Report: Non-profits sold influence to Abramoff

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued on Oct. 12. The report includes previously unreleased emails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff funneled money from his clients to the groups. The Senate report states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Abramoff's clients." The report bolstered earlier revelations that Abramoff laundered money through the non-profits to pay for congressional trips and paid Norquist to arrange meetings for Abramoff's clients with government officials including White House senior adviser Karl Rove. The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Emails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build support among conservatives for legislation or government action sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.