Senate Docs Cast Doubt on Suggestions of AbraMafia Capo's Innocence

Since the first rumblings of the Abramoff scandal issued forth during the first quarter of 2004, the story's scope has steadily expanded to the point where it may bring down "up to 20 lawmakers and their staff members."  Yet traditional media have been reticent to explore fully the probability of criminal misfeasance perpetrated by some of Jack Abramoff's longtime lieutenants. 

Consider the strange case of Team Abramoff lobbyist Todd Boulanger.  While Fired Up! has provided comprehensive coverage of Boulanger --who embodies direct and personal links between Abramoff's tribal clients and key Congressional leaders and staff-- other media outlets have largely given him the kid-glove treatment.  

However, documents gathered and recently made public via Senate investigation into the Abramoff tribal lobbying scandal strongly suggest that Boulanger's role in the Abramoff chicanery ought to be re-examined.

If there's one Boulanger anecdote whose treatment by the press has been emblematic of its unwillingness to dig too deeply into his involvement in Abramoff's criminal schemes, it is the one that we shall refer to as the "sensing shadiness" episode.  An excerpt from a June 2005  Washington Post story lays out the details, and constructs the conventional wisdom of media perception of the event:

E-mail shows some Team Abramoff members were alarmed at some of the practices. In an e-mail to Rudy, Boulanger raised suspicions about a request to clients to contribute $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation, a charity created by Abramoff and used to pay for a trip of a member of Congress and for a sniper school in the Israeli-controlled West Bank.

"What is it? I've never heard of it," Boulanger wrote June 20, 2002.

"It is something our friends are raising money for," Rudy replied.

"I'm sensing shadiness," Boulanger said. "I'll stop asking."

When Rudy forwarded Boulanger's suspicions, Abramoff responded with an expletive. "I did not want you to bring Todd into this!!!"

Boulanger declined to comment Friday.

The construction and context used by the story's author, James Grimaldi, to frame this statement deserves some unpacking.  

First, Grimaldi posits that some of Abramoff's lieutenants were "alarmed" by practices such as the channeling money through intermediary slush funds, and he uses the Boulanger email quotation as evidence of this alarm.  This explanation for Boulanger's quote is, I submit, a curious and tortured application of the term "alarmed".  Boulanger, perhaps unaware of the particular slush fund entity being utilized in the transaction, inquired as to its nature.  Upon receiving a vague response and purportedly "sensing shadiness" about the transfer, Boulanger very clearly does not take a step that someone truly "alarmed" might take --for instance, refusing to make the requested ask-- but instead resolves that he will simply not ask any more questions. 

Boulanger's response might indicate that he was complicit with the schemes only in a non-premeditated manner or was not familiar with this particular fraud, but certainly does not present the man as objectively "alarmed" about what was going on.  Nevertheless, Grimaldi and some subsequent reporters rely on the "sensing shadiness" episode as though it were exculpatory of Boulanger altogether.  This is a leap too far.

In fact, email communications between Abramoff and Boulanger unearthed during the Senate Indian Affairs Committee's investigation of the tribal overbilling scandal suggest that Boulanger was far more intimately involved with bad acts than press accounts have led us to believe.  The Indian Affairs Committee has made some of the primary documents from its investigation available online.  (Page citations included below in this post refer to the page numbers in that pdf file.)  A review of emails within is instructive.

Pages 289-291 of the document reprint an email thread from February 21, 2004 during which Team Abramoff lobbyist Neil Volz emails Abramoff and other members of the casino lobbying team with an explosive Washington Post story on the exorbitant fees the tribal clients have paid Abramoff and their firm.  What follows is an exchange of "Reply All" emails among Team Abramoff lobbyists Volz, Kevin Ring, Michael Williams, and Michael Smith during which the men express concern over the likely repercussions of the story.  The tenor of the exchange is probably best summed up by a reply from Ring to the group...

I just woke up and read it.  Lots of damning facts in there.  To be very honest the Scanlon stuff makes me sick to my stomach - buying up property in cash.  I am glad she [reporter Susan Schmidt] did not no [sic] more about AIC [American International Center --an Abramoff slush fund] but the firm does...

It is worth noting --as Volz, Ring, Williams, and Smith discuss their "embarassment" and how the story makes them "sick"-- which members of the 'Team' are not included in the email thread.  It makes good sense that these four would excise Abramoff himself from the email discussion, as much of their banter is largely accusatory of him and disdainful of his having embarassed them.  But suspicious in his absence from the exchange is Boulanger --a big player in the Abramoff casino team. 

The question is this: why would the Team Abramoff players leave Boulanger out of a discussion where Abramoff is being criticized unless (a) Boulanger himself was part of the pattern of behavior which they are lamenting or (b) they feared that their negative attitude toward Abramoff's reported actions would get back to Abramoff via Boulanger?

Either answer has significant support from subsequent communications between Abramoff and Boulanger included in the Indian Affairs Committee report.  For example, on February 24, 2004, two days after the Washington Post story hits newsstands, Abramoff and Boulanger are the primary recipients of an email from Greenberg Traurig employee Christine Thomas (pg 297) about what is very clearly a public relations mitigation strategy for the mess made for them by Susan Schmidt's reporting.  Kevin Ring is copied on the email, but no other Team Abramoff members receive the communication.

That same day, Abramoff begins another thread of emails (pg 304) with Boulanger and Boulanger alone, this time regarding a story regarding one of their Louisiana gaming clients and state political allies.  Abramoff and Boulanger discuss strategy via the email, and the thread ends with a message from Boulanger to Abramoff, the text of which reads:

you are taking years off my life with this crap.  it's going to be a pricey year for you come xmas.....:)

This thread is interesting for three reasons.  One, it shows that even after the Washington Post broke the tribal overbilling story Boulanger and Abramoff had no qualms about proceeding full speed ahead, almost as though nothing had happened.  Second, it indicates that Abramoff --for whatever reason-- continued to hold trust in Boulanger even after it became clear it was time to circle the wagons.  A point reiterated by the fact that Boulanger was one of just two Greenberg employees (along with Jim Hirni) to follow Abramoff to Cassidy the following month, while his peers had seen enough and left Abramoff's side.  Third and final, the email communicates something deeper about Boulanger's motivations, as he expressly indicates that he is willing to go through a certain amount of "crap" so long as --he implies-- Abramoff makes it worth his while at the end of the year, presumably with a nice big bonus.  Not exactly high principle.  

In any event, all of these communications -well-documented and publicly available- provide considerably more insight into Abramoff Capo Boulanger's actions and modus operandi, but have seemingly been all but ignored by the press when they treat Boulanger. 

Certainly it is easier to simply suggest Boulanger's broad innocence by utilizing a linguistically interesting and tossed-off quotation, but more comprehensive analysis of all the materials would most assuredly do a greater service to the public by giving a more accurate look at what all of the players in the Abramoff drama had to gain and lose.