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Michael Scanlon

Michael Scanlon was a close business associate of Jack Abramoff.

He served Majority Leader Tom DeLay as a top aide and spokesman until the end of 1999, leaving to start a career as a lobbyist. In 2001, he started a firm, Capital Campaign Strategies, devoted to lobbying and grassroots public relations. Ostensibly, the firm held focus groups, devised "positive communications" strategies, and lobbied for legislation.

Under a plea bargain announced in November, Scanlon pled guilty on charges of conspiracy to violate criminal laws against bribing public officials, and agreed to pay back $19.6 million in kickbacks from fees assessed from Indian tribes. Scanlon now faces between 51 and 63 months in prison.

Key Points:

Scanlon bilked tribal clients.

Scanlon and Abramoff were hired by the tribes to oppose gambling restrictions on their casinos. But they were also working with Ralph Reed to restrict the operations of competing casinos in neighboring states or counties. Reed often worked with the Christian Coalition or other conservative grassroots organizations to gin up opposition to gambling, a service for which Reed was sometimes paid by Capital Campaign Strategies. He and Abramoff often used phone banks to inflate the perceived danger to the tribes from Christian activists.

As part of their "Gimme Five" scheme, Abramoff convinced tribes to hire Scanlon and then took a portion of Scanlon's salary. Abramoff and Scanlon routinely overbilled the tribes. For example, Abramoff sent the Choctaw tribe a bogus invoice from CCS for $1 million. Abramoff and Scanlon split it between themselves.

Scanlon laundered money to himself, Abramoff, and Republicans.

Scanlon convinced a pair of his childhood friends to serve on paper as directors of a fictitious "American International Center," which served to launder money back to Scanlon and Abramoff.

Scanlon bribed Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

Before Abramoff agreed to his own plea bargain, sources say that Scanlon agreed to testify in Abramoff's trial that he and Abramoff conspired to trade gifts (including international trips, skybox seats, and meals at Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures), for access and votes. Court papers focus on Scanlon and Abramoff's work in lobbying "Representative No. 1" - Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney - with gifts "in exchange for a series of official acts and influence."

Scanlon tampered in the Marianas' election.

In 1999, while working for DeLay, Scanlon traveled with Ed Buckham to the Marianas Islands, which had formerly retained Abramoff to lobby against sweatshop regulations. There they met with wavering members of the Islands' House of Representatives planning to support Heinz Hofschneider for Speaker over Abramoff ally Benigno Fitial, who was thought likely to renew Abramoff's contract. They switched their votes, and Fitial won. The next year, Congress passed one appropriations bill with $150,000 for a project in one representative's district and another prioritizing a project in the other's. During this time, Scanlon was on the payroll of the Appropriations Committee. Congressional involvement in the islands' elections is illegal.

Scanlon made unreported contributions to the Republican Governor's Association.

Capital Campaign Strategies donated $500,000 to the RGA in 2002 which went unreported until the RGA filed amended financial disclosures in 2004. The RGA spent some of this cash on the re-election campaign of Alabama Governor Bob Riley, whom Scanlon had served as an aide.

Research by Josh Eidelson

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