Say Anything Blog

From the Fargo Forum:

A Justice Department announcement Tuesday that it has secured a guilty plea from lobbyist Jack Abramoff confirms much of the information the Senate Indian Affairs Committee has learned, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

“There was a substantial amount of fraud involved,” Dorgan said Tuesday in Fargo. Dorgan is the top Democrat on the committee headed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

In pleading guilty, Abramoff admitted defrauding four Indian tribes and other clients, taking millions in kickbacks from a one-time business partner, misusing a charity he had established and failing to pay income taxes on millions of ill-gotten gains.

Dorgan said he never received any contributions from Abramoff but received contributions from Indian tribes that Abramoff represented and that other people represented.

“When questions were raised about that, I got rid of all of those contributions,” Dorgan said. “I don’t want anyone to have any thoughts that, in any way, I was involved with anything Mr. Abramoff ever did.”

Its amazing how the Forum uncritically reports the Senator's press releases without providing the other side of the story.

Dorgan doesn't want anyone to think that he was involved with anything Abramoff ever did, yet he has admitted to accepting donations from Abramoff employees and used Abarmoff's suite at the MCI center for a fundraiser. He took $67,000 from those employees and from Abramoff clients and his "defense" for taking this money is that he has been accepting money from these Indian interests (and voting their way in Congress) long before Abramoff came along.

To put it mildly, Dorgan is "hip deep" in this scandal, yet North Dakota's media outlets seem uninterested in reporting the connections.

Its really sort of sad.

dorgan, abramoff, politics, lobbyists, north dakota