Edwin Buckham paid Christine DeLay

According to the AP, J. Steven Griles is now a target of the Abramoff investigation. The AP describes Griles as the former #2 official in the Interior Department. My biggest takeaway from this revelation is that the Justice Department is still very active in the investigation.

Another name appears in the AP article as under investigation, Justice Department attorney Sue Ellen Wooldridge [***see update***], an assistant attorney general that the AP implies is still on the job. Wooldridge signed a letter of resignation earlier this week.

Lastly, Roger Stillwell, a former Interior who had been responsible for the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas has been sentenced to two years probation.

I can't get excited about these lower level people. The tentacles of the Abramoff investigation seemingly extend everywhere. As I said after Stillwell's guilty plea this summer, I believe that these lower level felons/targets/ingestigatees are just a means for Justice Department prosecutors to get at bigger fish. After all, Stillwell and Griles did things like accept tickets to sporting events. Now that is obviously something Congress made illegal. It is a serious matter under the law. But if Stillwell and Griles weren't public servants, it wouldn't matter. I know the ethics policy that applies to me would find nothing wrong with accepting tickets. [Griles also is charged with lying under oath, another serious matter under the law.]

I infer from the AP article that former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton may be in investigators' crosshairs:

The Senate committee's investigation and e-mails detailed numerous contacts with Abramoff and Italia Federici, who was a go-between for Abramoff. Federici headed the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which she co-founded with Norton.

Federal investigators have been looking at the hundreds of thousands of dollars the group received in donations from Abramoff's Indian tribal clients and from energy and mining companies, including some that were Griles' ex-clients.

You know I won't leave you without tying this back somehow to my former Congressman. When Jack Abramoff was hitting up his Indian tribe clients for contributions to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, the tribes simultaneously contributed to Tom DeLay's personal charity:

Tribal money went both to a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the Cabinet secretary Abramoff was trying to meet, as well as to DeLay's personal charity.

"Do you think you could call that friend and set up a meeting," then-DeLay staffer Tony Rudy wrote to fellow House aide Thomas Pyle in a Dec. 29, 2000, e-mail titled "Gale Norton-Interior Secretary." President Bush had nominated Norton to the post the day before.

Rudy wrote Abramoff that same day promising he had "good news" about securing a meeting with Norton, forwarding information about the environmental group Norton had founded, according to e-mails obtained by investigators and reviewed by The Associated Press. Rudy's message to Abramoff was sent from Congress' official e-mail system.

Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and to DeLay's personal charity. The Coushatta Indian tribe, for instance, wrote checks in March 2001 for $50,000 to the Norton group and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, tribal records show.

[Of course I believe the "Norton-founded group" is the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.]

From my point of view, these recent events augur worse for Secretary Norton than they do for former Congressman DeLay. But I will say without hesitation that money flowing to DeLay's personal charity via a crook like Abramoff stinks to high heaven. I don't have any evidence that there was any malfeasance surrounding the DeLay Foundation, but other politicians have had ethical allegations leveled against them for abusing charities they've created. [See: Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)] It is laudable that politicians are charitable. It even provides them goodwill. But they should donate to existing charities. The appearance of a charity run by a politician looks bad, particularly when lobbyists are involved.

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Update
January 11

When I mentioned that Sue Ellen Wooldridge works at the Justice Department, I didn't mean to imply that the Abramoff investigation has moved from Interior to Justice. Wooldridge had been Deputy Chief of Staff to Sec. Gale Norton at Interior. Wooldridge was also solicitor at Interior. I believe the investigation is still focused on Interior.