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Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm Tied to DeLay
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and GLEN JUSTICE
01/08/05 "New
York Times" -- -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - Having secured
a guilty plea from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, prosecutors are
entering a new phase of the corruption investigation in Washington
and are focusing on a lobbying firm that may hold the key to whether
Tom DeLay or other lawmakers will face criminal charges in the case.
The firm, Alexander Strategy Group, is of particular interest to
investigators because it was founded by Edwin A. Buckham, a close
personal friend of Mr. DeLay's and his former chief of staff, and
has been a lucrative landing spot for several former members of the
DeLay staff, people who are directly involved in the case have said.
Although the firm's name has circulated in connection with the case
for many months, prosecutors' questions about Mr. Buckham and
Alexander Strategy - which did not respond to requests for comment -
have intensified recently, participants in the case said.
The firm openly promoted the idea that it could deliver access to
Representative DeLay, the former majority leader. The firm paid Mr.
DeLay's wife $115,000 in consulting fees, while conducting business
with Mr. Abramoff's firm. Mr. Abramoff helped Mr. Buckham set up his
firm.
In overseas trips and domestic meetings, Mr. Buckham and at least
one member of his firm worked with clients who, prosecutors suspect,
helped funnel money and perks to Mr. DeLay, his fund-raising
operations and other lawmakers in ways intended to curry favor with
the Republican leadership and could have directly led to "official
action" in Congress, a potentially criminal act.
Mr. DeLay has denied any wrongdoing.
At one time, Americans for a Republican Majority, or Armpac, the
leadership committee that raised money for Mr. DeLay, was run out of
the offices of Alexander Strategy.
But its web of contacts on Capitol Hill reach well beyond Mr. DeLay,
and in ways that prosecutors suspect could have criminal
implications for other lawmakers. Alexander also did lobbying work
for a defense firm tied to former Representative Randy Cunningham,
Republican of California, in a separate corruption investigation,
putting the firm in the crosshairs of two grand jury probes.
For years, Alexander Strategy was one of the crown jewels of the
so-called "K Street project," an effort Republicans began after
taking control of Congress in 1994 to dominate the lobbying
industry. The hope, exemplified by Mr. Buckham's company, was for
Republican lobbyists to harness the power of their corporate clients
to help keep the party in power for years to come.
The successful history of Alexander Strategy since its founding in
the late 1990's offers a window into the nexus of Mr. Abramoff, Mr.
DeLay and the lobbying world over the last decade or so of
Republican control of Congress.
As Mr. DeLay grew more powerful in Congress, the lobbying firm rose
in prominence on K Street, building an impressive roster of clients
for such a young company and earning, according to records, about
$8.8 million lobbying in 2004. That ranked it in the middle of the
pack among Washington's largest lobbying firms, but its client list
- including Microsoft Corp., United Parcel Service, Time Warner,
BellSouth, Freddie Mac, Eli Lilly & Co. and Amgen Inc. - suggests
what was, at least at one time, a powerful and well-connected
operation.
And Mr. DeLay, so intertwined with the lobbying world that his
extensive web of allies and former aides scattered throughout town
is nicknamed "DeLay, Inc.," responded more quickly to calls from
Alexander Strategy than any other firm, former aides of his said.
While doing business with lobbyists is routine business for most
lawmakers, the extent to which Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers may
have accepted trips, campaign donations and other favors from the
lobbyists at Alexander Strategy, and in turn tried to help their
business, are being examined in the corruption case. One element
prosecutors are trying to understand is what role Mr. DeLay played
in funneling business to the company. There is evidence, one
participant in the case said, that it was "you hire these guys
because Tom DeLay tells you to."
Mr. Buckham also ran the U.S. Family Network, a self-styled
grassroots organization tied to Mr. DeLay that, according to a
report in The Washington Post, was financed almost entirely by
clients and associates of Mr. Abramoff. People involved in the case
said they expected investigators to examine whether Mr. DeLay cast a
vote in Congress related to the International Monetary Fund in
exchange for the donations to the organization.
Another critical component of the investigation is the activities of
Tony C. Rudy, a former DeLay deputy chief of staff who went to work
with Mr. Abramoff as a lobbyist before joining Mr. Buckham at
Alexander Strategy, where he still works. Mr. Rudy is mentioned -
named only as "Staffer A" - in Mr. Abramoff's plea agreement, and
investigators are looking onto whether he helped secure legislative
favors for Mr. Abramoff's clients in exchange for gifts and the
promise of a future job while he was still on the DeLay staff.
Mr. Buckham and others from the firm have not responded to
inquiries, and Mr. DeLay, through his spokesman, has said he is
innocent of any wrongdoing. Although investigators are looking at as
many as a dozen lawmakers in the inquiry, they have not brought
charges against any of them.
Richard Cullen, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, pointed out that Mr. Rudy
has not been named outright in any court documents.
"But if it turns out to be Mr. Rudy," Mr. Cullen said, "and if what
Mr. Rudy did turns out to have been in any way improper, Tom DeLay
is going to be very sad and very disappointed. Because he will feel
betrayed, and he expects much, much more from his staff than
activities like that."
Mr. Buckham and the firm shared clients - among the man entity in
Malaysia and the Choctaw Indian tribe in Mississippi - with Mr.
Abramoff, who in his plea agreement admitted to using corrupting
tactics with lawmakers on behalf of his clients. At one point, Mr.
Buckham even sought to hire Mr. Abramoff himself, participants in
the case said.
As a result of such close ties, investigators are "keenly
interested" in Mr. Buckham, especially in connection with deals he
may have brokered with Mr. DeLay and other lawmakers after going
into the private sector, one participant in the case said.
"He allows the connection to be made to DeLay," another participant
said of Mr. Buckham. All participants in the case were granted
anonymity in interviews because Justice Department officials do not
want people talking about it publicly.
Alexander Strategy's name has also surfaced in the course of a
parallel corruption investigation that implicates the defense
lobbyist Brent Wilkes, who is an unnamed co-conspirator in the
criminal case against Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham pleaded guilty
in December to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from Mr. Wilkes and
others and resigned from his seat. Mr. Wilkes' firm, Group W
Transportation, also hired Alexander Strategy to do some of its
lobbying work, and Mr. DeLay traveled on a plane partly owned by Mr.
Wilkes.
The scandals swirling around the Alexander franchise, composed of
roughly two dozen lobbyists at its offices on the Potomac River
waterfront in Georgetown, have delighted its former rivals while at
the same time triggering concerns in the lobbying community that the
entire business may be tarred.
Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader who now
works for the firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and who frequently
clashed with Mr. DeLay in the House, invoked Charles Dickens,
likening Mr. DeLay to Fagan and Mr. Buckham to the Artful Dodger in
"Oliver Twist."
"Tom DeLay sent Buckham downtown to set up shop and start a branch
office on K Street," Mr. Armey said. "The whole idea was, 'What's in
it for us?' That's what I thought at the time and I've seen nothing
in the way they've conducted themselves since then to dissuade me
from that point of view."
Mr. DeLay and a group of like-minded Republicans have spent years
promoting Republicans for top lobbying positions in an attempt to
counter decades in which Democrats controlled both Congress and K
Street.
Mr. DeLay was rebuked by the House ethics committee in 1999 after
allegedly badgering a trade association that chose a Democrat as its
president, rather than the Republican candidate he favored.
Mr. DeLay's political action committee paid the firm more than
$300,000 for fund-raising and consulting services from 2000 to 2003,
according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit firm that
tracks money in politics. In addition to Mr. Rudy, who served Mr.
DeLay in several capacities, the firm also employed Karl Gallant,
who headed Mr. DeLay's political action committee.
One client that has already dropped Alexander is MGM Mirage, the
casino and resort giant, which retained the firm in 2004, paying
about $350,000 for what became a two-year campaign to block a
maneuver by an Indian tribe in Michigan.
The efforts were successful. Then, at the end of last year, MGM
ended the relationship. Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM, said that
the project had ended and that the firm's services were no longer
needed. But he also acknowledged that the scrutiny surrounding
Alexander Strategy was a concern. "It would be dishonest to say that
it didn't come up in discussions," he said.
Other lobbyists and participants in the case said it would be
difficult for the firm to survive this type of scrutiny with all of
its clients and relationships intact.
"It's a double-edged sword, being known as Delay Inc.," said one
Republican lobbyist. "They are on the sharp edge of the sword
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
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