A Bug in Windows GOP

When it was recently revealed that Microsoft had employed religious conservative Ralph Reed as a political consultant, it was logical to wonder if his $20,000 monthly retainer was somehow related to the company's temporary refusal to support a gay-rights bill in Olympia, which failed. Maybe the fiercely antigay crusader with the choirboy looks would be there to guide Bill Gates through a nationwide boycott of software products, as threatened by Eastside minister Ken Hutcherson.

And as for Reed, if he ever had anything to do with Microsoft's role, or lack thereof, in this state's gay-rights debate, he won't next time. He's being deleted from the Redmond software giant's payroll, and he likely gets his last $20,000 check this month. (Seattle Weekly first reported this fact Thursday, May 26, on the Web, citing two unnamed Microsoft sources. The company initially would not confirm Reed's termination, but after inquiries by other media, company spokesperson Ginny Terzano conceded his firm was "no longer on retainer.")

One company source notes that Reed was on retainer while helping run the George W. Bush presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004, raising ethical questions. But Reed now has gone a step further and filed to run for public office himself—lieutenant governor of Georgia, thought to be a step toward an eventual White House run. Having a political candidate on the payroll would be a clear ethical conflict for Microsoft. Reed, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, was on retainer with Microsoft for seven years after quitting his leadership position at the Christian Coalition and launching a private consulting firm in Atlanta.

But there's another potential cause of his deletion from Outlook address books at Microsoft: Reed is now caught up in the influence-peddling scandal in D.C., which includes accusations he worked in concert with two other top Republicans also once engaged by Microsoft. One of them, Jack Abramoff, lobbied for Microsoft in the late 1990s while a member of the Seattle law and lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis—the firm of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates II. Abramoff is under investigation for possibly bilking millions of dollars from former Indian tribal clients and improperly using his friendship with House Speaker Tom DeLay, who is facing ethics charges and is the subject of federal investigations. (See "Following the Money," April 6.) Abramoff's questioned activities include a suspected money-laundering scheme that involves both Reed and fellow Microsoft adviser and lobbying superstar Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform.

Microsoft has played no known role in the scandal. But the GOP trio, all major fund-raisers and supporters of President Bush, have been some of the company's biggest hired D.C. guns, instrumental in helping Microsoft reach out to the political right the past seven years.

As widely reported, the three operatives go way back. They met during the 1980s as leaders of the College Republicans. Norquist was Abramoff's campaign manager in a successful election as chair of the national campus organization. Later, Reed led the group. Abramoff, a self-described ultraconservative Orthodox Jew, and Norquist began ascending with the 1994 Republican revolution in Congress. They launched what was called the K Street Project to persuade lobbying firms to increase their Republican connections; Abramoff lived across the street from a Preston Gates partner, who quickly hired him. Norquist, a close ally of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, that year helped draw up the GOP's (ultimately voided) "Contract With America." Reed, meanwhile, became a Bush campaign official and private consultant after leaving the Christian Coalition in 1996, which had risen from the ashes of evangelical Pat Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid.

Norquist also worked with Abramoff to lobby for the sweatshop industry in the Northern Marianas, a Preston Gates Ellis client, according to a report in The New York Times last week. That work is a target of several investigations. Senate investigators also want to know about the roles of Reed and Norquist in an alleged 1999–2001 scheme by Abramoff to funnel Indian casino gambling money through Norquist's organization to pay for an anti-gambling campaign run by Reed in Alabama. According to Senate testimony and reports in The Boston Globe and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Norquist confirms he passed the money to Reed. Reed, who says gambling is a sin, thought the money came from tribal industries, he says, not casino operations. Reed and Abramoff have turned over some records to Senate probers while Norquist's documents had to be subpoenaed.