff is influence-peddling run amok and Ney's name is now inextricably tied to him and SunCruz.

Casinos, Cell Phones

Ney says he has done nothing wrong and that he was duped by Abramoff. The Justice Department says he was doing a favor for a lobbyist who had donated money and given him meals, trips, sports tickets and held fundraisers in his MCI Center skybox. Ney, in turn, had done favors for Abramoff, including helping reopen a casino for an Indian tribe and awarding a license to wire the House for cell phones to an Israeli company that paid Abramoff more than a quarter-million dollars.

Ney, who is such a Boy Scout he donated a chunk of his political action committee money to them, is a former schoolteacher who took the seat once held by Representative Wayne Hays. (Hays achieved unwanted fame by putting his mistress on the payroll.) Ney immediately was taken under the wing of then-House Whip Tom DeLay and joined in his fundraising effort, Retain Our Majority.

Dispensing Goodies

Ney was rewarded in 2001 when DeLay boosted him over a more senior member to chair the House Administration Committee. That's a backwater to those outside Capitol Hill but crucial to those inside. Like a shop steward, Ney doles out the goodies that allow DeLay to spoil and punish colleagues. Want a choice parking space or a nice place to throw a party? Ney's your man. When everyone got mad at the French, Ney decreed that french fries would be replaced by ``freedom fries'' on the Capitol menu. That's about as famous as he got until now.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, Ney intersected with Abramoff on a trip to Montenegro sponsored by one of Abramoff's shell foundations. In 2000, Ney moved within one degree of separation when Abramoff's associate, former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon, got him to put two statements in the Congressional Record.

Ney, hailing from Midwestern farm country, hardly had a dog in the SunCruz fight, but he called Boulis a ``bad apple'' hurting innocent casinos. Ney followed up with another statement when the ``bad apple'' got tough after Abramoff and Kidan came up $23 million short in paying him. Shortly thereafter, Boulis was murdered.

How did Ney end up in this mess? He's said little, preferring to deal with the Justice Department rather than the media. A close associate says Ney thought he was doing a favor for friends, former chief of staff Neil Volz and Scanlon, men he didn't know were mixed up with Abramoff. Ney has further embarrassed himself by saying his purpose in traveling to the Scottish links was to speak to the Parliament there, although it wasn't in session at the time.

Safe District

The associate also points out that Ney hardly needed Abramoff's contributions, since his district has been redrawn to be safely Republican. But if not needing the money was a reasonable excuse, there would be no Bernie Ebbers or Andrew Fastow, no Martha Stewart or John Rigas. Not one of them needed a payday bigger than those they had long enjoyed.

What differentiates the Republicans is that their grab for the goodies comes with a gloss of public piety and partisan purity. DeLay might wish now that he hadn't insisted that K Street lobbyists exclude Democrats from their bounty.

You couldn't ask for a better poster child of the new corruption than Abramoff, with his extravagant religiosity and simultaneous venality. You would hardly think Ney would be ``Representative #1'' in his wake. But the way Washington works now, even Boy Scouts get soiled.

Last Updated: December 29, 2005 00:06 EST