The Preston Gates Mates

The nation's political scandal du jour is a strange Republican brew with a strong Washington state flavor. Its leading characters include Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyist for one of Seattle's most prestigious law firms, Preston Gates & Ellis. DeLay and Abramoff deny wrongdoing, and Abramoff has pleaded the Fifth. A third figure, Mike Scanlon, another ex-employee of Preston Gates, is ducking subpoenas (and is not to be confused with Michael F. Scanlon, no relation, who coincidentally works in the firm's D.C. office). The scandal has at least two fronts—D.C. and Texas, deep in George Bush territory— and revolves around more than $60 million in political giving and taking, mostly corporate and Indian casino money. Another front might open in the House Ethics Committee, where possible charges could be presided over by a Washingtonian— Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, the incoming chair who has received campaign money from a DeLay political action committee.

In another Evergreen State twist, it turns out that DeLay and Abramoff were introduced to each other more than a decade earlier by Seattle radio host Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a friend of both men. He hoped it would be the beginning of a long friendship. But today, DeLay, the House majority whip known as "The Hammer," and Abramoff, a board member of a Mercer Island charity Lapin runs, could face federal or state indictments.

So far, 32 indictments have been issued in Texas, including eight to corporations such as Sears and Bacardi. Two companies have agreed to turn state's evidence. The probe in the Lone Star State, led by Democrats, centers on possible illegal fund-raising by a political action committee (PAC) founded by DeLay.

In D.C., the FBI, a federal grand jury, and a Senate committee are reviewing questionable lobbying fees and influence peddling that link DeLay, Abramoff, and Scanlon and tie into the Texas probe. The questioned fees were apparently generated shortly after Abramoff, one of the capital's top lobbyists, left Preston Gates in 2001. It was at Preston that he developed his weighty reputation and first made contact with some of the Indian tribes now claiming that they were ripped off by him and Scanlon. Abramoff, according to e-mails obtained by investigators, referred to some of his clients as morons and idiots. He also worried about his cover being blown on allegedly covert deals in which he urged tribes to hire Scanlon, without revealing that he, Abramoff, was sharing in the enormous fees.

Abramoff and Scanlon, who is a former DeLay aide, aren't commenting, their attorneys say. DeLay, who was admonished for three congressional ethics violations last year alone, calls it all a Democratic plot. And a Preston Gates spokesperson last week said it is the firm's policy "that we do not comment on former employees or ongoing legal matters." The firm would not say whether its practices were being reviewed by any outside agency in connection with the probes.

Abramoff, 45, who grew up in Beverly Hills, has been one of D.C.'s highest-paid arm-twisters the past 10 years, with monthly retainers of up to $175,000. He earned his considerable repute through Preston Gates as a power broker for offshore sweatshops and for American Indian casinos in the 1990s. A self-described ultraconservative Orthodox Jew, Abramoff is a longtime pal of Bush brain Karl Rove, antitax guru Grover Nordquist, and religious-right leader Ralph Reed. He helped raise funds for Ronald Reagan and Ollie North, was the movie producer/writer of a Cold War potboiler called Red Scorpion, and founded a political group that supported the South African apartheid government.

Abramoff also was a founder and chair of Toward Tradition, the nonprofit Mercer Island faith-based, right-wing political coalition run by Lapin, who is a Seattle radio host on KTTH-AM (770), a GOP fund-raiser, and a native South African. Toward Tradition started in 1991 after Lapin moved here from California, where his then-followers included such Hollywood heavyweights as devout liberal Barbra Streisand. Paid $165,000 a year, according to a 2003 IRS filing, Lapin calls his Mercer Island organization a coalition of Jews and Christians formed to counter antireligious bigotry and preserve the social fabric. He is also co-chair of American Alliance of Jews and Christians, created with former GOP presidential also-ran Gary Bauer. Its board of advisers includes Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, Abramoff, and Lapin's longtime friend and fellow radio talker Michael Medved. Lapin did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails to him and his staff the past two weeks.

Lapin's friend Abramoff was first hired as a lobbyist in 1994 by Preston Gates' D.C. office, Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, where 60 of the firm's 400 attorneys work. Rather than litigate, most troll the power corridors in search of friendly legislation for such clients as Microsoft and the Port of Seattle, as well as an assortment of Indian tribes. The mid-1990s was the era of the Gingrich Revolution in Congress and the Contract With America, which subsequently crashed and burned. Abramoff's "relationship with Tom DeLay helped put him on the fast track," reported the monthly Texas Observer last fall. "In 1994 Abramoff got behind DeLay's whip race. When DeLay won . . . Abramoff was a made man. 'He's someone on our side,' said Ed Buckham, DeLay's chief of staff at the time. 'He has access to DeLay.'" Abramoff's Mercer Island nonprofit also joined in the GOP backslapping when, in December 1994, Toward Tradition ran an advertisement in The New York Times, offering a congratulatory "Mazel Tov" to Gingrich, noting, in reference to the Ten Commandments, "We know all about 10 Point Contracts."