About a year ago, John McCain launched a series of hearings on Jack Abramoff through the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which McCain chaired. Did Mr. Straight Talk take a “let the chips fall where they may” attitude? Not so much. Roll Call reported that McCain “assured” his Republican colleagues that he would look into Abramoff’s frauds — without airing their dirty laundry.
With McCain and Abramoff in the news right now, Wampum offered an important reminder this morning that McCain released a series of Abramoff emails as part of the Indian Affairs Committee investigation — but McCain’s office redacted all the names of the members of Congress who had a “positive response” to Abramoff’s lobbying.
This image, for example, reflects two senators and two congressmen who were connected to Abramoff. There’s no reason, however, to keep their names from public view, except to help keep Abramoff’s Hill contacts secret. As Wampum’s post put it:
Senator McCain promised his Congressional colleagues that their misdeeds would not be the focus of his investigation of Jack Abramoff, and this is the result. Stop the stonewalling.
Sounds like a good idea. McCain announced before the hearings even began that he would investigate Abramoff while keeping the lobbyist’s Hill connections under wraps. McCain kept his word, but in this case, that’s not a good thing.