http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/26/burns_tester/(you have to be a subscriber or sit through a short ad to read the whole article)
. . . Burns spokesman Jason Klindt confirmed later that the Justice Department has told Burns' criminal defense lawyer that he's not a target. But when I asked Klindt whether Burns is a "subject" -- described in the U.S. Attorney's Manual as "a person whose conduct is within the scope" of a criminal investigation -- he said he wouldn't go beyond what he had just told me.
At the barbecue, another reporter asked Burns about the "tremendous amount" of Abramoff-related money he took. "I'm not talking about that situation," he responded. "We're going to talk about the future and what we can do for our state. I mean, all this has been a swirl out there, and nothing has happened."
When I started to say that something has happened -- that in Bob Ney, there's now a member of Congress who has agreed to plead guilty in the case -- Burns' slow simmer hit full boil. "Now listen," he snapped. "You guys are coming out of that 17 square miles of logic-free environment" -- that's what Burns calls Washington, D.C. -- "and I'm not answering to you. I answer, I answer -- my dialogue is with Jon Tester, who is my opponent. Period. End of conference. Thank you for coming."
It wasn't really the end of the impromptu press conference -- another reporter cajoled Burns into talking about Iraq -- and it almost certainly won't be the end of the Abramoff questions Burns will have to face. The "culture of corruption" may have waned as a campaign theme for Democrats around the country, but it's alive and well in Montana, where questions about the money Burns took from Abramoff -- and the favors he may have done in return -- have softened up the Republican incumbent for a challenge from Democrat Jon Tester. When a panelist raised the Abramoff question during a candidates' debate in Butte Saturday night, Burns blew it off as nothing but "baseless allegations drummed up in a negative campaign." Tester, meanwhile, said he'd never "sell Montana down the road by cutting deals with lobbyists like Jack Abramoff." In an interview afterward, he told me that he expects Burns to continue "dodging" the issue until November because he doesn't want to admit what he's actually done. "The truth hurts," Tester said. "That's a fact."
What's the truth about Conrad Burns and Jack Abramoff? The basic facts aren't really in dispute. Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff, his clients and associates gave Burns nearly $150,000. In 2003, Burns tried to steer $3 million in federal funds intended for poor Native Americans to the casino-rich, Abramoff-represented Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan instead. When Interior Department officials resisted, Burns delivered the money anyway via an earmark in a 2004 appropriations bill. There are also questions about an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl two Burns aides enjoyed courtesy of SunCruz, a Florida company partly owned by Abramoff, and about Burns' effort to block legislation involving the Northern Marianas Islands that just happened to be opposed by two of Abramoff's clients. . . .
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