Lobbyists, Clients Undeterred by Scandal

Alumni of Abramoff's 'Team' Still Collecting Fees, Trying to Influence Government

WP

Sunday, June 26, 2005;


Lobbyist Kevin A. Ring sat silently as Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) displayed e-mails and canceled checks to support allegations that Ring and lobbyist Jack Abramoff inflated fees and concocted invoices to defraud their client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

Testifying before the committee Wednesday morning, Ring asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but he also offered an apology. "I'm sorry the clients for whom I worked have had to endure the enormous emotional and financial burden," he said.

The terse statement omitted an intriguing fact: Ring is still working for the Choctaws as their paid Washington lobbyist. Indeed, he was actively lobbying members of Congress to pass a Choctaw-backed amendment that came up for a vote in the House on Friday afternoon.

Ring is one of more than a dozen lobbyists who were members of "Team Abramoff," the tight-knit group who worked under Abramoff when he was at the lobbying helm of the Washington office of Greenberg Traurig LLP and, before that, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP.

Members of that influence dream-team continue to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars as registered lobbyists, often lobbying for former Abramoff clients -- unimpeded by the taint of scandal and revelations of suspicious deal-making in the brash and sometimes salty e-mails exchanged with Abramoff....