As the Jack Abramoff scandal [1] grows to include new GOP wrongdoers [2] every day, much of America has become familiar with the rackets Casino Jack used to build his massive stockpile of wealth and political sway. And it appears as though one of the disgraced lobbyist's former colleagues has cut-and-pasted one of the best-known Abramoff schemes into the Missouri GOP's political playbook.

The means by which Jack Abramoff bilked some $80 million-plus from his tribal clients were simple. Abramoff instructed his tribal clients to direct millions of dollars in contract fees to a public relations outfit run by his partner in crime, Michael Scanlon [3]. Unbeknownst to his clients, Abramoff then shared in the profits generated by those Scanlon public relations contracts, taking one-half for himself.

Probably not coincidentally, recent months here in Missouri have seen lobbyists for certain large corporate clients watch those clients pay fees to public relations outfits to whom the lobbyists are uniquely connected.

Most notable is former Roy Blunt staffer and Abramoff lobbying colleague Jared Craighead [4]'s connection to various consulting contracts paid by Wal-Mart Inc.

As detailed previously on Fired Up, Craighead was one of a small handful of Team Abramoff lobbyists [5] from Cassidy & Associates paid by Wal-Mart to lobby on its behalf. Though Craighead was officially removed from Cassidy's Wal-Mart lobbyist list in a filing submitted on February 14, 2005, Craighead client Wal-Mart hired Missouri GOP maven and consultant John Hancock [6] to do "public relations" work for the troubled retail chain sometime after Craighead began advising them. (For one of the only press accounts of Wal-Mart's hiring of Hancock, see Bill McClellan's September 30, 2005 column in the Post-Dispatch's Metro section, which is no longer available free online.)

Craighead, of course, would leave Cassidy and go on to a senior staff position [7] in the office of Governor Matt Blunt, to whom none other than John Hancock is a trusted political advisor. Further cementing the relationship is the fact that Craighead would then follow Hancock as Missouri Republican Party Executive Director [8], likely at Hancock's recommendation, as he remains a primary consultant to the state GOP.

Sadly, this is a scenario which countless recent AbraMafia [9] news accounts make startlingly familiar, and it raises a host of uncomfortable questions...

As Cassidy lobbyist and DC-insider Craighead migrated back to Jefferson City, did he carry back with him and sow the seeds of an Abramoff-Scanlon style strongarm-and-benefit-sharing scheme here in the Show-Me State? Did Craighead in essence play the Jack Abramoff role, steering business to John Hancock in the Michael Scanlon role, in return for which he got taste of the profits or special consideration for administration or Party jobs?

Did Craighead's client Wal-Mart know of their lobbyist's "relationship" with John Hancock prior to their hiring Hancock to flak for them?

And most importantly, did Jared Craighead come back to Missouri armed with a patented Abramoff scam aimed at building here the same sort of wretched machine constructed by Casino Jack in Washington DC?