The Abramoff Rules

Neil Volz was the chief of staff for Ohio Rep. Bob Ney. He wasn't testifying in Ney's trial yesterday, but he might as well have been, as he offered a devastating portrait of public corruption in the age of Abramoff:

In the first public testimony by a member of Jack Abramoff's inner circle, a former congressional aide told a federal jury yesterday how the disgraced lobbyist identified his "champions" in government and then showered them with favors to get inside information and help for his clients.

Neil G. Volz, who was chief of staff to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) before joining Abramoff's lobbying firm, testified that among those he and his colleagues considered allies were Ney and former General Services Administration official David H. Safavian, the first person brought to trial in connection with the Abramoff scandal.

Volz went into a lot of specific detail, and unpacked the complex web of relationships that benefited Abramoff and his "champions" at the expense of all of us.

Volz testified that Safavian and Ney guided the lobbyists as they looked for ways to gain access to government-owned land in Maryland, which Abramoff wanted for a religious school, in the weeks before the lobbyists took the two officials on a luxury golf trip to Scotland.

"David was kind of the brains of the operation," Volz said, portraying Safavian as eager to aid the lobbyists on several projects before and after the Scotland trip [...]

Volz painted a picture for jurors of the way Team Abramoff did business. "When I was on Capitol Hill, I was given tickets to sporting events, concerts, free food, free meals," he testified. "In return, I gave preferential treatment to my lobbying buddies." After he left the Hill to join Abramoff, Volz said, he took on the role of doling out the favors and seeking special treatment.

Abramoff set up the Scotland trip in summer 2002. Besides Ney and Safavian, guests included Ney's chief of staff, William Heaton; Paul D. Vinovich, a lawyer on the House Administration Committee, which Ney then chaired; lobbyist Michael Williams; and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, an Abramoff business partner. They took a chartered Gulfstream II jet, golfed the Old Course at fabled St. Andrews in Scotland, then flew to London for two nights at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Prosecutors have provided evidence showing that the per-person cost was far beyond the $3,100 Safavian paid out of his pocket.

A dinner with Scottish parliamentarians that would have provided some official purpose for the U.S. group was canceled, Volz testified. When the group arrived in London, he said, members tried to set up some sort of government meeting. Ney, Volz said, "told me he went over and met with someone in the British Parliament building."

Safavian, who formerly worked with Abramoff, arrived at GSA as chief of staff in May 2002. He and Abramoff began e-mailing each other about two properties controlled by the GSA. One was land in White Oak, in Montgomery County, where Abramoff hoped to relocate a Jewish academy he founded.

On advice from Safavian, Volz said, the lobbyists first tried to insert language in an election reform bill. "We had a champion in the Congress who had already agreed to attach another provision," Volz testified, identifying the lawmaker as "Congressman Ney." Ney had agreed to try to add language to the same bill that would have aided a Texas Indian tribe represented by Abramoff.

On the stand, Volz actually implicated more than just Rep. Ney. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Don Young of Alaska, and Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio, Republicans all, were mentioned, but whether anything went past the asking for favors stage is unclear. Paul Kiel doesn't think this Volz' testimony is that big a deal, but instead of emails, and notes in the Congressional Record, and the like, Volz puts a human face on this story, one that patiently explained how Republicans in the Age of Abramoff did business. I think it's very damaging, and seeing that the government has expanded out from making favors and perks illegal to making good old-fashioned campaign donations illegal, if the led to a direct quid pro quo, we could see what Jeffrey Birnbaum calls The End of Legal Bribery.

Campaign finance laws are built on a legal fiction. To wit: Electoral donations are considered within the law even though they are actually bribes at root. Think of them as "legalized bribery." Through bundled contributions and PAC giving, industries, labor unions, and interest groups of all stripes try to persuade lawmakers to vote their way on the issues they care most about. Donors do not express their desire just that way. They use euphemisms like "buying access" to wink and nod their way toward the same thought. But the truth is the truth. Interests give money to buy votes. Unfortunately for those interests, lawmakers receive funds from so many sources, and also sometimes make their legislative decisions based on factors that have nothing to do with money, that the contributions do not always produce the result they desire. Still, the basic fact remains. The dollars would not be offered unless the donors hoped they would lead to a very specific result.

This would be great news for the public, but I don't know if the courts will allow for it. Certainly something as brazen as the Abramoff Rules are criminal, however, and yesterday's testimony suggests it's not going to get better, but worse for the GOP.

UPDATE: Speaking of Ohio,
another one bites the dust:

A coin dealer and prominent GOP fundraiser at the center of an Ohio political scandal pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges he illegally funneled donations to President Bush's re-election campaign.

Tom Noe, once a powerful political figure who also raised money for Ohio Republicans, still is charged with embezzlement in an ill-fated $50 million coin investment that he managed for the state workers' compensation fund.

Noe was charged with exceeding federal campaign contribution limits, using others to make the contributions and causing the Bush campaign to submit a false campaign-finance statement.

He pleaded guilty to arranging a contribution scheme to raise $50,000 for Bush.

But Bush gave the money back after he used it to win Ohio, so everything's OK, right?