{"id":5355,"date":"2005-09-26T12:31:59","date_gmt":"2005-09-26T16:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/5355.html"},"modified":"2005-09-26T12:31:59","modified_gmt":"2005-09-26T16:31:59","slug":"just-say-ney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/just-say-ney\/","title":{"rendered":"Just say, ‘Ney’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems inevitable that just about everyone in the Republican establishment who even shook hands with Jack Abramoff will soon regret it, if they don’t already, but there are a handful of members of Congress who may never recover from it. Tom DeLay’s connections are well established, but Michael Isikoff noted<\/a> this week that Ohio Rep. Robert Ney (R) will probably be the next high-profile contestant in this scandalous game.<\/p>\n

According to a cache of Abramoff’s e-mails released last year, the lobbyist planned [a trip to Scotland to play golf at St. Andrews] as a favor for Ohio Rep. Robert Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee. In a June 2002 e-mail to one of his Indian-casino clients, Abramoff noted that “our friend [Ney]” had “asked if we could help (as in cover) a Scotland golf trip for him and some staff.” At the time, Ney had agreed to back legislation that would help Abramoff’s client, the Tigua tribe of Texas, to reopen a casino. It is against House ethics rules for members to take trips paid for by lobbyists. On a House disclosure form, Ney reported that the Scotland trip was sponsored by a conservative think tank, and that its “official” purpose included giving a “speech to Scottish Parliamentarians” and visiting the British Parliament during a London stopover.<\/p>\n

But the Feds’ complaint against Safavian says it was Abramoff, not the think tank, that arranged the outing, which is referred to only as a “golf trip.” And other records reviewed by Newsweek raise further questions about Ney’s account. An “external liaison” registry of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh shows that other members of the U.S. Congress visited that month. But there is no record of Ney’s doing so. In fact, the Parliament was in recess when Ney was in Scotland, so “there is no way” he could have addressed the body, said Sally Coyne, a Parliament spokeswoman. A press officer for the House of Commons in London said the British Parliament was also in recess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This looks pretty bad for ol’ Bob. His office told Newsweek that Ney spoke to Scottish Parliamentarians and visited the British Parliament, but not in a “formal” way. When asked who, specifically, Ney talked to, a spokesman said the lawmaker “met with a number of folks over there. I don’t have any names.” <\/p>\n

Needless to say, this isn’t Ney’s first ethics problem. In May, NBC News found<\/a> that in 2003, Ney helped a three-time convicted felon connect with a Syrian businessman about selling airplanes in the Middle East. At the same meeting, Ney won $34,000 on an initial bet of $100, which he then used to pay off his credit card debt. <\/p>\n

But it’s the Abramoff connection that could be Ney’s undoing. He’s due to “review the matter” with the House ethics committee this year.<\/p>\n

If Ney is lucky, that’ll be as far as it goes. If David Safavian’s experience<\/a> is any indication, Ney better hope some FBI agents don’t appear at his door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems inevitable that just about everyone in the Republican establishment who even shook hands with Jack Abramoff will soon regret it, if they don’t already, but there are a handful of members of Congress who may never recover from it. Tom DeLay’s connections are well established, but Michael Isikoff noted this week that Ohio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}