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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Norquist was the first to point out the political potential of evangelical churches to Reed, imagining that they could be turned into Republican clubhouses. During the week of George H.W. Bush's inauguration, Reed encountered Pat Robertson, the right-wing televangelist, who recruited him on the spot to run the Christian Coalition. "I want to be invisible," Reed explained. "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."
Norquist himself underwent a metamorphosis from gadfly to player with the Republican takeover of Congress. His Wednesday meeting became a place where conservative groups from the National Rifle Association to the Christian Coalition plotted strategy. Norquist opened it up to lobbyists, who paid exorbitant fees to be part of the action. They, too, were then coordinated. Norquist was especially close to Gingrich, a relationship he used to build up his own lobbying business behind front groups such as Americans for Tax Reform. Once Gingrich was toppled, Norquist used Abramoff to link him tightly to DeLay.
Karl Rove, whose political career began as chairman of the College Republicans in 1971, was well acquainted with the Abramoff circle for years by the time he began planning George W. Bush's presidential campaign. He was not enamored of anti-tax crusader Norquist, who had made a grandstand gesture of assailing Gov. Bush in the mid-1990s for suggesting raising taxes to support schools. But, for the campaign, Rove made peace with him.
In 1997, Reed left the Christian Coalition to found his own lobbying firm, Century Strategies. He sent Abramoff an e-mail: "Hey, now that I'm done with the electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts! I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts." Rove soon recruited Reed for the upcoming Bush campaign, setting him up as a consultant for Enron.
When Sen. John McCain defeated Bush in the Republican primary in New Hampshire, Reed came into play. South Carolina was Armageddon. Suddenly, McCain was beset by a series of vicious accusations, including racial slurs about an adopted daughter and dirty tricks.
Marshall Wittman, who had worked as director of the Christian Coalition under Reed, had joined McCain's staff, though Reed had attempted to bring him along to the Bush campaign. "Ralph was very, very, very close to Rove," Wittman told me. "Ralph asked me in 1997 if I wanted to work on the Bush campaign. Rove was operating everything. Rove parked Ralph at Enron. Ralph told me before the New Hampshire primary that he would do what it took to eliminate McCain as an opponent if he posed a challenge to Bush. He would do whatever it took, that means below the radar, paint his face. Ralph has a dual personality, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, charming in public and then ruthless and vicious."
Abramoff grew ever closer to DeLay, helping DeLay's former aides who had become lobbyists, who also assisted his business. Abramoff took millions from various Indian tribes and then lobbied against them so they would pay him more. Norquist complained to Abramoff about a "$75K hole in my budget from last year," and his pal put him in the deal. Reed was hired to use the religious right to campaign against the casino that the Tigua tribe had contracted Abramoff to help them open. Meanwhile, Abramoff forced the Choctaw tribe, another client, to kick back $1.5 million to the Alabama Christian Coalition. Norquist acted as the go-between for the money, funneling it ultimately to Reed's efforts.
Eventually, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee exposed the various scams; it does not seem ironic that the committee's chairman is McCain. Soon, the Justice Department was investigating. Norquist and Reed have both appeared in front of the grand jury. Reed is running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. "Ralph has notions he'll be president of the United States," said Wittman.
Abramoff is under investigation by a grand jury in Guam for illegal contracts and money laundering and another grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In that case, a former business partner in the SunCruz casino boat company with whom Abramoff had had a dispute was allegedly murdered by three hit men, who have been indicted for the crime. Abramoff's business partner Adam Kidan made payments from company funds of $30,000 to one of the killers' daughters, who performed no services for the company, and $115,000 to a firm the hit man owned. Reportedly, Abramoff is not under suspicion for the murder, but he was indicted in August for bank fraud in the case.
Last month, another player in the ring was arrested -- David Safavian, a Bush White House official, director of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, in charge of overseeing $300 billion in federal contracts. Safavian had been Abramoff's lobbying partner in the mid-1990s before he became Norquist's lobbying partner. Before he was elevated to his sensitive post in the White House, he had been chief of staff at the General Services Administration, where he tried to help Abramoff grab two federal properties in Washington. On Wednesday, Safavian was indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. (Safavian's wife, Jennifer, is chief counsel on the House Government Operations Committee, overseeing the investigation into the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.)
Meanwhile, the grand jury in the Valerie Plame case prepares to conclude its work. In August, it called Rove's assistant Susan Ralston to testify. As it happens, she had formerly been Abramoff's assistant. And it was revealed that before she allowed people to meet with Rove, she cleared them with Norquist. Rove, for his part, often used Abramoff and Norquist as his conduits to DeLay.
Now all the investigations are coming to a climax. Will it mean the decline and fall of the Rovean empire? "Rove is the ultimate center of everything," said Wittman. "All roads lead to Rove. If it's Rove, everything collapses. People say there is no indispensable man. That's not true."
But more than the fate of one man or even a ring around him is at stake. For decades, conservatives created a movement to capture the Republican Party and remake it in their image. Under Bush, Republicanism as a system dominates.
With astonishing arrogance and bravado, the Republican oligarchy wired politics and business so that they would always win. But in believing that they actually possessed absolute power they have overreached. Now their project teeters on the brink.
