Washington – The former top deputy to Interior Secretary Gale Norton is expected today to become the first former high- ranking Bush administration official to testify in the Senate investigation of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with tribal gambling.
J. Steven Griles, deputy interior secretary until last year, aggressively pushed Norton and the Interior Department to help Abramoff’s clients and block their rivals, according to documents and officials.
Indian Affairs Committee chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., is investigating whether Abramoff bilked Indian tribes out of millions of dollars. Today’s hearing is on Abramoff’s dealings with the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.
A aide to Norton during her unsuccessful race for a Colorado Senate seat, Italia Federici, has also been listed as a witness at today’s hearing by committee staff, though her attorney, Michael G. Scheininger, said last week that he didn’t expect her to testify.
Federici, a Washington activist who helped Abramoff lobby at Interior, answered committee staffers’ questions in a deposition Oct. 7 and had agreed to attend an Oct. 26 hearing, but she said moving that hearing to today made it “impossible” for her to attend.
The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has quoted unnamed sources saying McCain’s committee prepared a subpoena for Federici. McCain aides would not comment.
In March 2002, Norton rejected the proposal of another Louisiana tribe, the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, to open a casino that would compete with the Coushattas’ casino in Kinder, La.
The Coushattas reportedly paid Abramoff millions of dollars to help them block approval of the rival casino.
The Interior Department’s former point man for Indian casinos, Wayne Smith, said Griles got personally involved in the Jena decision, calling Smith to his office to meet with Abramoff and telling him the Jena proposal shouldn’t be approved.
When the Jena proposal resurfaced later, Griles delivered to Interior staffers a thick binder of information opposing the Jena proposal put together by Abramoff, according to published reports.
Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com.
