Lobbyist’s Clients Bump Into DeLay Flap

Clients of a lobbyist under investigation for influence peddling donated a total of $50,000 to the conservative think tank that said it funded House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s trip to Britain in 2000, the head of that nonprofit group confirmed Saturday.

Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said the money from an Indian tribe and a gambling services company were not specifically ear-marked for the $70,000 trip that included DeLay, his wife, two aides and lobbyists.

The Times reported Wednesday that the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, arranged trips that included golf junkets to Scotland for Republican Reps. Tom Feeney of Florida, Robert W. Ney of Ohio and DeLay of Texas. All three filed travel disclosure statements listing the National Center as the sponsor of those trips.

The conservative group has acknowledged funding DeLay’s travel but denied sponsoring or paying for Ney’s or Feeney’s expenses.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Abramoff arranged for two of his clients -- the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery -- to each send a $25,000 check to the National Center.

Two months later, in July 2000, DeLay sided with the Choctaws and eLottery, voting to help defeat a House bill that would have restricted Internet gambling.

Dan Allen, a spokesman for DeLay, could not be reached Saturday. In an earlier interview, he said DeLay was advised by National Center officials that the organization was the exclusive sponsor of his trip.

“They didn’t tell us they paid a portion and Jack Abramoff paid for something else,” Allen said.

Abramoff, one of Capitol Hill’s most prominent lobbyists for the last decade, faces criminal and congressional investigations over allegations of fraud and excessive billing of Indian clients.

Ridenour played down the disclosure of the client donations. She said her organization, not Abramoff, initiated the idea of DeLay’s trip and said the National Center had been sending congressmen and other policy makers overseas for meetings for 15 years.

She said the donations from Abramoff’s clients came in after the trip was underway. Money for the trip, which lasted about seven days, came from the group’s general budget, she said, which did not require additional donations.

“These donations were for general support,” Ridenour said. “They could have been used for anything.”

She said she had known the Choctaws were a major client of Abramoff and she had been under the impression that eLottery also was a client because of its gambling business.

She said that Abramoff, as a director of her group, would offer to raise money.

“We paid for the trip,” Ridenour said. She said her organization raised $5 million in 2000 from private donors.

In e-mails obtained by Senate investigators, Abramoff boasted of helping set up DeLay’s golf trip to Scotland. DeLay met, the National Center said, with Conservative politicians in Britain, including former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Abramoff billed his former law firm for reimbursement of $4,285 he said he paid for a hotel room in London for DeLay and his wife, the nonpartisan National Journal reported in February.

Abramoff’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said he had no comment.

A spokesman for the Choctaws could not be reached Saturday. A tribal spokesman told the Post that the Choctaws didn’t know about or authorize use of its donation for the DeLay trip.

Edwin McGuinn, president of eLot Inc., the parent company of eLottery, referred questions to Abramoff.

“We do not know anything about any donation or trip,” said McGuinn in an e-mail response to questions. “In addition, we never met Mr. DeLay or any other politician nor did we have any interest to meet.”

ELottery provides Internet services to state lotteries. The firm hired Abramoff and his then-law firm “to preserve the ability of U.S. State Lotteries to establish a legal intrastate e-commerce sale channel in the future.”

They paid $720,000 in lobbying fees to Abramoff and his firm in 2000, Senate records show.