Washington – Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, “perpetrated a fraud” on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report Thursday.
The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff routed money from his clients to the groups. In exchange, the groups – among other things – produced newspaper op-ed columns or news releases that favored the clients’ positions.
Officers of the groups “were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff’s requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments,” said the report, issued by Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee.
Abramoff has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and is cooperating with federal investigators in an influence-peddling probe that has resulted in seven guilty pleas and convictions.
The report states that the groups probably violated their tax-exempt status “by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff’s direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff’s clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff’s clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff’s clients.”
The groups are Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research; and Toward Tradition.
