The Craighead Hartley Abramoff DeLay Blunt Connection

Poor little Jared Craighead. The new executive director of the Missouri Republican Party is worried that his reputation may be harmed by his ties to GOP mobster Jack Abramoff.

I think maybe now is a little late for him to begin worrying about that.

If you are in public life long enough, you develop a sense of the kind of people that might end up in front of a grand jury on charges of bribery, and if you are smart, you try to find ways of avoiding those kinds of people. But when everyone else was running from Jack Abramoff because he was obviously a crook, some of Rep. Roy Blunt's closest confidants were trying to find a way to make a buck off the guy.

In Februrary of 2004, Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post broke a major story and revealed that Jack Abramoff and his team of lobbyists at Greenberg Traurig, along with Michael Scanlon, had bilked Indian tribes for millions of dollars. At that point, it was obvious to anyone paying attention that Jack Abramoff was a crook.

But Gregg Hartley over at Cassidy and Associates, where Craighead was also employed, didn't see it that way. He saw Abramoff as a potential gold mine and couldn't get Casino Jack hired fast enough. (Note: This is the most charitable assumption I can make. Some of my cynical friends believe Hartley rushed to hire Abramoff at the urging of Rep. Blunt and Rep. DeLay, who feared that an unemployed Abramoff, might get too talkative to the feds.)

Here's how The Frontrunner described the arrangement:

Roll Call
(3/24, Mullins) reports, "Embattled Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff
landed a consulting job Tuesday with powerhouse Washington lobbying firm Cassidy
& Associates in a deal that could help both sides weather troubled times. Cassidy,
the No. 2 firm on K Street last year, hired Abramoff to help recruit new
business.

He will
not have an office at Cassidy, and he will not lobby on behalf of
clients. ... Abramoff was forced to resign from his lobbying post with
Greenberg Traurig LLC earlier this month." Roll Call adds, "Cassidy
has seen its lobbying business decline for several years, dropping it from its
perennial perch as Washington's top-grossing firm. By joining forces, Abramoff
and his new firm could return to the top of their games."

Did Mr. Craighead resign in protest because his firm hired an obvious crook like Abramoff? Nope. In fact, quite the opposite. Instead, Craighead signed up to work the new accounts that Abramoff brought into the firm.

In hindsight, perhaps Mr. Hartley and Cassidy would not have been so desperate for money that they needed to hire a criminal like Abramoff, if Hartley had been spending more of his own time trying to recruit new business for his firm, instead of spending it in corrupt strategy sessions with Rep. Tom DeLay at Jack Abramoff's restaurant.

From a Feb 11, 2004 Roll Call story:

Fed up with the large number of political donations that Democrats continue to receive from K Street, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is
privately considering ways to pressure Republican lobbyists to contribute more of their own money to GOP campaign accounts.

More:

At a dinner hosted by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff a few blocks from the Capitol at Signatures — a Republican hot spot that features a drink called
“The Lobbyist” — DeLay chewed over the topic with a group of lobbyists that included his own former chief of staff, a one-time top aide to Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and a trusted adviser to Hastert.

At least two of the folks at that dinner have now either been indicted, or have pled guilty to felonies. It makes you wonder who might be next.

But back to our main story. Hartley
announced on March 24, 2004 that Mr. Abramoff would be joining Cassidy
and Associates. That is also the date the representation by Greenberg
Traurig, Mr. Abramoff's previous firm, was terminated for at least two
major clients. Presumably those were among the clients that Hartley
hoped that Abramoff would bring with him to Cassidy.

And lo and behold, both clients showed up on the next set of lobbyist disclosures as clients of the Cassidy firm. And by golly, if little Mr. Craighead wasn't a lobbyist on those accounts.

I don't know how many meetings Mr. Craighead attended with Mr.
Abramoff, and I don't care. Nor do I care that he and Craighead never shared an office. That was never to be the arrangement. What I do know is that at least part of Mr.
Craighead's paycheck was dependent on business that Mr. Abramoff
brought to the firm.

For example, Greenberg Traurig's representation of Wal Mart was terminated on March 24, 2004, the day it was announced that Abramoff was joining Cassidy. And on May 16, 2004, Wal Mart reappeared as a Cassidy client, an account Mr. Craighead was assigned to work on.

Similarly, Greenberg Traurig represented the Missouri Transportation Department from March of 2003 until.....you guessed it....March 24, 2004, the date Mr. Abramoff moved to Cassidy and Associates. And once again, by mid-May, they had shown back up as a client of Mr. Abramoff's new firm. And, just like clockwork, Mr. Craighead was assigned to work on the account.

Craighead also worked on several accounts with Todd Boulanger. Boulanger was a loyal Team Abramoff member, following Abramoff from firm to firm, even after others who had worked with Abramoff had concluded he was not an honest man and declined to move with him to his new firm. Boulanger is married to Rep. Roy Blunt's spokeswoman, Jessica Boulanger. Boulanger is also the drafter of the now infamous letter that was signed by the entire GOP leadership in the House that benefitted Abramoff's Indian gaming clients.

Apparently, Cassidy, if not Craighead, now realizes they should be ashamed of Boulanger's past, as his firm bio has removed the name of the firm where he worked most closely with Abramoff, Greenberg Traurig.

Mr. Craighead, if you didn't want to be linked to Mr. Abramoff, March 2004 was the time to be thinking about that. So if you have any complaints about being tied to him, take it up with your conscience and Gregg Hartley.

More to come.....